Celebrating Peace Bello: 2024 Poddar Awardee & Early Career Entrepreneur
Syamal and Susmita Poddar continue to be deeply committed to bridging the student to professional member experience. Their investment and passion for early career professionals led to the creation and endowment of the Poddar Rising Engineer Award in 2019. Since then they’ve celebrated six awardees, including Peace Bello, most recent recipient.
Peace joined the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) as a student member in 2018 at Obafemi Awolowo University, eager to explore what the world of chemical engineering had to offer. He enrolled in SAChE courses (to support continued and enhanced understanding of process safety) and participated in student competitions. During the pandemic, with the world on pause, he deepened his immersion via AIChE Academy’s vast resources, learning, growing, and laying the foundation for his future.
The Poddar Award is more than a monetary award. It’s a bridge connecting young engineers to seasoned leaders across academia and, industry, and curiosity to purpose. - Peace Bello
A major turning point was winning the 2020 AIChE ChemE-Sports™ Competition sponsored by PetroSkills at his student chapter which showed Peace he could build something meaningful through engineering. In the years that followed, he co-founded Chemotronix, a clean energy startup focused on sustainable solutions for Africa and graduated at the top of his chemical engineering class, earning international recognitions from Chegg.org and the Varkey Foundation. Then AIChE named him the 2024 AIChE Poddar Rising Engineer Awardee.
Attending the 2024 Annual Meeting in San Diego included nearly 70 hours of travel, though that decision was everything. At the Gathering of Leadership, Peace made connections: AIChE President and title, SLB, Alan Nelson, Board of Director, Hugh James, AIChE Foundation Trustee, Gayle Gibson, and CTO – Refinity, Ignasi Palou-Rivera, who recently was the speaker at a Chemotronix Energy & Sustainability Series webinar.
“The Poddar Award is more than a monetary award. It’s a bridge connecting young engineers to seasoned leaders across academia and, industry, and curiosity to purpose.”
Valuing continuing participation in AIChE and giving back are integral to Syamal and Susmita, seen in their ongoing commitment to philanthropy, emerging leaders and the AIChE Foundation.
Congratulations, Peace, on your selection as the 2024 Poddar Rising Chemical Engineer and thank you, Syamal and Susmita for your inspirational leadership and tremendous generosity.
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