DBT Partners with a US Firm to Reach Microscope Easily to Our Students
The ‘Foldscope’ has been developed by Dr Manu Prakash, an Indian-origin Assistant Professor at Stanford University.
DBT Partners with a US Firm to
Reach Microscope Easily to Our Students
Undergraduate students from all parts of the country will
soon be able to take a peek through a microscope that they can carry with them,
following an initiative by the Department of Biotechnology to reach the Prakash
Lab’s low cost paper folding-microscope, the Foldscope to students in our
country.
The letter of intent to distribute Foldscope through
DBT’s star college and other programmes was exchanged between the Department of
Biotechnology (DBT) and the Prakash Lab in the presence of Prime Minister Shri
Narendra Modi during his visit to Silicon Valley in USA recently.
It all started with a tweet from Secretary, Department of Biotechnology Professor K Vijay Raghavan to Dr Prakash on August 12 this year.
‘Hi, can we
discuss using Foldscope widely in India? I am at the Deptt of Biotech, Govt of
India’.
Dr Prakash
responded immediately welcoming it, a skype call followed subsequently. Prime
Minister’s office also responded enthusiastically to the call requesting for
his support.
Rapid
communication through the social media played a crucial role quickly paving the
pathway for the letter of intent to spread the low technology widely through
DBT’s network.
This was a unique
demonstration of how the government is using the social media in novel ways to
stimulate citizen science.
Dr Prakash is excited about engaging through DBT to
extend further the Foldscope’s reach to all parts of India. He said, “Our
vision is to bring a microscope into the hands of every single kid in the
world”.
“Partnering with
Prakash Lab’s Foldscope is an exciting new adventure for the Department of
Biotechnology. It is Citizen Science at its best. The Foldscope is
torchlight in the hands of human curiosity that allows each and every one of us
to explore our planet at the microscopic level, just as the telescope allows us
to explore the stars. The beauty we see and the science underneath it will
create a new generation of young scientists in India. We look forward to taking
this wonderful partnership ahead” said Professor Vijay Raghavan.
Prakash Lab, a
research group at Stanford University working in the field of engineering and
physical biology, will source Foldscope to DBT and its constituents.
The DBT will
ensure that the Foldscope is provided to students of the Star College scheme in
each identified college. This will be done progressively based on the
availability of Foldscope.
Foldscope will be
used as an educational and training tool to understand physics, chemistry,
biology and instrumentation.
Foldscope is
provided as a kit where the student starts by first building the actual unit
from the kit; and explores curiosity driven questions surrounding the
microscopic world in physics, chemistry and biology. The users build an online
community and share insights, projects, questions and scientific discoveries
with the community at Foldscope online platform.
Workshops and
training programmes will be run by Prakash Lab in collaboration with Indian
institutions. The nascent Local Foldscope community based in India will also be
involved in training.
After this initial
pilot program, the collaboration with Prakash Lab will be expanded to setting
up of joint research for explorations of other low cost instrumentation in
colleges as deemed mutually appropriate.
This was a case of
matching of views that is focused to create a spark. The Prime Minister has
been stressing on using Indian experts abroad to bring benefits to India.
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India and Germany Sign
Agreements for Furthering Cooperation in the Field of Science & Technology
India and Germany
have signed agreements for furthering cooperation in the field of Science &
Technology. The Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth
Sciences Dr. Harsh Vardhan and the German Federal Minister for Education and
Research Ms. Johanna Wanka signed the main agreement and witnessed signing of
another agreement by the officials for the purpose after mutual discussions in
New Delhi today.
At the meeting held before the
3rd Indo-German Consultative meeting, both the Ministers
expressed their satisfaction on the level of Indo-German Science &
Technology cooperation which is now recognised as one of the strategic pillars
in the overall bilateral relationship.
It was reiterated by both
sides that they would continue to support and strengthen the basic research
component of collaboration which will underpin future technology developments.
India is investing
approximately 14 million euro for the construction of an additional beam line
and access to the synchrotron facility at PETRA-III in DESY at Hamburg.
Similarly, India is equity share holder with investment of 36 million euro
in the construction of the international “Facility for Antiproton-Ion Research”
(FAIR) at Darmstadt. Both these state of art facilities will further enable our
scientists to conduct high impact and frontier research in material science,
nuclear and high energy physics. On the same model, Dr. Harsh Vardhan offered
Germany to participate in some of the future mega science projects, which India
will be embarking upon.
A major highlight of the
meeting was the agreement on both sides to extend the bi-national
Indo-German Science & Technology Center (IGSTC) beyond 2017 with increase
in funding from 2 million euro to 4 million euro every year. This was a
reflection of the common endeavour on both sides to support industrially
relevant R&D projects that have potential to generate novel technologies
and new intellectual property in sectors such as advance manufacturing,
embedded systems & ICT for automobiles, renewable energy, food security,
clean water and health care technologies- all of which are in tune with present
national missions of the government of India. India is the only country with
whom Germany has such a bilateral R&D Centre dedicated to promote applied
and industrial R&D. The Centre is already supporting 15 joint projects and
pro-types of some new technologies have been co-developed in solar-thermal
energy, stress tolerant chic-pea variety, and high altitude cold resistance
plants etc.
Dr. Harsh Vardhan expressed
confidence that the extended tenure of Indo-German Science & Technology
Centre (IGSTC) until 2022 along with doubling its financial resources will
enable us to co-develop affordable technologies that can contribute to the
knowledge economy of both our countries.
Both the Ministers reiterated
the need for concerted effort to promote exchanges of young scientists and
student researchers. To this end DST through a Letter of Intent agreed to
continue the support for participation of 25 Indian science and medical students
to the annual Nobel Laureate meet in Lindau.
Both the Ministers echoed that
the future cooperation should focus on programs to promote innovation and
techno-entrepreneurship by linking the SME and Start-up enterprises of both the
countries in order to make meaningful contribution to the knowledge economy and
use the tools of science and technology to address socially relevant
challenges. New areas such as anti-microbial resistance and regenerative
medicine, earth science system including monsoon studies and marine sciences
required to understand the climate change process was emphasised by the Indian
side that needs to be addressed together.
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