We Must Focus on People-Centric Research to Harness Technology for Environment: Harsh Vardhan

Mr. Harsh Vardhan Union Minister for Science & Technology informed that Government and his ministry, in particular, are committed to harnessing science and technology for the preservation of the environment.

Speaking an event organized to mark the commencement of DST-Intel Collaborative Research for real-time river water and air quality monitoring and the announcement of research projects, the minister said that research has to be increasingly made people-centric and research must find solutions to the problems of the people.

People-Centric Approach for Research

He also stressed the need to change the definition of 'impact factor' to include how much the research will impact the common and lead to an alleviation of sufferings of the people.

Vardhan said that real-time water and air quality monitoring is another initiative of the Government towards scientific social responsibility.

"The scientific vision of the Government has been demonstrated through state-of-the-art technology solutions delivered through global partnership", he stated.

Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Intel have jointly initiated a research programme titled, 'Research Initiative for Real-time River Water and Air Quality Monitoring' to develop low-cost and low-power autonomous wireless sensor technologies for sensing, communication, and analysis of large-scale data collected from autonomous networks of perpetual/ long-lived sensor nodes.

The development of these technologies will be followed by integration and deployment for water and air quality monitoring in real time.