Tech Innovation Hubs of IIT Delhi, IIIT Delhi to jointly set up India’s first Medical Cobotics Centre

NEW DELHI: I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics (IHFC), the Technology Innovation Hub (TIH) of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) and iHub Anubhuti, the TIH of Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIITD), signed an agreement on Wednesday to set up India’s first Medical Cobotics Centre (MCC) at IIIT-Delhi.

Ashutosh Sharma, former DST Secretary was the chief guest and KR Murali Mohan, Mission Director of NM-ICPS, DST was also present at the ceremony.

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“Medical Cobotics Centre (MCC) will be a technology enabled medical simulation and training facility for the young resident doctors besides acting as a validation centre for the research outcomes in the area of healthcare robotics and digital health,” as per the joint statement by the institutes.

The Medical Cobotics Centre will facilitate the training of other healthcare professionals, paramedical staff, technicians, engineers, and researchers.

The training programmes will be designed in consultation with leading doctors/ experts, mainly from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at New Delhi, Jodhpur, and other medical colleges.

The training programmes will be at multiple levels (basic/advanced) and cohort-specific like urology, neurology, laparoscopy, and others but initially limited to minimum invasive surgeries.

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The institute said that there is a plan to induct the first batch of trainees in April/ May 2022 with some of the basic training simulators, which are widely available in the open market, whereas advanced surgical robots will be inducted in the next phase.

“The MCC is expected to cater to the needs of medical colleges in the Delhi-NCR region and this activity is also in line with the National Education Policy for medical subjects,” the official notice read.

The TIHs are funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India under its National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS).

Speaking of the collaboration between the two Technology Innovation Hubs, IIT Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao said, “We are happy to associate with IIITD for the joint Medical Cobotics Centre (MCC). In order to develop technologies for societal benefit, it’s important for researchers from across the institutions to come together and work in a focused manner.”

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Ranjan Bose, Director, IIIT Delhi, also echoed the same and said, “We, being one of the leading institutes in the area of information technology, were entrusted with the responsibility of creating a TIH in the broad domain of Cognitive Sciences and Social Sensing by the DST. Cognitive and Sensing technologies are essential for the next-generation robotics, particularly for applications in the medical domain and digital health. I am confident that this collaboration will create an impact in this space and move the needle.”