Thrissur: Sujay Sreedhar, a native of Thrissur, always wanted to know about the world above the sky during his childhood. Now, he has been promoting space education around the world through his voluntary group.
International journal Geo selected Sujay as one among the 50 genius people who made interventions on space. Interestingly he is one among the three Indians and one and only Keralite in the list.
Sujay who completed diploma in Aerospace Engineering has great knowledge on space. His passion for space connected him to Nikita, a B Tech graduate in Aerospace engineering. After entering wedlock, Nikhita also joined Sujay’s mission to promote space education.
In 2015, Sujay founded Society for Space Education Research and Development (SSERD) after examining that the students lack knowledge about space.
“Apart from the rocket, satellite and various expeditions, the students have no idea about space. Examining this, I established the organisation. Within 10 years, the space industry will have equal importance like IT. Many opportunities and investments will take place in this sector. Space architecture, astrobiology, astrochemistry, space tourism and space mining will have a great scope in future,” said Sujay.
SSERD has volunteers in India and abroad. The organisation conducted classes for over 50,000 students since 2015.
It was Sujay who took Gabriel, a space engineer in NASA, for conducting classes in various colleges in Kerala.
Sujay is the elder son of Irinjalakuda Arimbra native Jayan, a retired bank official and Sudha, an employee at Irinjalakuda cooperative bank.
After completing plus two in Irinjalakuda St.Mary’ s school, Sujay took a diploma in Aero Space from Shah-Shib Aviation in Kochi.
He is running a firm that sells space equipment in Bengaluru. Sujay is also a friend of Rakesh Sharma, the first space traveller in India.
Sujay’s wife Nikita is a native of Bengaluru. Sujay and Nikita entered wedlock two weeks ago.
Nikita is a recipient of the study programme fellowship from International Space University in France.