Knowledge Network here to stay: Raghavan

Scientific secretary delivers the 82nd convocation address of AU

Visakhapatnam: National Knowledge Network (NKN) will change India for the better in the next few years; scientific secretary and principal scientific adviser to the central government SV Raghavan said and urged students’ passionate involvement in tackling problems of the country through it.

Delivering the convocation address at the 82nd convocation of Andhra University (AU) here on Monday, he compared NKN programme steered from his office with the LPG (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation) programme of India in 1991. “National Knowledge Network is multi gigabits per second network that covers India. It is a high bandwidth and low latency network with powerful CORE (at 10/40/100 gbps), distribution, and edges that connect institutions at 1/10 gpbgs.

All institutes of higher education and research such as IITs, IIMs, NITs, and universities and all national laboratories like CSIR, ICMR, ICAR, DBT, DST, DRDO and DoS are part of NKN,” he explained.

Prof. Raghavan said that already 1,300 institutions are on NKN. Many of them were using beyond one gbps and some exceeded even two gbps during the last three to four years. NKN has two properties –annihilation of distance and simultaneous observation of events. Both are extremely attractive and relevant in the health sector. “If we focus only on health referral system, the benefits are obvious. A patient requiring critical attention and an expert opinion can be remotely seen, examined, diagnosed and treated. What NKN provides is clear visibility of whatever medical records generated at the remote end like X-rays, 2D and 3D, MRIs, CT scans, PETs and so on. As time is of essence in life saving referral situations, local handling with remote expert guidance is the ideal combination,” he pointed out.

At NKN, they were working towards 100 gbps for next year and 400 gbps in 2016-17. “We are the largest in the world today. We will be the technology leader and the largest by 2016. As the chief architect of NKN, I can assure you that this is a great opportunity in the life of an individual,” he added.

Prof. Raghavan said that for connectivity, NKN is the backbone; but for India, the students were the backbone. Their enthusiastic participation and passionate involvement in tackling problems of India in modern contexts such as NKN would define India in the 21st century, he stated.

He urged the students to look around and recognise the opportunities around them. Climate change, clean energy, globally competitive manufacturing, analytics, and strategic thinking would be around them wherever they went. Besides, sectors such as education, health and agriculture are fertile areas for contribution and innovation. He cited the example of non-invasive approach in diagnosis and therapy which was becoming the key to health research. Countrywide classrooms were waiting to be discovered through appropriate pedagogy. The threshold of change beckoned them to participate in creating modern India and creating the egalitarian society enshrined in the Constitution, he said.

Earlier, Prof. Raghavan received the award of the honourary degree of doctor of science from Andhra University Vice-Chancellor Prof. GSN Raju for his immeasurable scientific contributions such as devising an infrared imaging system based on non-invasive method for breast cancer screening and transferring the technology to the industry.

In all, 225 PhD and 20 M Phil graduates received doctorates. In degree and PG courses 155 students were presented with gold medals in the convocation by the Vice-Chancellor. In PhD, 16 gold medals awarded.