SHAASTRA 2019, one of the largest annual technical festivals in India, hosted a mega exhibition called ‘U.S. – India Campus Tech Connect’.
It showcased U.S. India collaboration in science, technology, innovation and research and development from 3 different perspectives – Academic, Government and Business. Various research projects in healthcare, environment, sanitation among others were a part of the exhibition.
Some of the projects which garnered attention included Ultra-Thin Wires Drag Enhancement System (UWDES) (Design and development of systems for space debris mitigation), Multiplex biomarker assay for detection of all forms of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (a platform for detecting tuberculosis using blood sample in the shortest time possible) and Cognizant Technological Solutions (Handheld Quantum Wireless Solution for Secure Financial Transactions and sensitive information) PES University and Tuskegee University, under the guidance of Dr. Sharan Asundi, have come up with a novel research idea on mitigating the space debris.
“We are trying to address the space debris problem, like we are trying to address the environment problem. Unlike environment, if space debris become too much, the space will be unusable. We want every satellite being launched with a payload like this, which will bring it down and create space for more satellites,” he said.
Mr Puneet Gupta, CEO of NextGen Invitro Diagnostics, says his company has developed a platform for detecting tuberculosis using blood sample in the shortest time possible and is affordable, in collaboration with University of California as well as AIIMS. The main objective is to ensure that it reaches to the smallest village possible and to the places where there is no proper system to detect tuberculosis.
Similarly, under business collaboration, Cognizant presented the project on their ground-breaking work on quantum cryptography. Anand Kumar, Senior Manager of Global technology office, Cognizant Technology Solutions says: “When you try and do a transaction in an ATM, you enter an ATM Pin and that sends a certain encryption to the back end bank server, which then decrypts it and authorises you. With a quantum computer, this kind of AES encryption is very easy to break it down and any hacker with a quantum computer can easily break-in. The system being developed gives an advanced level of hack proof encryption. The key area of focus is the quantum key distribution.”
Exhibitors from Universities in India and America such as IIT Madras – UC San Diego, MG University – Caltech, PES University – Tuskegee, eminent researchers and scientist working on US- India jointly funded projects such as 21st Century Knowledge Initiative and IUSSTF’s Endowment Fund awards, and American companies such as GE, Cognizant, ETS, showcased their projects at SHAASTRA.
