2025 Global Leadership Summit: Sanjay Kommera — Reviving Ramgad Through Climate Innovation

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A lake that once hosted national games went dry for two decades—and then the skies opened. In this episode, Sanjay Kommera, CEO of Accel1, takes us inside Ramgad’s revival, where precision cloud seeding, advanced sensors, and purpose-built drones transformed a symbol of loss into a living system for water resilience. Alongside the technical journey, we explore how biochar, regenerative practices, and farmer-first marketplaces turn a single rainfall into sustained livelihood gains and healthier soils.

Our conversation dives into the “why”: building climate intelligence at the infrastructure layer so action follows insight. We cover the failed first flight, the RF chaos of a 50,000-person crowd, and the regulatory milestone that unlocked 10,000-foot operations. From cloud microphysics and real-time analytics to seeding strategy and verification, we map the chain from sensing to decision to measurable rain. On the ground, invasive biomass is converted into biochar to hold water, reduce inputs, and stabilize yields—because precipitation without retention is just runoff.

Zooming out, we explore how governments from the Middle East to Australia are leveraging granular data to guide policy and investment. Practical examples include smart street and traffic lights capturing local pollution, digital rails connecting Indian farmers to international markets, and AI that characterizes cloud fields before a drone ever launches. The goal isn’t magic—it’s probability, readiness, and systems that make better choices cheaper and faster. Ramgad becomes a blueprint for drought-prone regions from California to Africa: integrate atmospheric science, regenerative agriculture, and market access, then iterate with transparency and rigor.

If this blend of engineering and stewardship resonates, follow the show, share this story with a friend who cares about water and food security, and leave a review with the one question you want us to tackle next.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_06 (00:10):
Welcome back, everybody.
Welcome back to the Idea JGlobal Leadership Summit.
I'd like to invite a summonJenny Commerce, CEM of Excel
One.
Summon Jay, welcome.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09):
Once the pride of Jaipur and Rajasthan.
A lake that quenched a city'sthirst, nourished farmers'
fields, and carried the dreamsof a nation.
Here, in 1982, the Asiad boatinggames were held.
Ramgad stood as a symbol ofIndia's promise, beauty, and

(01:31):
strength.
But for the past 20 years,Ramgad has been dry, a victim of
human greed and encroachments, avictim of neglect.
What was once a jewel ofRajasthan became a barren scar.

(02:13):
Hope faded.
The lake, the people, the cityall waited, but water never
returned.
Axel One stepped in, a globalclimate engineering company on a
mission to solve the world'swater crisis.
Through technology, throughregenerative agriculture,

(02:35):
through pollution control.
We came to Ramgadh not withdoubt, but with belief that even
here, hope could rise again.
We met with the government ofRajasthan, with officials, with
communities, and together wechose Ramgard as the pilot.
For the world's firstprecision-based cloud seeding

(02:57):
mission, powered by moderndrones.
We built drones unlike anybefore.
Hybrids of quadcopters and fixedwings, drones designed to climb
as high as 4.5 kilometers.
Because at Ramgar, clouds livefar above ordinary reach.

(03:17):
For two months, our team studiedevery cloud, every inch of the
land.
We found the harsh truth,moisture was gone, the soil was
choked with silt and wild Julieflora, the clouds too weak to
rain.
This was no small challenge.
This was the test of human will.

(03:38):
Finally the day came.
50,000 people gathered towitness history.
But in the noise of excitement,personal drones, thousands of
phones, the signals failed.
Our drone did not fly.
Negativity spread.
Doubt returned.
The world said, this is futile.
But we did not give up.

(03:59):
Day after day, we tested.
And then came the breakthrough.

SPEAKER_05 (04:07):
Yes, in home all of it.
So I need Delhi and Juli.
How long?
For 55 minutes.
55 minutes will start in 10minutes.

SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
For the first time in India, commercial drones were
given permission to fly up to10,000 feet.
The skies were opening toRamgar.
And so we began.

SPEAKER_04 (04:55):
So the altitude is at like approximately 1
kilometer.
So the flight will take off.
The cloud base is at 960 meters.

SPEAKER_01 (05:06):
Our drones climbed 1.5 kilometers, 2 kilometers
higher than ever before.
Precision cloud monitoring.

SPEAKER_04 (05:15):
Release the seeding agent.

SPEAKER_01 (05:17):
Targeted seeding.
And then the miracle.
Hope returned to Ramgat.

SPEAKER_04 (05:29):
I'm Kalyan Sakavatiya Soda.
I'm a climate scientist at theAxel1 Company.
So today we have conducted ourcloud seating experiment at
Ramgard Lake.
So that the cloud base is at 850meters.
So we have released our seedingagent at 870 meters altitude.
We have seen the speedinitiation and enhancement of
the vine.
The vine initiated very shortly.

SPEAKER_01 (05:50):
This is only the beginning.
We have proposed the next phase,advanced atmospheric stations,
drones that can hover for sixhours, and a sensor network that
reads every cloud with deepprecision.
Our mission to make Ramgard thefirst lake in the world to be
revived through atmosphericscience and precision

(06:12):
technology.
But our vision doesn't stop withwater.
From the mud, the weeds, theJouli flora, we will create
biochar, turning waste intohigh-quality biomanure for
farmers, reviving not just alake, but organic agriculture,
soil health and prosperity.
Ramgat is rising again.

(06:34):
Not yet full, not yet finished,but alive with hope.
This journey is bigger than alake.
It is the blueprint forCalifornia, for the Middle East,
for Asia, for Africa.
A blueprint for solving theworld's water crisis.
At Axel 1, we are not justbringing back water.

(06:56):
We are bringing back life.
We are bringing back organicagriculture.
We are bringing back hope.

SPEAKER_02 (07:13):
Apologies, it's six minutes long, but the story is
important.

SPEAKER_06 (07:22):
Well, what do you say to that, Sanjay?
Well, we're gonna go into theinterview.
We're gonna go into theinterview.

(07:55):
What inspired you personally totake on the challenges of
building climate intelligence ata systems level rather than
simply creating a tool or adashboard or something similar?

SPEAKER_02 (08:11):
Sorry.
So I looked at technology,worked in technology for almost
22 years, and I was actuallyhaving a nice conversation with
Sharon.
What's the purpose?
What am I building thistechnology for?
I've seen digitaltransformation, I've led uh
engagement over 300 millionwhere we have completely
upgraded all the systems andother stuff.

(08:33):
But then um that's when actuallythis four years back, the world
was talking about ESG.
I'm like, what is ESG?
I started researching myself,and then I realized what was um
the future is all aboutsustainable transformation
because the world is goingthrough lots of changes.
It's not necessarily the carbonemissions which we are all crazy

(08:54):
about, measuring carbonemissions and how we reduce
carbon emissions.
But when I travel to differentparts of the world, especially
the global south, um I've seenthe countries trying to build
sustainable uh solutions, whichis like, for example, the Middle
East is looking at uh convertingall their uh dry lands into

(09:14):
green lands.
They're investing a lot ofmoney.
Uh there's a lot of innovationgoing on where they want to be
self-sustainable.
They don't want to be uh animport-dependent country or
countries.
And um I've traveled to variousstates in India.
Uh you know, it's it's almostthe fourth largest economy and
soon to be the third largesteconomy with 1.4 billion people,

(09:37):
aspirations of people.
You know, you need to secureyour natural resources.
So the this is this one lakethat we have seen.
Uh there are 33 lakes like thatin one state, which are almost
dry, you know, you're because ofvarious reasons, human
encroachments and all thatstuff.
I think that led to uh you know,kind of uh changing our course

(10:00):
of action from the traditionalESG to solving the problems.
And uh one thing that we haverealized, uh what happened is
here and the entire leadershipis uh people are not gonna
change so easily.
And you could have millionregulations, you can have you
know bargain regulations dependon which country you are
enforcing them.
There are a few countries peopledon't care about regulations.

(10:22):
Then how do you build technologyto solve the problems?
And that's what Axel One is allabout.

SPEAKER_06 (10:28):
Well, it's an incredible vision, and it goes
back to what we talk about here,while we're here uh on the
sidelines of Anga in 2025, whichis global leadership, right?
And leadership in general andthe leadership principles, it's
a day filled with global leadersand luminaries like yourself
coming in to talk about what isso important, why is leadership

(10:50):
so important?

SPEAKER_02 (10:51):
I think it's just uh there are a lot of problems in
the world, right?
I mean it it's not only people,uh the species, right?
So um, you know, when we when welook at Axle One, you saw the
tagline, engineering earth comeback.
So earth is not on Earth doesn'tmean it's only humans, right?
A lot of species are struggling.
So eventually we have to be uh,you know, as a leader, you have

(11:12):
to look at it in a broaderperspective.
You cannot just focus onpeople-centric problems, but
look at everything around you.

SPEAKER_06 (11:21):
And so you're focused on solving problems uh
at the infrastructure layer,which is fascinating.
What does this exactly mean inpractice?
Like what is the infrastructurelayer in practice?
And for governments, industries,and communities, how do they
then engage with your platform?

SPEAKER_02 (11:41):
I think this goes back to uh the technology
transformation, right?
Number one is uh if you have tosolve the agriculture problem,
right, where you empower farmersand you bring in technology.
And I'll give you a classicexample.
We just made a proposal toMiddle East and India, um, where
we um onboard uh the all thefarmers onto our platform and uh

(12:03):
they can sell it anywhere in theworld.
Right now, the problems that Ihave seen is the farmers do not
have access to technology andthey just have to kind of they
we call it as uh MRP rates,right, which are the rates set
by the local governments, and umsometimes when you have more to
produce, your price goes down.
Instead, if you have atechnology platform where a

(12:26):
farmer in India can sell it toMexico, then that's an
environment for farmers.
So that's how you bring in uhtechnology and um you know the
other thing that we are focusedon is uh the pollution control.
So for that you don't need thebig factories and other stuff.
Um we are working on uh aconcept called smart street
lights that can actually uh lookat the localized pollution and

(12:50):
sequester it.
So instead of just having atraffic light, you could have a
smart traffic light that canactually uh sequester the
pollution.
It could be a small smallversion, uh, but particularly
you have to build in technologylike that where you're
empowering your farmers, you'relooking at the the you're
looking at the water.
For example, this particular uhlake, we have employed we have

(13:13):
deployed a lot of AI.
But AI, again, everybody talksabout AI crazily, but now how do
you deploy AI use cases toreally understand the problems?
So we looked at the clouds likeit's 20 years dry, and uh the
clouds are pretty bad.
They don't have power, theydon't have energy.
So how do you deploy sensors andreally understand the cloud

(13:34):
patterns and give it?
So that's how you bring intechnology.
And our platforms help.

SPEAKER_06 (13:39):
It's incredible because you're you're that
example of the leadership we'retalking about, is is seeing
around these corners as a leaderand not being complacent.
Complacency is a killer, right?
And so you describe XL1 as apurpose company for a
regenerative future.
We saw some of that in thevideo.

(14:00):
What, Sanjay, seeing that you'repeering around corners, what
does that look like in five orten years from now?

SPEAKER_02 (14:08):
I think we are we when we talk to governments now,
I mean I've actually metmultiple governments across
different countries, they'reresponding positively because I
think the governments arewilling to deploy the technology
and more importantly the dataanalytics to really understand
what kind of problems are theydealing with, right?

(14:28):
Which they don't have access tothe data.
The granular data where wherethe data can help them in
decision making.
Right?
So they are willing to uh investin technology.
Um for example, I gave anexample of the Middle East where
uh they're focused onregenerative agriculture, um,
India and I've been to umAustralia.

(14:50):
There's a lot of uh momentumover there on sustainability, on
bringing in green technologiesand stuff.
Again, I'm not wearing thecarbon emissions hat here, but
really how do you empowerpeople?
How do you bring thesetechnologies to uh build a
sustainable future?
Incredible.

SPEAKER_06 (15:05):
And so looking ahead, it sounds like you're
pretty optimistic.
What gives you, Sanjay, the mostoptimism?
Like, why are you so optimisticabout the future of climate
intelligence and the role thatExcel one can play in that?

SPEAKER_02 (15:26):
I think we there are a lot of opportunities and the
world is messed up right now.
Uh messed up in the sense of notgetting into the political
aspects, but uh from a climatestandpoint.
Um you know, we are seeing, Imean, even Texas uh
technological crazy and we talkabout California wildfires every
year, and it's happening fromthe past 15 years.

(15:47):
What did we do to fix it?
So I think that's where um thereare opportunities for uh to
bring in technology, I mean thecomposition deep technology, and
that's where it can havesignificant uh impact of AI, and
uh and that the governments arewilling to listen and implement
because at the end of the day uhit's it's property damage, it's

(16:07):
loss for insurance companies,etc.
etc.
Now Axel 1, we want to be thatleader.
We want to be that leader, wewant to be that innovation
company focused on um all threeaspects uh the earth, water, and
and air.

SPEAKER_06 (16:23):
You know, I uh we could go on for days, but uh
thank you for the inspirationand thank you, thank you
leadership, Sanjay Kamara, AxelOne CEO.
Thank you for having me, George.