The Stanford Energy Seminar has been a mainstay of energy engagement at Stanford for nearly 20 years and is one of the flagship programs of the Precourt Institute for Energy. We aim to bring a wide variety of perspectives to the Stanford community – academics, entrepreneurs, utilities, non-profits, and more. 

About the talk

GRAIL — the Green Artificial Intelligence Learning network — is a global collaboration platform, founded by the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, built to close the gap between two communities that rarely work together: the people building frontier AI and the people running the climate systems that need to decarbonise. Promising AI capability too often fails to convert into deployed outcomes because there is no translation layer between them. GRAIL is that layer to bring AI solutions to transform applied domains including energy, materials, value chains and the built environment to create economic value and deliver climate impact.

Shanthakumar Bannirchelvam is a Director of the Sustainable and AI investing teams at the SUN Group, a 120-year-old business group and Single Family Office which has established leading asset managers including Sequoia Capital India (now Peak XV Partners). Prior to this role, he worked at Nomura Greentech in their sustainable investment banking division, where he advised on infrastructure and energy transition deals.

He has also previously worked in corporate law in Sydney and London with Herbert Smith Freehills, the United Nations Economic and Social Council in New York and served as an Infantry Officer in the Singapore Armed Forces. Shanthakumar is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of NSW and holds a Bachelor of Laws / Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney and an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he was a Three Cairns Climate Fellow.

Anyone with an interest in energy is welcome to join! You can enjoy seminars in the following ways:

• Attend live. The auditorium may change quarter by quarter, so check each seminar event to confirm the location. Explore the current quarter's schedule.
• Watch live in a browser livestream if available. Check each seminar event for its unique livestream URL.
• Watch recordings of past seminars 
  • Available on the Past Energy Seminars page and the Energy Seminars playlist of the Stanford Energy YouTube channel
• (For students) Take the seminar as a 1-unit class (CEE 301/ENERGY 301/MS&E 494)

If you'd like to join the Stanford Energy Seminar mailing list to hear about upcoming talks, sign up here.