About Me
γένοι ̓ οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών
”Become such as you are, having learned what that is”
(Pythian Odes, Pindar)
I'm Rochan Sinha, co-founder and CTO, Newtrace. I conceptualise and develop advanced materials, components, and systems to make affordable and scalable green hydrogen production a reality in the next decade (or less).
Most of my time at Newtrace is split between building a high-performance team, leading new product development, and turning lab-scale prototypes into commercial-scale products that work reliably in the real world.
Some days it means getting deep into scientific and engineering challenges, on others, it requires navigating hard technical trade-offs and translating complex tech decisions into plain language that customers, investors, and the rest of the company can make sense of.
I started this blog as a place to think more clearly about the things I keep returning to. A lot of the writing is (or will be) about technology, climate, and the hard things about building a hardware company.
Background
I ventured into this field as an undergraduate student, when an internship at a solar module manufacturing plant introduced me to renewable energy technologies. It further pushed me toward material science and electrochemistry, which became my area of master's study as well, finally leading to a thesis on solid-state battery cathode materials at IMEC in Belgium.
I then went on to pursue a PhD at Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, working on materials for solar-driven water splitting. That gave me my first serious exposure to hydrogen.
I returned to India in 2020 and briefly explored a materials informatics venture. Eventually, I found my way back to something I had been drawn to for years: climate issues wherein electrochemical and material advances can translate to industrial hardware. That path led to my current work on next-generation electrolyzers and advanced materials at Newtrace.
Personal Stuff and Side Projects
I also write about personal topics when the mood strikes.
I currently live in Bengaluru. Outside work, I read a lot, chill with my partner and two cats, build increasingly complex Lego sets, and work on personal projects such as:
- A website to help early-career engineers and scientists find roles in hardware startups.
- An Apple-II GUI-inspired pomodoro app.
- A horizontal, hierarchical task manager.
- A transcription script for super-long recordings with a high degree of multi-lingual content.