The Organising Committee of the Biosystems Engineering 2023 is proud to present a scientist of a next generation, Dr. Riinu Härmas who has agreed to give a keynote speech on hydrogen technologies of the future.

Born in Saaremaa, the future energy hub of Estonia, PhD Riinu Härmas is a young researcher from the Institute of Chemistry in the University of Tartu. She defended her PhD thesis on porous carbon materials and H2 storage in these materials last year. With the encouragement of prof. Enn Lust, the main proponent of hydrogen technologies in Estonia during decades, PhD Riinu Härmas has been studying more and more about hydrogen technologies, their possibilities and limitations on a wider scope. She helped to design an open online course on hydrogen technologies and for that course, put together comprehensive lectures on energy storage, hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and synthetic fuels. To date, that course has had more than 600 participants from all areas of life. Lately, PhD Härmas has been evermore extending her knowledge with the aim of making hydrogen technologies become a reality in Estonia. For that, she contributed to the writing of the Estonian Hydrogen Valley project and several projects related to hydrogen in her home island Saaremaa. In addition, she is an active member of the Estonian Hydrogen association, which she helped to represent in the European Hydrogen Week in october last year.