New Delhi, Jan 26: 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 made significant impacts in different sectors. One of them was the crucial health sector that received focused attention during the COVID pandemic.
ART PARK at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, developed an AI-driven platform that helped in the interpretation of images sent over WhatsApp, thus bringing about early interventions through rapid screening of COVID 19.
The solution called XraySetu is quick and easy to use and can work with low-resolution images sent via mobiles, facilitating the detection of diseases in rural areas. Using machine learning algorithms, it helps find out whether a patient having abnormal regions in the lungs is likely to be positive for COVID, pneumonia, or other lung abnormalities.
Likewise, a team of scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology-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), and Campus RAKSHAK – A decision framework for Campus Safety.
In another development, researchers at the IIT-Ropar’s Technology Innovation Hub – AWaDH and its start-up, Scratch Nest have developed 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. So far, such devices were being imported. The institute is gearing for 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 a production cost of ₹400.
Similarly, a consortium of IIT-Madras 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 self-reliant (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.
The National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) was approved by the Union Cabinet at a total cost of Rs 3,660 crores in December 2018. (India Science Wire)
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