A personal, first-person tribute from Kunwer Sachdev to Dr Kushant Uppal (Intellizon) — the engineering mind behind Su-Kam’s lithium solar street lights, the SUNWAY GSM dashboard, and the grid-free village-lighting era that followed.
Some chapters of one’s professional life do not sit comfortably until they are written down honestly. This is one of them — a first-person tribute from Kunwer Sachdev, founder of Su-Kam, to Dr Kushant Uppal, the technical leader behind Su-Kam’s lithium solar street lights and the SUNWAY GSM remote-monitoring dashboard that made them work in the field.
The engineering behind Su-Kam’s solar street lights
Su-Kam’s solar street light programme was one of the earliest large-scale ‘sans-grid-link’ deployments in India — covered by The Hindu’s Industry desk. Behind that programme was Dr Kushant Uppal and the team at Intellizon (Intelizon Energy Pvt. Ltd.), whose electronics, firmware and lithium-pack engineering turned Su-Kam’s hardware ambitions into a working village-lighting product.
SUNWAY GSM — remote monitoring, when it was still rare
The specific technical piece Sachdev flags is the SUNWAY GSM dashboard — a remote-monitoring interface for solar street lights, built when GSM-connected devices in Indian rural infrastructure were still an exception, not the norm. It let a Su-Kam engineer in Gurgaon see, in near real time, whether a light in a distant village was healthy, and act before someone had to travel.
“I want to use this space to give credit where it is due — to Dr Kushant Uppal and the Intellizon team, whose engineering made Su-Kam’s lithium solar street lights actually work.”— Kunwer Sachdev (personal tribute)
Why the credit matters
Large hardware programmes get told through founder names. The engineering behind them is often invisible. Sachdev’s point is that Su-Kam’s solar street light story would not have been what it was without Dr Uppal’s work, and it is fair — overdue, really — to say so publicly. The article is offered as an acknowledgement, not a corporate document.
Disclaimer
This is a personal, first-person tribute in Kunwer Sachdev’s own voice. It has not been reviewed or endorsed by Dr Kushant Uppal, Intellizon (Intelizon), Su-Kam or Reliance. All trademarks, brand names, product names, dashboards, photographs and screenshots referenced here belong to their respective owners. Nothing in this article is legal statement, financial advice, or a comment on any past or present insolvency, regulatory or court proceeding. Kunwer Sachdev is no longer associated with Su-Kam Power Systems Ltd in any capacity.
Su-Kam’s solar street light is sans-grid-link — The Hindu Business →