Tech for Seva, a Vijnana Bharati initiative for inclusive and sustainable development
India’s premier scientific organisation, Vijnana Bharati, in collaboration with Sewa Sahayog, Global Indian Scientists & Technocrats Foundation (GIST) and Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha (MKSSS) organised Tech for Seva, socio-technical conference on inclusive and sustainable social development from September 28 to 29 in Pune.
In the conference technological innovations and applications were presented and deliberated for addressing the core issues of health, environment, education and livelihood in Indian society. The conference was divided into four parts—poster and paper presentations highlighting the success stories and problems to be addressed; expo – displaying relevant and appropriate technologies along with solutions manifested into reality; student competitions-mooting ideas to highlight the use of technology to solve social problems and networking dinner: dinner for exchange of ideas between NGOs, corporate and researchers.
Dr Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of Automic Energy Commission, while delivering the keynote address at the inauguration by saying the initiatives like ‘Tech for Seva’ will pave the way for more balanced policy initiatives by combining ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches. While the chief guest of the valedictory function noted scientist Dr Vijay Bhatkar said that ‘Tech for Seva’ has shown a very innovative way to find answers to many of the problems bothering our country. This innovative way has enthused many people from all cross sections of our society. Hence, this should become a permanent platform.
In the curtain raiser event more than 400 student innovators from around 50 colleges in and around Pune participated in a competition to mark the beginning of ‘Techo for Seva’. Environment, health, livelyhood and education were the themes of the conference. 20 thousand students from 8 universities were contacted to take part in the conference. Organisers received 210 entries of which 131 were selected to be presented in the conference.
