National Technology Day 2021: Science and technology for a sustainable future

The Nationwide Expertise day was first celebrated on 11 Might 1999 to commemorate India’s technological milestone of finishing profitable nuclear exams on 11 Might 1998.

By Milind Kulshreshtha

A Nationwide Expertise Day held below the aegis of the Ministry of Science & Expertise holds a particular significance throughout these ongoing COVID pandemic instances. Immediately, fashionable applied sciences have emerged as the important thing to saving human lives by way of inventing COVID-19 vaccines or devices for synthetic oxygen for sufferers counting their breaths. Throughout this COVID 19 disaster happening for greater than a 12 months, well being staff have been on the forefront of the battle towards the pandemic with help from fashionable medical applied sciences. Although tremendous human efforts have been put in by the medical groups, the pandemic disaster has itself shaken the very basis of recent expertise by its ferocity and the sheer quantity of these contaminated. Up till the top of 2019, whereas humankind was over optimistic in its scientific prowess to have the ability to discover Mars, poke an asteroid or invent nanotechnology and so forth. for charting new desires within the twenty first century, the COVID-19 virus modified the world state of affairs and has been testing the boundaries of human innovation.

Within the final greater than seven a long time of independence, India has seen a stellar development in expertise fields, be it House, Data Expertise, atomic power, pharmacy or biotech. With a projected inhabitants of greater than 1.5 billion by 2050, India can solely depend on fashionable applied sciences for sustenance within the twenty first century. The current COVID-19 pandemic and the environmental calamities such because the Australian wildfires spurred by local weather change merely showcase the challenges of the trendy period and insufficiency of in the present day’s applied sciences to maintain human lives protected. This 12 months’s theme of Nationwide Expertise Day “Science and Expertise for a Sustainable Future” aptly signifies scientific analysis and expertise as the way forward for any flourishing human society in instances to return.

The world nonetheless doesn’t know what’s the new regular however the leaders world over are rethinking to plan new methods to harness fashionable applied sciences that might assist drive immunity to COVID virus and make them emerge from the disaster on the earliest. With the COVID-19 instances on an increase, GoI has recognized a five-step technique of Testing, contact tracing, affected person remedy, COVID acceptable behaviour and the Vaccination, which too are based mostly on fashionable expertise. Even the general public consciousness marketing campaign on the COVID shall be expertise dependent for Data sharing by way of varied digital platforms like Twitter and so forth.

Why Nationwide Expertise Day on 11 Might?

The Nationwide Expertise day was first celebrated on 11 Might 1999 to commemorate India’s technological milestone of finishing profitable nuclear exams on 11 Might 1998. These exams established India as a nuclear succesful state on the world map, a breakthrough solely achieved by a handful of countries. The occasion was extremely vital for nations’ safety as India had two nuclear weapon succesful hostile neighbours viz. China and Pakistan. The CTBT (Complete Check Ban Treaty) deadline for India would have ceaselessly stifled India’s likelihood to own a second strike nuclear deterrence functionality to safeguard itself. The nuclear explosion of 1998 quickly modified the dynamics for India, like opening of alternatives with NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group), ITER (Worldwide Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) and different worldwide teams. Nonetheless, within the quick time period, the varied sanctions imposed by the world adversely affected a number of Defence initiatives and different twin use expertise initiatives. The silver lining right here was that India grew to become an increasing number of centered on self-reliance in expertise.

Indian Nuclear Doctrine of 1999 broadly outlines the no-first-use coverage and defensive posture of “credible minimal nuclear deterrence”. Immediately, India stays out of the world treaty of CTBT. Nonetheless, India has a selected facility-based safeguards settlement with the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company (IAEA) and a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) permitting it to take part in international civilian nuclear expertise initiatives.

Science and Expertise for a Sustainable Future

The prevailing superior medical care infrastructure crumbled below the sheer burden of numbers contaminated inside a brief length and globally, 1000’s of lives have been misplaced every single day for the final greater than a 12 months. Regardless of the vaccine breakthroughs, jabs to tens of millions, many tens of millions are but to be protected and it’s now a race towards time for contemporary expertise. The virus is doing what it’s recognized to do finest i.e. adapting and mutating to tackle a stronger avatar, utilizing a type of intelligence but unknown to fashionable science. Human expertise is attempting to maintain tempo with the quick evolving threats posed by varied viruses and this duel has been existence because the very first antiviral drugs was created. The sustainable future requires science and expertise to evolve extra quickly and look out for options that are past human imaginative and prescient in the present day. Other than this, the local weather change disaster too is looming massive as a pure catastrophe, and technological analysis has to search out the options on the earliest.

The scholars who’re the longer term expertise leaders for India are themselves going through a difficult time in the course of the pandemic. College students certain inside the 4 partitions of their houses are sitting individually and interacting just about to be educated. The big a part of sensible ‘look & really feel’ obtainable in a college laboratory or a school workshop is totally lacking, together with the advantages of a bunch based mostly studying. The topics like engineering have at all times been about real-world sensible drawback fixing abilities, with theoretical data serving to to put the muse.

On this Nationwide Expertise Day 2021, the science and expertise schooling too requires a particular focus. With fashionable ideas like Synthetic Intelligence (AI), Schooling 4.0 and different studying software program built-in inside the sociotechnical configuration, curiously, the sustenance of future schooling in science and expertise is now extremely intertwined with the event of the expertise itself.

(The creator is CEO of AIKairos which runs the Business 4.0 implementation and schooling programme in India. E mail: milind@aikairos.com. Views expressed are private and don’t replicate the official place or coverage of Monetary Specific On-line.)