All about Research Frontiers and a Knowledge Driven Society

VOICES THAT MATTER

How do you propose to strengthen the industry academic connect at IIT Guwahati? Research ties go a long way in consolidating congenial relationships between countries too. Your thoughts on this please and how IIT Guwahati can take a lead in consolidating ties between the North eastern region and South East Asian countries

IIT Guwahati is determined to transform the cutting edge inventions achieved by the faculty members into profitable innovations. This can be effectively achieved through proper handholding with industries. IITG is one of those emerging institutes that are constantly showcasing technological achievements to increase the confidence of the industrial fraternity and boost the concept of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat'. However, it should be important for institutions like us to address the scale on which industries need technological interventions. It is time to focus on translational research activities with scale to build confidence among the industries. Further, industry centric R&D practices should be adopted with the mission to be vocal for local.

It is well proven that research cooperation goes a long way in consolidating congenial relationships between countries too. India has already established many such examples including ties between Maruti-Suzuki which played an important role to bring Japan and India further closer. Now, such congenial relations can be easily achieved between demographic boundaries through strong technological cooperation. Well established technological institutions of friendly countries may act as bridges to connect industries from both sides.

During the pandemic, the Institute demonstrated several examples of developing technologies, transferring them to industries and also setting up manufacturing facilities on campus for multiple COVID diagnostic kits.

IIT Guwahati is aggressively taking a lead in consolidating ties among the various stakeholders in the North eastern region including industries. We already have taken a few steps to bring all the institutions under one umbrella as far as technological knowledge sharing is concerned. This was witnessed during the recently organised North-East Research Conclave 2022. Moreover, networking with all educational institutes including school education has been initiated, which is likely to help bring about major reforms in the standards of education and exposure. IITG has initiated steps to develop a network of excellence to connect NER (North East Region) institutions. This network of excellence also envisages strengthening cooperation with ASEAN institutions through effective research and development ties.

I feel that the recent initiatives by both the Central and state government to boost ties with ASEAN countries on multiple sectors will bring prosperity to the region and the nation and bring huge socio-economic benefits. Given the robust Act East Policy of the Central Government, IIT Guwahati will play a central role in terms of framing policies and supporting major initiatives.

Please elaborate on the whys and how's of your project on transforming wastewater into energy?

The surge in the global population demands more energy in the future. Because fossil fuels release abundant toxic materials to the atmosphere along with polluting the environment, there is an immediate (and increasing) requirement of using renewable and sustainable sources of energy. The feasibility of domestic wastewater treatment by Microbial Fuel Cell (MFCs) has been successfully tested in the laboratory experiments, along with achieving higher Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal rates and power densities. Recently, C and N removal was also obtained in an MFC fed with synthetic wastewater. Moreover, as denitrification uses the electrons obtained from the separate oxidation of organic matter present in the wastewater, the MFC system can operate very efficiently at low COD/N ratios. This reduces the requirement for an external C-source supply. Thus, the MFCs can act as a superior source of sustainable energy generation along with treating the wastewater, and hence it must be studied further for commercial-scale installation.

When will this project be functional?

The bench-scale prototype has been successfully tested, and efforts are being made to install a bigger setup near the wastewater treatment plant at IIT Guwahati very soon.

What is the special relevance of this project in the context of a state like Assam which abounds in rainfall and is surrounded by water bodies?

The studies conducted until now reveal that this form of sustainable energy will not be much affected by rainfall and other climatic conditions. The idea is to use the waste to obtain valuable products without affecting the environment.

How can Apex educational bodies like IITs help in spreading awareness on the importance of a research driven knowledge economy at various spheres of society?

IITG is now very well equipped to work with industries and other major stakeholders for challenging/addressing research problems aligning with our Honourable Prime Minister's mission on 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat'.

The strong research capabilities of the faculty members of IIT Guwahati have (particularly in recent years) brought us at par with other faculties around the globe. Newly established Centers of Excellences (CoE's), schools and various research programmes in focused areas and also the related 'state-of-the-art' inventions at IIT Guwahati are further strengthening our commitment to provide a conducive research ecosystem to the industries to achieve targets through translational research. We have taken various initiatives for delivering sustainable technologies through utilization of the flora and fauna of the North Eastern Region to fulfil the aspirations of citizens with the targeted mission for 'Vocal for Local'. Technological approaches for advancements in the agricultural sector need to be taken by us in order to improve the livelihood of the farmers who are the backbone of this great nation. IIT Guwahati is committed to working together with all the stakeholders beginning at the grass root level and establish a network of excellence in research and innovation for a sustainable society. In the recently concluded NERC-2022, a Guwahati Declaration was created and released that sets guidelines to promote an innovation-led ecosystem, which encourages synergies and collaborations among various stakeholders in science and technology, indigenous knowledge and translational research and the utilisation of sustainable routes and abundant natural resources available in the region.

Which are the key areas of research that institutes are focusing upon in the post-Covid scenario?

IIT Guwahati has eleven academic departments, seven inter-disciplinary academic centres and five academic schools covering all the major engineering, science, healthcare, management and humanities disciplines, offering BTech, BDes, MA, MDes, MTech, MSc, and PhD programmes. Thus research activities across the institute is very broad and covers nearly all frontier areas as listed above. Post-covid the awareness about the need for indigenization on several aspects related to healthcare has dramatically improved and research efforts to develop COVID kits, antiviral/microbial spray, medical robots and drones for healthcare, portable healthcare detection kits, vaccine development, engineering concepts for isolation and screening and safe passages are going on.

Research activities in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are picking up globally and penetrating in various fields of science and technology. Keeping in pace with the same, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG) has also started these activities in different domains. Some of these domains are machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing and deep reinforcement learning.

To accelerate the research activities in these domains and to produce high quality manpower, IIT Guwahati has set up Mehta Family School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (MFSDS&AI) in 2021 with support from Mehta Family Foundation, USA. The first batches of BTech (through JEE Advanced) and PhD students have already been admitted to the school.

The faculty members of the school have initiated several research activities which are in various stages of progress. Some of these research projects include machine learning based solutions for next-generation mobile edge computing systems, video-based measurement and modelling of the eye region for micro expression recognition, methods for training effective deep learning models from long-tailed datasets and development of cognitive state assessment system using facial expression recognition

To facilitate early detection and accurate diagnosis of diseases like cancer and diabetes, the faculty members of the school have tied up with reputed institutions, such as All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi, Sri Sankardeva Nethralaya Guwahati and Dr. Bhubaneswar Borooah Cancer Institute Guwahati and submitted several research proposals which are currently under review. Faculties of the school are also carrying out research activities in AI and ML application in the field of wireless communication.

The facilities for carrying out AI and ML-based research activities are also being strengthened.

What are the key challenges of the research ecosystem in the North-East and how are higher education institutes (IIT, government and private entities) meeting these challenges?

The higher education institutes in the NER include one IIT, NITs, CIT, IIITs, central and state universities, research laboratories from CISR, DST, DBT, ICMR, NIPER, DRDO, ISRO and few other research laboratories. Moreover, the last few years has also seen few private universities initiating research activities. The biggest challenge facing researchers in this region is lack of appropriate and sufficient infrastructure to pursue research. Very limited opportunities at undergraduate/postgraduate level to obtain vital hands-on training, less exposure to world-class facilities, lack of technical support for operating and maintaining sophisticated instruments are some of the major hurdles that need to be solved to meet the impeding challenges to perform impactful research.

It seems it is important to agglomerate a vast talent pool, for promotion of translational research. Can you please explain what that entails, and how can research scholars (in higher education institutes) be engaged towards that end?

IITG is fortunate to attract the best academic talent from across the nation and drive the mandate of cutting edge research. The academic centers and schools at IIT Guwahati are created to foster interdisciplinary and translational research, which over the years has driven the institute to greater heights in terms of research outputs, publications, patents and transfer of technologies. Research scholars have been the primary source of the institute driving these cutting edge research activities in various thrust areas.

About IIT Guwahati

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati established in 1994 has completed 25 years of glorious existence in 2019. At present, the Institute has eleven departments, seven inter-disciplinary academic centres and five schools covering all the major engineering, science, healthcare, management and humanities disciplines, offering BTech, BDes, MA, MDes, MTech, MSc, and PhD programmes. The institute offers a residential campus to 435 faculty members and more than 7,000 students at present. Besides its laurels in teaching and research, IIT Guwahati has been able to fulfil the aspirations of people of the North East region to a great extent since its inception in 1994. The picturesque campus is on a sprawling 285 hectares plot on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, around 20 kms from the heart of the Guwahati city.

IIT Guwahati is the only academic institution in India that occupied a place among the top 100 world universities – under 50 years of age – ranked by the London-based Times Higher Education (THE) in the year 2014 and continues to maintain its superior position even today in various International Rankings. IIT Guwahati gained rank 37 globally in the 'Research Citations per Faculty' category and overall 384 rank in the QS World University Rankings 2023 released recently. IIT Guwahati has retained the 7th position among the best engineering institutions of the country in the 'India Rankings 2021' declared by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Union Ministry of Education. IIT Guwahati has been also ranked 2nd in the 'Swachhata Ranking' conducted by the Govt. of India. Recently, IIT Guwahati has been ranked as the top-ranked University in 2019 for IT developers by HackerRank in the Asia-Pacific region.

Among other frontier areas of research and innovation, IIT Guwahati is working towards augmenting critical science research initiatives in Genomics, Developmental Biology, Health Care and Bioinformatics, Flexible Electronics, Advanced Functional Materials, Sustainable Polymers, Rural Technologies, Renewable Energy, Artificial Intelligence, Disaster Resilience and Risk Reduction, and Water Resources and Management. In its silver jubilee year, IIT Guwahati is poised to scale newer heights through all-round growth and development.

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