With more than 40 years of postdoctoral experience, Cham Athwal, Professor of Digital Technology, has led numerous research groups and projects, including participation in several EU Framework and Horizon2020 projects.  He has been researching and promoting the concept of Solar Irrigation Pump Based Microgrids since 2018 including via a GCRF funded feasibility study and a British Council/ Indian DST funded workshop. He will provide software engineering leadership in developing and validating Decision Support Tools as well as contributing his physics, electrical and digital technologies expertise to technical tasks in modelling and implementation of Microgrid scenarios.