Keynote Speakers

Dan Grech, Founder and CEO at Global OTEC

Dan is a passionate, vocal supporter of OTEC as a cornerstone of climate-resilient power for the tropics. He advocates for a more pragmatic and commercially driven approach to ocean thermal energy – one that moves beyond studies and into scalable, investable projects.

Through his leadership at Global OTEC, he is helping shift the sector’s focus from research to real-world deployment, building bridges between academia, industry, and finance to accelerate the path to commercialisation.

He has raised $6.5m for Global OTEC’s endeavours to date, and promoted the subject across top global media titles and scientific publishers.

Prof. Dato’ Ir Dr A. Bakar Jaafar is a Research Fellow and Co-Founding Director of the UTM Ocean Thermal Energy Centre, and a Professor at the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia since 2013. Currently, he is a leading proponent in Malaysia in the promotion and development of renewable energy projects, including that of ocean thermal energy, as well as in the generation and production of green hydrogen.

During the period 1975-76, he was a Staff Engineer at the US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research & Development, Industrial Environmental Research Laboratory, Cincinnati, Ohio, where he completed a Research Internship Report relating to the conversion of solar energy into hydrogen, as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Environmental Science, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA.

He has served the Government of Malaysia in various capacity since 1973, and his career included stints as Factories and Machinery Inspector (1973-74). Staff Engineer of the US EPA Industrial Environmental Research laboratory (1975-76). Principal Assistant Director (Water Quality), Environment Division, Ministry of Science, technology and Environment (1976-84) and Economic Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s Department (1984-85). DOE Director of Operations (1985-86), DOE Deputy Director-General (Planning) (1987-89) and as the Director-General off the Department of Environment Malaysia (DOE) (1990-2002) (2002-2007) (2007-2012), UN Headquarters, New York. He was the former Chairman of Malaysian Green Technology & Climate Change Corporation (MGTC) over the period 4 October 2019-31 May 2022.

He holds a bachelor’s degree (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from the Universty of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, 1973, a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science from Miami University, Ohio, USA, 1976 and PhD in (Marine) Geography from the University of Hawaii@Manoa, 1984. He was conferred with HonoraryDoctorate in Science by University of Malaysia Terengganu in 2017, and by the University of Newcatsle, New South Wales, Australia in 2022, and received numerous Awards including KMN (1985), JSM (1992) by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King of Malaysia), DPMP (1993) by YAM Raja Perlis, University of Newscatle, NSW, Australia Convocation Medallist (2011), Tokoh Alumni Sekolah M Alam Shah (2018), World Renewable Energy Network (WREN) Pioneer Award (2023) and Uehara Prize (2024).

Prof. Dr. Yasuyuki IKEGAMI has been researching on the optimization on OTEC system, heat exchanger (the condenser and the evaporator) of OTEC, the By-product of OTEC, for over 40 years.

Recently, he is investigating on OTEC system using ammonia/water mixtures as working fluid and new double Rankine Cycle using pure working fluid. He has collaborated in many OTEC projects in Brazil, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, USA, Republic of Palau, and Korea etc..

His specialty is in the energy conversion engineering, thermodynamic engineering and heat transfer.

Other projects are the antifouling of heat exchanger, Deep Sea Water Application, development of turbine, and control system for OTEC system etc.. He has recently delivered a presentation on Energy Transition: Offshore Renewables as a keynote speaker at COP30 on November 14th 2025 in Brazil.