ETH Zurich’s e-bike rental scheme presented in India

Thousands of students from northern India crowd onto the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) to marvel at the latest technological developments. Amongst them is Stefan Rustler, a physics student from ETH Zurich and President of the student-run organisation “e-Velolink” . Each year, ETH sends a student delegation to the Techkriti trade fair  in India to showcase one of the university’s innovative projects. After successfully completing ETH Zurich’s internal application process last autumn (see box), Stefan Rustler – along with two of his fellow members of the e-Velolink team, Martha Vogel and Yawhuei Lam – was given the chance to go to Kanpur in March.

Upholding ETH Zurich’s excellent reputation

Students from the prestigious IITK have been organising the Techkriti international technology trade fair on an annual basis since 1995. The term “kriti”, which comes from Sanskrit, means “creation”. The theme of this year’s trade fair was a “Virtually Progressive World” and the exhibition featuring guest universities from across the world focused primarily on robotics (underwater and in the air) and individual mobility (one-wheel and two-wheel innovations and a glider with no wheels at all).

In addition to the international project exhibition in the trade fair hall, where this year’s ETH delegation also had a stand where they could present their research and answer questions from interested visitors, Techkriti provides an insight into research projects going on at Indian universities. It also offers a varied programme of fringe events, including talks, workshops and festivities on the Kanpur University site.

The ETH team, which combined their appearance at Techkriti with a more extensive tour of India, came home with plenty of positive impressions. Apart from anything else, the students felt honoured to represent ETH Zurich in Kanpur. The university has an excellent reputation in India and that alone attracts a great deal of interest and makes networking easier. “India is a fascinating country and Techkriti offers a great opportunity to see ETH and its projects from a different perspective,” said Stefan Rustler, summing up the experience.

Going from campus to campus by e-bike

Mobility is a major issue in India, not least when it comes to research. “Anyone who has ever seen the traffic in an Indian city will know why,” says Stefan Rustler. The trend for electrically powered bicycles – known as “e-bikes” for short – has been gaining increasing popularity in Switzerland for some years now, but it has not yet caught on in India. However, it is this particular concept that the ETH students were showcasing to visitors at their trade fair stand. Stefan Rustler and his team run the e-Velolink project at ETH Zurich, which operates an exclusive e-bike rental service for ETH members, offering them a flexible and environmentally friendly way to commute between the university’s two main campuses.

Visitors to the Techkriti trade fair showed a keen interest in electric bikes in general and how they function in particular, “even though the cost of buying electric bikes in India is still far too high at the moment,” said Stefan Rustler. India certainly offers fertile ground for cultivating sustainable, electric mobility. And who knows? Perhaps future ETH delegations will soon be using electric bikes to travel from the student accommodation where they are staying to the Techkriti site. However, there is still plenty of work to be done before the e-Velolink rental system can be exported: the service is currently undergoing a testing phase and the student-run project is still looking for new recruits to take part in the upcoming stages.