Category: Science & Technology

CoWIN platform ‘know-how’ now available free of cost to any country

The National Health Authority’s offer comes after India crossed a milestone of administering 2 billion vaccine doses a week ago.

Any country interested can avail CoWIN platform, the platform will be provided free of cost, said Dr. R.S.Sharma, CEO of the National Health Authority, said on Saturday, July 23, 2022.

“Selected vendors by the country will be trained on CoWIN technology to customise it for their requirement. Usually, since the vaccination cycle is almost the same in all countries, the customisation will be limited to changes in field and master data configuration. Complete revamp of the application by any country is not expected,’’ he elaborated while speaking about (CoWIN) which provided the digital support for the COVID vaccination drive in the country.

Dr. Sharma further said that India has already signed an MoU with the Government of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana for sharing CoWIN; “We are in advanced talks with a couple of other nations to share CoWIN with them,’’ he confirmed.

India’s COVID vaccine milestone

India crossed a milestone of administering 2 billion vaccine doses a week ago and talking about its continued importance Dr. Sharma said that as CoWIN is repurposed, it could also help achieve the vision of Universal Vaccination against COVID-19 and further be repurposed for use in the healthcare sector. 

On July 5, 2021, the Central Government organised the Co-WIN Global Conclave with the endeavour to share experiences and expertise on the CoWIN platform with the global community. Over 140 countries participated in the event and nearly a dozen expressed an interest in learning from the platform and evaluating adopting it.

Stating that CoWIN has also become the world’s biggest digitally verifiable vaccination certificate generating platform, Dr. Sharma said that today Co-WIN is highly configurable and adaptable. “It has evolved based on the changing policy landscape and the requirements of the beneficiaries. The platform was developed at record speed with ample consideration to its scalability, modularity and interoperability,’’ hde said.

The CEO also spoke about the security measures that have been put in place to ensure data safety and the prevention of leaks. “CoWIN platform does not store or share any personal data. It’s for vaccination purposes and is the single source of truth to determine whether the person has been vaccinated or not,’’ said Dr. Sharma. He added the platform has deployed state-of-the-art data security systems to safeguard users’ data against any possible intrusion.

“Despite all these security features, CoWIN’s architecture still allows it to be open and interoperable. The capability to digitally authenticate these details with Aadhaar has also been provided to vaccinators. Otherwise, during vaccination a vaccinator could validate these details through a physical ID,’’ he explained, adding that besides the OTP feature the government has also limited the number of slot searches per user (restricted to 15-20) on the portal which prevents bots, browser extensions or hack attempts. Also even the API’s shared to third parties by CoWIN is through a thorough scrutiny process, ensuring proper security and audit.

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Pratt and Whitney to set up engineering centre in Bengaluru

To be operational in 2023, facility will be fifth globally

Aircraft engine maker Pratt & Whitney (PW) on Monday said it will set up an engineering centre in Bengaluru, that is slated to commence operations in January 2023.

The centre, which will be its first facility in Asia Pacific and fifth globally, will enable the firm to offer engineering services on contract to its domestic and international customers, a spokesperson said.

PW’s integrated global engineering operations currently has centres in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Poland.

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India’s missile woman Tessy Thomas to receive APJ Award 2022

The selection committee, headed by AP Majeed Khan, Chancellor of Noorul Islam University in association with NINS Medicity, announced the award recently.

Dr Tessy Thomas, Scientist and Director General (Aero Systems) at Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), also known as India’s missile woman, will be awarded APJ Award 2022. 

A release said that Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education at Kumarakovil in Kanniyakumari district and NIMS Medicity have been jointly organising the award since 2019 to recognise government officials who have achieved excellence and achievements in their respective field of work. 

Governor of Kerala Arif Mohammad Khan will present the award at a ceremony which will be held at NIMS Medicity, Neyyartinkarai on Tuesday (July 19) at 11 am.

The awardee will be receiving a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, a certificate of appreciation and a commemorative trophy, the release added. It is to be noted that Tessy Thomas is the first woman scientist to head India’s missile programme.

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From media to medicine to Apple Health V-P: Sumbul Desai’s Indian roots is common strand

If the rebel within her had prevailed, Dr Sumbul Desai would have been a journalist or a media honcho. But after many pivots in her career, the Sweden-born with Indian roots is now one of the most influential women in global tech — as Apple’s VP-Health.

“You’d never think that all of those stops you are going to make are going to help you with your ultimate role. All that learning ends up putting you exactly where you should be,” Desai told The Indian Express on video call from California.

Desai joined Apple five years ago to strengthen the Cupertino-based tech giant’s foray into personal health technologies. Before that, she was Vice Chair of Strategy and Innovation in the Department of Medicine at Stanford Medicine as well as Associate Chief Medical Officer at Stanford Healthcare.

And yet, those early stints with the Walt Disney Company and ABC News still stand out in her impressive resume. “My parents wanted me to be either a doctor or an engineer,” says Desai. Echoing millions of Indians across the world, her parents, who moved from India to Sweden and then the US, were no different when it came to their children, she points out.

AT&T inaugurates India Development Centre in Chennai

Company building a dedicated digital operations centre

The U.S.-based telecommunications giant AT&T has opened its new development centre in Chennai. The new facility was inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Minister for Information Technology T. Mano Thangaraj with Bala Subramanian, Chief Digital Officer, AT&T.

The new centre at the RMZ Millenia Campus Phase 2 on MGR Salai has capacity to accommodate around 300 employees and will focus on building digital capabilities. “We recognise the talent and potential in Chennai and are excited about offering an environment where teams can work on features that have a direct impact on AT&T customers and employees,” Mr. Bala Subramanian said in a statement. 

“In addition, we are building a dedicated digital operations centre (DoC) that will act as a beachhead for our customer-centric operations transformation,” he added.

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GE Healthcare launches its first ‘5G Innovation Lab’ in India 

GE Healthcare on Thursday announced the launch of its 5G Innovation Lab in India, the first for the company across the globe.

With the advantage of massive bandwidth, high data speeds, low latency and highly reliable connectivity, 5G has the potential to disrupt the patient care continuum, transforming diagnosis, therapy, and prognosis, the company noted.

“The 5G Innovation Lab is designed to position GE Healthcare at the forefront of these groundbreaking advances in patient care, including potentially bringing cutting-edge technology to rural and suburban regions,” a company statement said.

Situated at the John F.Welch Technology Centre (JFWTC) Bengaluru, GE Healthcare’s largest R&D centre outside of the USA, the lab will serve as a testbed to develop future-ready products and solutions, turning a new corner in innovation, it said.

5G in Healthcare was valued at an estimated USD 215 million in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 3,667 million by 2026.

“India is an important market for us globally and it is indeed the right time to venture into 5G, which will open a realm of exciting opportunities, driving the next wave of growth in Healthcare,” said Jan Makela, President & CEO, Imaging at GE Healthcare.

The GE Healthcare 5G Innovation Lab will serve as a conduit for the interplay of exponential technologies like AI/ML, IoT, Big Data, Edge Computing and Cybersecurity, the statement added.

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Forensic scientist from Delhi grabs spot in world’s top ‘50 Next’

Risha joined the group of innovators selected from more than 400 candidates across 30 territories as the next-gen leaders of gastronomy.

A Delhi-based forensic scientist, Dr Risha Jasmine Nathan has been named among the world’s top 50 leading gastronomy game-changers in a prestigious list celebrating the next generation of leaders creating sustainable solutions for the global food and drink industry. 

Risha joined the group of innovators selected from more than 400 candidates across 30 territories as the next-gen leaders of gastronomy. “My research, which I completed in New Zealand in 2020, was about using food and vegetable peels and converting them into beads that could suck up heavy metals from drinking water,” said Dr Nathan.

The research was a part of the “Science Innovators” category which gave a sustainable solution to tackle the problem of water contamination in the developing world. “My goal is to make use of the science of toxicology to work towards the creation of a safer and healthier world,” she said. Nathan, who will soon be a lecturer at the Anglia Ruskin University in the UK later this year, is researching more on the topic, hoping to change the lives of millions who still don’t have access to clean water.

Her technique of removing contaminants such as heavy metals from water has been recognised as a game-changer method in recent times. According to her, while working as an assistant professor of forensic science at Galgotias University in Uttar Pradesh, she came across a technique called ‘biosorption’, where agricultural waste products are used to remove metals from wastewater. From there she got the idea that fruit and vegetable peels could be turned into ‘green filters’ to clean drinking water. “The idea provides viable drinking water decontamination method, is cost efficient and solves problem of landfill dumping, as it helps recycle tonnes of peel waste that end up in landfills every year, causing land pollution and generating methane gas,” she added.

Along with Risha, three other Indian innovators were also mentioned in the list, unveiled at a first-ever live awards ceremony in the Spanish city of Bilbao on Thursday.

They were Bengaluru-based Vinesh Johny and Anusha Murthy, Mumbai-based Nidhi Pant and Singapore-born Indian-origin food entrepreneur Travinder Singh. The ‘50 Next’ is a list released every year which celebrates people from across the food and drink department to complement the annual rankings of ‘The World’s 50 Best Restaurants’.

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India successfully tests high-speed expendable aerial target ABHYAS

ABHYAS is designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment of DRDO

India on Wednesday successfully flight-tested the indigenously developed high-speed expendable aerial target (HEAT), ABHYAS, from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur off the Odisha coast, as per a statement.

The performance of the aircraft at low altitude, including sustained level and high maneuverability, was demonstrated during the test flight, it said.

The target aircraft was flown from a ground-based controller in a pre-designated low-altitude flight path, which was monitored by various tracking sensors deployed by the ITR, including radar and an electro-optical targeting system, it added.

ABHYAS is designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

The air vehicle was launched using twin under-slung boosters, which provide the initial acceleration to the vehicle. It is powered by a small gas turbine engine to sustain a long endurance flight at high subsonic speed, the statement said.

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WHO approves Hyderabad firm to make vaccines for Johnson & Johnson

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has approved India based manufacturing site in Hyderabad, Biological E Limited, to make Covid vaccines for Jansen/Johnson & Johnson.

“This is a great progress for Quad Vaccine and the US India Health partnership,” said a US Embassy spokesperson.

This manufacturing would be done through US technical support and DFC financing. DFC is a US International Development Finance Corporation that invests in the development and advancing US Foreign Policy.

“Quad partners have collectively committed $524 million to the next phase of CEPI’s (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness) which is an innovative global partnership working to accelerate the development of vaccines against epidemic and pandemic threats) work, accounting for about 50 per cent of total public investors,” according to the joint statement released by Quad members after the Summit last month.

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NLCIL chief gets award

Rakesh Kumar, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of NLC India Ltd (NLCIL), was recently conferred with the ‘Top Rankers Excellence – CEO of the Year Award’, according to a press release issued by NLCIL.

The award is instituted by a private agency – Top Rankers Management Club. He was also given the ‘CEO Leadership Excellence Award’, the release said.

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