Artificial intelligence to drive road safety, car data, and genomics in IIIT -H projects

IIIT H has launched three projects for road safety, health, and science in Telangana. IT Minister K T Rama Rao inaugurated the projects and said, "Artificial intelligence is one of the fastest-growing technologies according to Gartner's 2022 CEO survey. It is the top priority for business leaders and has remained a top priority for the third year in a row." Niti Ayog has also emphasized on AI.

Speaking about skilling manpower, he informed that the Telangana government in association with TASK trained 25,000+ students and 4500+ faculties. Further, it aims to train at least 1 lakh youth in high school in foundation AI courses.

Project iRASTE Telangana:

Project iRASTE (intelligent Solutions for Road Safety through Technology and Engineering) Telangana uses AI & ADAS solutions that will act as a force multiplier and transform Road Safety. This is in collaboration with INAI, IIITH, Intel, Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), and Uber. Predictive insights generated via AI can prevent accidents even before they happen. TSRTC vehicles that ply the highways are the target fleet for this project with Uber's Road Safety Initiatives expertise.

Govt. of India (GoI) is driving the vision of a 50 percent reduction in road fatalities on Indian roads by 2024. Technology can act as a force multiplier in addressing the problems of road safety and mobility enhancement on India's roads. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based solutions have shown remarkable results worldwide in enabling safer Mobility and Transportation systems.

Bodhyaan Car Platform:

Bodhyaan is the car data capture platform set up at IIIT Hyderabad with multiple sensors – cameras, LIDARs, night-vision cameras, RADARs, including the required computational power to capture and process real-time data on the car. Bodhyaan 1.0 is presently equipped with 6 cameras for a full surround view, a LIDAR sensor and high compute for data capture and processing. Researchers, academics, and start-ups in India can use this platform to test algorithms or methods of in-vehicle navigation, data collection, or anything related to Indian roads and research.

MicroLabs:

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the strength of Genomics in knowing the virus, variants linked to disease outcome, and genomic surveillance. Current Genomic Surveillance initiatives send samples to Central Labs that have challenges with turnaround time and logistics. Pathogen sequencing capability closer to the sample collection point will address these challenges. MicroLabs [Next generation sequencing for pandemic preparedness], set up at IIIT Hyderabad in collaboration with CSIR-IGIB, is a solution approach to address the above questions. This solution brings genomic surveillance for communicable diseases to Point of Care (POC).

MicroLabs will work towards Broad Genomic surveillance of Communicable Diseases – Real-time dashboards/heatmaps for health officers, complementary to current IDSP, and a road map to cover all districts in Telangana.

Prof P J Narayanan, Director, IIIT Hyderabad said, "Project iRASTE will help immensely with road safety with specific context to Telangana."

Commenting on the launch, Nivruti Rai, Country Head, Intel India, and Vice President, Intel Foundry Services said, "Today's announcement of three key projects in the areas of road safety, enhanced datasets, and genomic surveillance with multiple ecosystem partners are expected to take the momentum further. The potential of these projects could deliver in driving innovation and collaboration, making a huge impact on the ground and enriching lives."