Technology by Amrita Univ to be used in disaster-prone areas

Updated on: Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The wireless technology that has been perfected by Amrita University and being successfully tested at Munnar in Kerala to help forecast natural disasters like landslide would be replicated in similar disaster prone areas in the country, Dr R Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor to Union government, said today.

Inaugurating the three-day International Conference on Wireless Technologies for Humanitarian Relief organised by Amritanandamayi Math, at Amritapuri near here, Chidambaram said technologies needed to get more citizen-centric.

This technology should be localised according to the area of the disaster, he said. To start with, the technology would be used in the Himalayan region, he said. "People in the Himayalan region face different kinds of landslides and we have suggested that Amrita University team headed by Dr Manisha Sudheer, Director, Amrita Centre for Wireless Networks and Applications work with the Dr M H Mehta
of National Bioshield Society to come up with a comprehensive solution to the landslides in that region," he said.

Chidambaram, along with experts from Delhi and the Amrita team had recently visited the deployment area of the technology at Munnar. "There is a strong disconnect between the research, development and delivery system in the country which is being looked into by the government," he said, adding one of the reasons for this is the "perceived disequilibrium between the academic achievements and the inability of the corporates to commercially exploit them".

Elaborating, Chidambaram said delivery of research and development invariably failed in rural areas due to the inability to have a dialogue understandable to the rural folks. "We are proposing the involvement of locals at the application and delivery of Research and Development innovations," he said.

Amrita University Vice-Chancellor, Dr P Venkat Rangan, said in his address that Mata Amritanandamayi had been the driving force behind the success of the University's efforts in applying technology for humanitarian work.

Technology by Amrita Univ to be used in disaster-prone areas

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