First Indian University to Sign MoU with British Geological Survey

With the larger vision of bringing in the best minds in the world to collaborate for cutting-edge research initiatives, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has signed MoU’s with leading premier research institutions in the world. Most of these initiatives have been driven by compassion to provide the best in class in terms of Medicine, Education, Healthcare, Water, and various other areas. 

To further extend its collaborative initiatives, Amrita signed an MoU with The British Geological Survey (BGS) of the United Kingdom Research and Innovation thereby becoming the first Indian university to sign an MoU with UK’s prestigious national research centre, the BGS. The MoU is intended to develop technical cooperation between Amrita and BGS in the field of landslide monitoring & research. Amrita being a core member of the LANDSLIP consortium, enhances the Indian, UK, and Italian scientists and engineers contributing to the LANDSLIP challenge to contribute to new knowledge and information on landslide risk reduction in India. 

This collaboration has paved the way to sign an MoU with the BGS that will further strengthen the existing alliance between the two institutes and will enhance the strong research bank that is already in place. Amrita Center for Wireless Networks and Applications (AmritaWNA) has been actively pursuing research on landslide monitoring and prediction for more than a decade now. The researchers from AmritaWNA and the BGS have been involved in collaborative research work for the past few years. After a successful and mutually beneficial collaboration, the two institutions stepped forward to sign this MoU in order to develop and reinforce their cooperation in the fields of earth sciences, mineral prospecting, and disaster management. It is also an effort to improve the cooperation between the United Kingdom and the Republic of India through participation in this MOU, with the intent of reinforcing and strengthening scientific links between the two countries.

India’s first remote triggered lab in computer science

Many states in the country are yet to fulfill the norms laid down in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. The figures for laboratories for science-related subjects are dismal. The students lack exposure to laboratory based environments thereby missing the hands-on experience of working on real-time experiments. To bridge this gap, Amrita University has developed a remote triggered virtual lab in computer science, which is an experimental wireless sensor network deployed partly indoors and partly outdoors. The lab will provide students practical experience in designing, deploying, and implementing wireless sensor networks in both indoor and outdoor conditions. Remote users will have a permanent test-bed for the development and testing of concepts. The lab will allow remote users to write their own programs, load and test their programs for learning the impact and the tradeoff between different designs.

The project was funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development. The experiments are developed keeping in mind the needs of undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as research scholars. The different concepts we plan to work on include power consumption, transmission range, energy optimization, and data collection. In order to get the feel of a real lab, students will test actual sensors and wireless sensor networks on a

remote trigger basis. The interfaces for recording data and performing calculations on the collected data will be provided, to give a real feel of the labs.

Rural India Tablet Enhanced Education (AmritaRITE)

Working under Amma’s strategic vision, RITE serves to bridge the increasing technology and education divide between urban and rural areas of India. Amma has always stressed the importance of imparting the right skills to the rural population of India, who are often neglected and exploited due to lack of education. The children and adults alike are unable to come to the forefront of society and are often pushed behind in development because of this very reason. By having seen the lives of countless people in villages who are downtrodden, as a first step, Amma devised an approach that revolves around the 2 pillars, i.e. language and Maths that are crucial in developing comprehension. As most of the rural population including children attend to work or help with agriculture, the approach required a solution that can be provided at their disposal, accessible round the clock, and which is not dependent on the physical presence of a teacher. 

Stemmed from this need, the AmritaRITE system was created which is an educational initiative pioneered by AmritaCREATE, the Amrita Center for Research in Analytics, Technologies & Education at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. It was first deployed in rural Uttarakhand, after the Kedarnath floods of 2013. AmritaRITE seeks to empower rural children with tablet-based education and awareness building from early childhood with the aim of achieving holistic development in 21 states across the nation, benefiting both children and adults, including ethnic and indigenous groups. Using low-power Android tablets, AmritaRITE surmounts the inherent power and connectivity issues in remote rural areas and brings educational content that is multilingual and culturally appropriate, effectively bridging the increasing technology and education divide between urban and rural areas of India.

Amrita RITE advocates for education and awareness-building from early childhood with the aim of achieving holistic development, and is now active in 41 centres in 21 states across the nation, benefiting both children and adults, including ethnic and indigenous groups.

A-VIEW: Amrita’s Flagship E-Learning Platform

A-view was born out of the need to address one of the pressing issues of higher education in India, the shortage of highly qualified teachers. A rising tide of teacher discontent and disaffection owing to the outflow to other professional areas are causing a major shortage in the number of qualified teachers. Born out of Amma’s vision to address the need to provide an immersive learning experience for students in higher education as a part of overcoming this challenge, A-view, the e-learning platform was born. 

Amrita Virtual Interactive E-Learning World (A-VIEW) is an award-winning indigenously built multi-modal, multimedia e-learning platform that provides a high-quality virtual classroom experience. Honorable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, used A-VIEW to interact with Skill Training centres across the country on Youth Skills Day. A-VIEW is now deployed at several IITs, NITs, and other leading educational institutions across the nation.

VALUE Virtual Simulation Labs

One of the major challenges in higher education is the disparity in the access of high-quality educational resources to students from less privileged backgrounds which covers the rural population as well. Virtual Simulation Labs was born out of Amma’s idea to tap on the huge potential in the youth from these backgrounds and to provide them with a high-quality education. Having seen students from various backgrounds struggling to get access to education for a sustainable future, Amma made the virtual labs accessible freely via the internet.  Although the primary objective is to benefit Indian students on a large scale, these virtual labs are currently in use in over 12 countries.

Another key feature is that these virtual labs are developed in various science and engineering disciplines thus benefiting students across various streams of study. Virtual labs are media-rich online learning environments, which allow users to conduct physical laboratory experiments in a computer-simulated environment. This innovative new educational technique is enabling experimentation beyond the boundaries of traditional laboratories. These digital learning tools are enabling students to practice and better learn the theory and concepts behind the experiments irrespective of their geographical location.

Digital Literacy for Tribal Communities

Scheduled tribes are among the most geographically, socially isolated, and economically marginalized communities. Education is one of the primary agents of transformation towards development. Education is in fact, an input not only for the economic development of tribes but also for the inner strength of the tribal communities which helps them in meeting the new challenges of life. Studies in the area prove that tribal enrolment declines significantly in the higher classes. Major challenges that act as barriers in the area of tribal education are the location of the village which makes accessibility an issue and economic condition.

Our chancellor has showered endless compassion towards the tribal communities over the past 15 years through various initiatives undertaken by Amrita University and the parent organization. As an extension of these initiatives, Tribal eLiteracy, a digital education initiative has been developed to train tribal youth in basic digital awareness. The certified course also provides access to digital libraries, games, and apps for e-learning. It teaches how to create simple documents, create excel sheets, access the internet and fill out application forms for banking, and other needs. Supplemented by a health awareness segment, it helps influence public health outcomes in tribal communities. The program has more than 2000 beneficiaries and has been deployed in Kerala under a grant from MeitY, and in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan under a grant from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. This program would greatly benefit the youth in coming to the forefront of society. As a recognition of the work done to uplift India’s tribal people in the fields of education, health, and e-literacy in October 2018, The Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India, awarded Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham the title of ‘Centre of Excellence in Tribal Empowerment through Digital Inclusion’ in recognition of its significant work to uplift India’s tribal people in the fields of education, health and e-literacy.