The Dayalbagh Way of Life is not fixed at some point of time in the past. It is evolving with immense innovation, with Dayalbagh and its institutions imbibing
and contributing technology to make human life on this planet more sustainable.
The innovation cycle followed by Dayalbagh is evolutionary and not revolutionary, so that we can take each person along.
In the words of Revered Prof. Prem Saran Satsangi, from his book,
Management of Rural Energy Systems, published in 1983, “…in the service of The
Last, The Least, The Lowest, and the Lost Among Mankind”. So, we are looking at implementation of technology that furthers the Humanitarian cause.
In December 2016, Dayalbagh Educational Institute hosted and conducted
the IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technology Conference (HTC). IEEE, as many of
you may be aware is the world's largest technical professional organization
dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity, with ~450,000
IEEE members in over 160 countries.
The focus of this Conference was on Sigma Six Q & Smart Villages:
making sustainability a way of life. The scope of conference papers included,
the application/innovation of technology to improve quality in the following
areas: Energy, Education Systems, Environment Systems, Healthcare, Agriculture
& Dairy, Smart Village and Women Empowerment & Security.
Here is a summary of the topics of the Conference Speakers, speakers outside of DEI and IEEE...
On Day 1, in the Theme Session, the first speaker was Padma Bhushan Dr. V K Saraswat, Former Secretary
Defence R&D, Member NITI Aayog.
Dr. Vijay Kumar Saraswat is an Indian scientist who formerly served as the Director General of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Indian Minister of Defence. He is presently member of NITI Aayog i.e. the organization that replaced the Planning Commission of India and Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Dr. Saraswat kick-started the Theme Session on Gandhiji's quote on our working for a Planet that we will not see. He walked us through the past, the damages caused by our advancement, like land-fills, impact on rivers, depletion of non-renewable sources, loss of habitat and other staggering challenges like global health, food, water, rising temperatures, species extinction, coral bleaching and mortality, coastal flooding and reconfiguration of coast lines, droughts, disease vectors. He took us through disruptions like Global Urbanization, accelerating climate change, aging world, greater global connections. He gave us a glimpse and road map for the future, developing and deploying transformative and enabling technologies and the necessary and desirable transformations for sustainability and ushering in a human centric era.
Dr. Anoop Srivastava, IG,
Indian Railways, presented his views on “Sigma Six Q practices in Dayalbagh,
a smart eco-village”.
Abstract from his talk…
Establishment of Dayalbagh has a unique place in the history of India.
The metaphorical foundation stone of Dayalbagh was laid on 15th Jan 1915
in the form of plantation of a mulberry tree by its August Founder, Sir Anand
Swarup Sahab, which heralded
conversion of a sandy, barren land into a lively green-belt created and
maintained by the settlement of like-minded people. At the time when planned
development of the kind we know today was rare, it was only a divine plan that
could envisage enrichment of the colony with Sigma Six Q practices in the days
to come.
A term coined by Revered Prof. Prem Saran Satsangi, to describe
the Dayalbagh way of life, Sigma Six Q refers to the six salient qualities that
are inherent in the dynamics of this eco village. Summation of these qualities,
viz., Innovation, Air Quality, Water Quality, Health and Education, Agriculture
and Dairy, and Values- such as duty, beauty, humility courage, temperance,
wisdom, loyalty and justice-leads to synergistically enhanced impact on the
system. Dr. Srivastava’s talk covered the highlights of Sigma Six Q Model as
practised in Dayalbagh and its importance for sustainable growth.
The third speaker in the Theme Session was Padma Shri Dr. Ashok
Gulati, India’s top Agricultural Economist whose topic was “Growing
the Third Crop – Doubling farmers’ incomes by harvesting solar power”.
Abstract from his talk…
Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi said, “Poverty is the worst form of
violence” and also considered “Science without Humanity” as a spiritual sin. He
suggested the use of technology to alleviate poverty and thus uplift humanity.
Government of India has set an ambitious target of 100,000 MW of solar
power capacity to be achieved by 2022. Interestingly, Government of India has
also set another ambitious target of doubling farmers' incomes by 2022!
The uppermost question in everyone's mind is: can these targets be
achieved by 2022?
This is particularly so when the current solar power capacity in the
country touched 8000 MW by July end, 2016, and no country in the world has such
an ambitious target as India has set out for 2022. On farmers' real incomes, the compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) in the recent past (FY 2003 to FY 2013) has been a mere 3.5%; and doubling these incomes by 2022 would mean increasing this CAGR
from 3.5% to more than 12%.
Our global review suggests that costs of solar power have come down
across the world, by about 70 per cent since 2010-11. Most projects have been
executed as ground mounted utilities or as rooftop solar. But we submit an
innovative policy- that saves on land as well as help to augment farmers’
incomes. A significant progress can be made towards achievement of both of
these goals of Government of India, provided both are conceived and implemented
in unison, a sort of marrying each other, with innovative policies- like the
guaranteed feed-in-tariffs (FIT) for solar power generated on farmers' fields-
to back this alliance. Solar power can be used all along the agriculture value
chain- as a third crop for farmer fields, for solar powered irrigation systems,
for cold storage's and processing industries like dehydration. A true model of
Competitiveness with Inclusiveness, this can be Scaled up in a Sustainable
manner (CISS Model). This will also help to reduce power subsidies of state
electricity boards (SEBs), wherever solar power can substitute existing
connections.
The only thing to be seen is how to raise advance capital funds, how to
organize farmers on these lines, how to convince the Discoms for guaranteed
feed-in-tariffs, and how long it is persevered till the goals are reached!
On Day 2, we had a Special Session on Science of Consciousness (more on
this in a separate post - a small summary here)
Prof. Vishal Sahni presented a paper on “Innovative (Superintelligence with
Spiritual-Quality and Value Based Control-) Graph Theoretic Quantum System
Modelling (IGTQSM)”.
This was followed by a session by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay on “Consciousness is music of
the primes”.
Dr. Dayal Pyari Srivastava presented her research on “Scientific
Epistemology and the Phenomenology of Consciousness: Looking for Correspondence
between them using SQUID based MEG Device”.
The session ended with Dr. Bani Dayal Dhir giving an overview of (i-c-n-c-)
TALL, “(iNFORMATION-cOMMUNICATION-nEURO-cOGNITIVE-) Technologies Assisted Language Lab at Dayalbagh Educational Institute.
On Day 3, we had Mr. Jayant Krishna, COO, National Skill Development
Corporation, whose talk was on “Reaping the Demographic Dividend through
Skilling India, leveraging technology for Skill delivery”.
Abstract from his talk...
Education is the key to sustainable development. It is the creation,
adaptation and sharing of knowledge, skills and values that is essential to
development – both at the individual level as well as at the macro level. Right
to Education is not only an excellent catalyst for social change and justice,
it helps us understand and realise our other rights – economic, social and
cultural.
Education combined with skills form the driving forces of economic
growth and social development for any country. With the rise of the knowledge
society and growth of digital media, the goal posts keep changing for what
might constitute as basic functional literacy.
India has developed a national higher education system that offers
multiple choices and pathways to acquire a variety of skills. With nearly 700
universities and more than 35,000 affiliated colleges enrolling more than 20
million students. In contrast to the ageing population of the western world,
India has a unique 20–25 years window of opportunity called the “demographic
dividend”. This demographic dividend presents a tremendous opportunity for
India to become a global economic leader. It is expected that India will have
more than 700 million people in the working population by 2022, with 12 million
people expected to join the workforce each year. This talent pool needs to be
adequately skilled.
In order to prevent demographic dividend from turning into a demographic
disaster, the government has taken several steps to empower people at the grass
root level and help them acquire skills in order to earn a better livelihood.
In November 2014, the government also formed the Ministry of Skill Development
and Entrepreneurship, which will catalyse skill development initiatives across
the country. The single biggest reform
is the amendment to the archaic Apprenticeship Act, which now make it easier
for companies to hire and train apprentices. Apprenticeship has been a
successful model of skilling youth in countries all over the world. This reform
alone can increase the number of apprenticeships in India from the current 2.4
lakh to 30 lakh a year. The motivation through Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas
Yojana (PMKVY) has driven more than 20 lakh candidates to get skilled and
certified in the last one year. The journey has just started; the path has just
been laid to lead India into an era of becoming the skills capital of the
World.
Editor’s Note: Dayalbagh Educational Institute is one of the top Institutes for Vocational Education.
The Valedictory Speaker was Dr. Ajoy K Bhattacharya, MD,
National Green Highway Mission who talked about his mission, “Carbon Sequestration – My Way is the Highway”
Abstract from his talk...
Dr. Bhattacharya talked about developing eco-friendly National Highways for
Sustainable Environment & Inclusive Growth, with objectives of develop a systematic
framework for Integrated Green Corridor Development along National Highways, Build
resilient ecosystem in the form of “Green Corridors” along National Highways for
Combating global warming and climate change effects, Optimum GHG sequestration,
conservation of native species of the region, develop unique green corridors with
aesthetic appeal, reduce the impacts of air, noise pollution and dust, reduce soil
erosion at embankment slopes, reduce the effects of wind and incoming UV radiation.
Additionally, there were two special tracks and a Hackathon.
Special Track 1: Women in Engineering track
The theme of the session was, “Women Empowerment to break barriers and
lead the smart world”.
The chief guest was Ms. Sneh Bijlani, Treasurer
of Dayalbagh Educational Institute. She captivated the audience by narrating
her own experiences in achieving top level positions and the hardships one has
to face as a woman and how she overcame these with perseverance.
Special Track 2: Young Professionals Track
This track was focused on “The Digital Revolution and its
implications in everyday life”. The speakers view was that with the dawn of digital technologies, we are
in the early stages of significant changes leading us into the age of
“Systems”. The machine age which has industrial revolution as its counterpart
is now giving way to “Systems Age” having automation and AI (Artificial
Intelligence) as its technological counterparts. “The Rise of the Robots” and “Machine
Learning” technologies are will cause unemployment so much so in about thirty
years, half of world population will be out of jobs according to a report. As
one computer scientist put it, "We are approaching a time when machines
will be able to outperform humans at almost any task. I believe that society
needs to confront this question before it is upon us: if machines are capable
of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?” In the years to
come life could be absolute leisure with no work and this could be death knell
for human survival, particularly if the developing technology is not kept as a
good servant. These sentiments were echoed when Stephan Hawking had said that
AI, if left unchecked, "could spell the end of the human race". Elon
Musk (Tesla Inc.) also sounded that future advancements in AI could be akin to "we are
summoning the demon".
In order to understand the revolution, we are experiencing we need to
look more closely at the concepts, ideas and philosophies that are shaping the
evolving world view. This calls for a shift in our thinking that is required as
the world unfolds around us in this “Systems Age”. The globalized world is a
giant social system, interdependent and interconnected (hyper connected). So,
our approaches to understand and solve problems cannot be based on mechanistic
view of the world, hitherto followed. If we are complacent and maintain status
quo on how we think and act in a reactive mode, there will be “degradation of
our quality of life, if not our standard of living”. As we move into the
systems age, we need to supplement our high-tech abilities, with thinking abilities
that are high concept (systemic ideas, detecting patterns, creativity) and high
touch (empathize, purpose and meaning).
And in parallel to all these sessions we had the fun-filled Hackathon
Typically, these conferences tend to be academic in nature, with limited
industry and student interaction. In this conference, a hackathon/makethon was
launched, as it offers the opportunity to bring together the best of:
- Academia – latest technology and research ideas. Bringing theoretical concepts to real world through building prototypes.
- Industry – state of the art engineering and design concepts, science in action. A platform where the academic and student community provides new ideas and new talent to fuel the next generation of their products and service offerings.
- Students – motivated, enthusiastic next generation leaders of technology. This event offers access to cutting edge technology, which helps them gain hands on technical skills in line with industry trends.
There were over 150 registrations and 70 final participants. It
represented how the next generation of student members will be indispensable in
our search for sustainable solutions to some of the major, existential problems
that lie before us – climate change, unprecedented pollution, population
growth, diseases and epidemics, and natural disasters.
The winning projects were:
Efficient Water Management
Water is a big problem: Today, India ranks second worldwide in farm
output. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and fisheries accounted
for 13.7% of the GDP (gross domestic product) in 2013, about 50% of the
workforce. We have come up with an Efficient Water supply management System in
which adequate amount of water will be used, based on the crop, time during the
crop cycle and in a drip irrigation way and not flood.
Real Time Automatic Plougher and Sower (RAPS)
Nowadays farmers face problem in getting adequate labour. This system
will reduce labour work of farmers and help in increasing the preciseness in
seed sowing system. The system is a robotic vehicle that facilitates ploughing
fields and sowing seeds without human intervention.
Park IT
Majority of the Traffic problem is due to improper parking system. In India 25% Accidents are due to improper
parking in Metro Cities. This prototype consists of a mobile app and hardware
unit that helps user book the parking slot in real time. This system will solve
daily life parking problem faced by people in Metro cities. This system will
allow you to register your vehicle number in the parking system through mobile
app. The system will also notify you about the available parking space nearby.
Sound of Silence
Speech impaired people always face difficulty in communicating and
socializing with people around them. The system recognizes gestures of speech
impaired people and convert them into sound signals. Hence this system helps
speech impaired people to communicate effectively with the people around them.
This will overall create a change in their day to day life.
Any Time Medicine (ATM)
We come across long queues around medical shops and at times there is an
early shutdown of medical shops. This causes inconvenience to public who
require medicines in urgency. The project aims at providing medicine anytime
and anywhere. This system helps to get the medicine you require in case of
emergency. Tap on the medicine of your choice and you can pay by scanning QR
code. In case the medicine is not available a message will be displayed to
convey the same.
Smart cycle sharing system
Going from one place to another in big educational, corporate and
community campus is very time consuming. The density of vehicles is
exponentially rising not only causing health related issues, but also rising
environmental concerns. The complete
system consists of GPS based tracking device that helps in real time tracking
of bicycle. The user has an option to pre-book the cycle through mobile app.
That’s it for now.
Thanks to Prof. Bhagwan Das for his inputs and help. We will take you through further details of some of the Plenary talks in later posts.
The above post is by Anurag Singh, the Sigma Six Q Blog Editor.
