Parul
New and emerging technologies are powering national initiatives in key areas with the help of solutions for people-centric problems being developed at the 25 innovation hubs across the country through the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS).
Several technologies and technology platforms established under the mission have helped push impact in multiple sectors. One of them was the crucial health sector that received focused attention during the COVID pandemic.
ARTPARK at IISc Bangalore developed an AI-driven platform that helped Chest X-ray interpretation of images sent over WhatsApp brought early intervention through rapid screening of COVID 19, aiding doctors who have no access to X-ray machines. The solution called XraySetu is quick and easy to use and can work with low-resolution images sent via mobiles, facilitating detection in rural areas. Using machine learning algorithms, it generates a patient report showing suspicious abnormal regions in the lungs and detects if the person is likely positive for COVID, pneumonia, or other lung abnormalities.
A team of scientists from IIT Bombay has developed a tapestry method for screening COVID-19 under Remedial Action, Knowledge Skimming, and Holistic Analysis of COVID-19 (RAKSHAK), an effort supported by the Technology Innovation Hub (TIH) at IIT Jodhpur. The Tapestry method has been shortlisted by X-prize in an open Innovation Track. The RAKSHAK effort has led to the development of a New Chest X-ray based COVID diagnosis System (in the ICMR validation process now), Open Data for Indian and International COVID Cases – COVBASE (Imaging, clinical parameters, longitudinal data, and annotations), Campus RAKSHAK – A decision framework for Campus Safety.
AmbiTag, the first-of-its-kind Internet of Things (IoT) device that monitors ambient temperature during the transportation of vaccines, including Covid-19, medicines, blood samples, food and dairy products, meat products, and animal semen, has been developed by researchers at the IIT Ropar Technology Innovation Hub – AWaDH and its startup ScratchNest. So far, such devices were being imported by India. The institute is gearing for its mass production of AmbiTag. The device will be made available to all companies involved in COVID-19 vaccine transportation from production facilities to the last mile vaccination centres in the country at the production cost of Rs 400.
A consortium launched by IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation and five other entrepreneurial start-up companies in the deep tech and engineering domain has been established Under the mission I-STAC.DB – Indian Space Technologies and Applications Consortium Design Bureau. It will focus on building an end-to-end Atmanirbhar ecosystem for space technologies from on-demand access to space, including rapid launch capability, satellites, sensors, future generation communication such as 6G, satellite data, and its applications.
NM-ICPS, which fosters technological solutions in health, education, energy, environment, agriculture, strategy cum security, Industry 4.0 is being implemented through 25 Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs) established in top academic, and National R&D Institutes was approved at by the Union Cabinet at a total cost of Rs 3660 crores in December 2018. All the hubs are working on developing solutions for people-centric problems.
