00:06Hi everyone, welcome on Seagret TV with our new guest today and we are with Kurt Diddy-Kindt.
00:11Hello.
00:13Hi.
00:14As you have been the Chair of 3D Committee C6, Active Distribution Systems and Distributed Energy Resources for two years,
00:21you are re-elected for two more years. Congratulations about that.
00:25Could you please tell us how was this past two years as a Chair of this Committee?
00:30I think I was very fortunate that I inherited the position from a very able Study Committee Chair, Christina Schriegel.
00:40And I was able to carry on with a lot of the practices that she put in place.
00:45So the transition was quite easy.
00:48The other aspect is that I'm very blessed with having very good support teams that are with me on many,
00:58many aspects,
00:59both from a secretarial kind of support but also communication support.
01:06And that has made a significant difference in terms of being able to deal with the many and varied issues
01:13that one has from managing the SeaGrey Study Committee as such.
01:18Yeah. All activities. So it's been a good transition.
01:21Cool. And to understand more your work in details, could you explain to us the work of the Study Committee
01:27C6 on a daily basis and what is its same goal?
01:31Yeah. It's perhaps not work on a daily basis. I think we must realize that we are voluntary in terms
01:38of the work that we do.
01:39So from that perspective, I think it depends on the requirements.
01:46So for the Paris conference, one obviously prepares a lot more and one needs to make sure that a lot
01:53of the issues such as the papers, the reviews of the papers, the poster sessions,
01:59the contributions that are made, that those are all in place.
02:03Yeah, a lot of works.
02:03So that requires more time. But then there are off periods as well. So post the Paris conference, for example.
02:09You are free.
02:10We'll probably have a bit of an easier period.
02:12Okay. Not free but easier.
02:14Yeah, yeah.
02:14Okay. I'm joking.
02:16Yeah, yeah.
02:16And you are the current secretary of the joint SeaGrey and World Bank Africa Working Group.
02:22Could you tell us a little about the achievements of the working group and what your aims are in the
02:27next two years or so?
02:30Well, the Africa work group is perhaps one of my passions.
02:34And it dates back to when I was a junior engineer.
02:39And we started with the electrification program in South Africa.
02:44And to a large extent, that has shaped my continued interest in making sure that we can achieve the aim
02:53of having universal access to electricity for all.
02:56And that is for everybody in the world.
02:59And that is really where the passion for the Africa work group then came from as well.
03:04So I think the aim is to make sure that from a SeaGrey perspective that we are certainly able to
03:10share our knowledge.
03:11And in the past year, we've had a number of interactions at Symposia.
03:17We've had sessions in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.
03:21We've been in Tanzania.
03:23We've been in Namibia where a number of workshops and the like have been presented to ensure that this knowledge
03:32exchange is able to take place.
03:34And that's really important for Africa.
03:36Yeah.
03:37Okay.
03:38In closing, any other reading impressions of the 2021 SeaGrey Paris conference thus far?
03:44Busy.
03:45Of course.
03:46We are all busy in the SeaGrey session.
03:48But yeah, I think it's been a fantastic platform.
03:52I think we've seen more people come here.
03:54Yeah.
03:55We've seen more exhibitors come here.
03:57And it really just provides that face-to-face platform which we've been missing over the last couple of years.
04:03Yeah.
04:03To engage, to network, and to share information.
04:07I think that that's really what it's about.
04:10And to make sure that we're able to link up with people and to make sure that those long-term
04:18relationships are in fact established.
04:21Yeah.
04:21Cool.
04:22So that is a great session.
04:23Thank you very much, Gertz.
