TIRUCHI: The President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has advocated launch of a `Youth Satellite' as an Indo-Russian venture, A. Sivathanu Pillai, Distinguished Scientist and Chief Controller (Research and Development), Defence Research and Development Organisation, said.
The satellite will be dedicated for promoting youth programmes in India and Russia, Dr. Pillai, who is also the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, BrahMos, said, delivering a lecture on `Technology, Youth and Nation' after the inauguration of `Pragyan 2007,' the annual technology showbiz of the National Institute of Technology-Tiruchi (NIT-T), here on Thursday.
The country was optimising the utility of satellites launched so far in the areas of tele-education, tele-medicine and remote sensing. There are currently 170 tele-education centres and 150 tele-medicine centres, and remote sensing is being adopted for urban planning, coastal applications and forestry. Space technology was poised for a phenomenal change in the years to come.
New revolution
On the path ahead for the youth, he said convergence of nano, bio, and information technologies was leading to a new revolution that would create a total change beyond the knowledge society.
In his inaugural address, T. Sankaralingam, Chairman and Managing Director, National Thermal Power Corporation, called for socially relevant innovation on the part of the educated youth to arrive at products and processes that would help the nation alleviate poverty.
While technology-driven development was essential to sustain the country's economic growth rate of eight percent, innovative technology should be the focus. `Innovate or Perish' was the buzzword of industry, he said.
M. Thangarajan, Head, Operations and Quality, Tata Elxsi — the main sponsor of Pragyan `07' — said the economic transformation of the country that was started by Information Technology was not restricted to it.
The brainpower was leading to innovation. By producing ideas with proven capability India can take the world by storm, said Mr. Thangarajan, observing that Pragyan '07 was one such event channelling brainpower into innovative technology.
Presiding over, the Director of NIT-T, M. Chidambaram, said inter-disciplinary study leads to creativity and innovation and listed the initiatives directed at bringing the Institute on a par with the Indian Institutes of Technology. S. Moses Santhakumar, Dean (Students), NIT-T, said that Pragyan '07 comprised 25 events spanning 11 genres providing opportunities for innovation.
A new event, `Jagriti,' tests the social concern of participants and required them to arrive at solutions for common daily problems.
Source: http://www.hindu.com/2007/02/02/stories/2007020223900300.htm
