Meghalaya keen To Partner With NASA for use of drones

A Correspondent

SHILLONG: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, who is on a tour of USA, met officials of Wipro Silicon Innovation Centre in California on Tuesday. The Chief Minister was accompanied by Advisor to the Chief Minister Thomas A Sangma, Commissioner and Secretary P Sampath Kumar and Deputy Commissioner of South West Garo Hills Ram Kumar.

The possibility of collaboration with Meghalaya was discussed at length during the meeting with officials of Wipro. “The discussion was on the lines of use of artificial intelligence in maternal and child health administration,” said Conrad.

The delegation also visited NASA Ames Research Centre, including UAS Traffic Management Research Centre and other wings of NASA. The officials briefed the delegation on the Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management.

“We are very keen in partnering with NASA through the University of California for using drones to address problems of disaster management, delivering vaccines to remote areas and crop management,” the Chief Minister added.

The potential use of drones that will benefit ordinary people are growing from commercial opportunities to rescue operations. The Chief Minister, who is known for his IT skills and bringing in technology enabled solution, is now looking at ways and possibilities for expanding the use of technology for common good of the people.

Conrad also met Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Studios and winner of six Academy Awards. “We had an interaction and learning session with Catmull on how to enable innovation in organizations,” the Chief Minister said.

An erie silk stole made in Meghalaya was gifted to Ed Catmull.

On Tuesday, Conrad met Carol Welch, Director, Strategy Planning & Management and Orin Levine, Director, Global Delivery Programme of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We discussed about MOTHER App – an initiative of our government to provide facilities through technology-enabled services to improve mother and child care, educational and rural development outcomes.”

The State Government has sought for technical assistance from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Chief Minister spoke at length on the innovative data driven MOTHER (Meghalaya Outcomes Oriented Transformation in Health, Nutrition, Education and Rural Development) App.

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