“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change” Jim Rohn

Global problems such as environmental degradation are increasing. The building industry seriously impacts on the environment. Energy consumption within both residential and commercial buildings has steadily increased and surpassed industrial and transportation sectors which are the other major energy consumption sections. In this Regard, in order to make buildings more energy efficient through technological sustainability-oriented-innovations (SOI), engineers will need to think innovatively as we did within our sustainable innovative Desert Rose house.

My name is Yeganeh Baghi, I’m the Innovations coordinator for Team UOW and a PhD candidate at the School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications at UOW.

Having a background in multidisciplinary engineering, I decided to join team UOW within the Solar Decathlon journey to continue my education and improve my engineering skills within this very unique opportunity.

I would like to briefly share part of what I have learnt so far. Rather than scientific things which I have always been passionate about, I have learnt how to work safe at construction site even at heights, design the Lighting of a residential house, as well as practical skills such as drilling, cutting steel beam, ducting  and installing HVAC components within the house. Now I find myself more than ever a self-confident female engineer who can come up with solutions for problems that may happen in a real world. Moreover, giving different presentations about our Desert Rose house for various audiences has helped me to improve my communication skills. One of the most interesting events that I gave a presentation on was at the Dubai Solar show which was held in October 2017. It was the first time I met SDME organizers and I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Mr. Richard King while I was standing by our Desert Rose house model proudly. Another exciting experience for me was running Dementia workshops for primary school students and you cannot believe the interesting and positive feedback I received from them which made me feel proud and more motivated about what we are doing.

Part of my thesis is about developing a framework for innovation and evaluating it through innovative technology which will be within the Phase Change Material (PCM) thermal storage of the HVAC system. Based on my thesis through the Solar Decathlon journey I would say: The best is yet to come.