IIT-NR, IGKV ink pact to address agricultural problems

New Delhi: An MoU was signed between International Institute of Information Technology - Naya Raipur (IIIT-NR) and Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishvavidyalaya (IGKV) on Wednesday, wherein both parties agreed to perform collaborative work to solve various problems in agriculture sector.

This MoU was signed by the Director and Vice-Chancellor of IIIT-NR, Dr. Pradeep K. Sinha, and Vice-Chancellor of IGKV, Dr. S. K. Patil. IIIT-Naya Raipur is one of the country's fastest growing premier institutes for research in Information Technology and associated disciplines, with specific focus in the field of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science. IGKV, on the other hand, has established itself as one of the top Universities for Agricultural Research in India.

On the occasion, Dr. P.K. Sinha said that the cutting edge research being done at IIIT-NR can help scientists at IGKV solve problems related to identification, mitigation, and cure of various crop related diseases. He also informed that Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Image Processing and IoT Techniques with Data Analytic capabilities are being used in Israel and few other countries for agricultural yield with optimised resources, from every acre of land.

Dr. S.K.Patil emphasised the need for researchers from Computer Science, Electronics and Agriculture domains to collaborate to understand the real problems of agriculture and their solutions. He informed about the huge availability of data in the form of drone images, which can be utilised by computer scientists to estimate crop production or loss, identify diseases for their early cure, among other applications.

He also encouraged scientists to take up entrepreneurial ventures in order to create a model village, wherein every problem of the village could be solved using Artificial Intelligence in agriculture. The event of MoU signing ceremony was attended by Prof. M.P.Thakur and Prof. R.R.Saxena from IGKV and Dr. R. Mahapatra, Dr. S.Sahoo, Dr. B.K.Panigrahi, Dr. M. Ojha, Dr. V.Tiwari, Dr. S.V.Tripathi, Dr. P.P.Paltani and Dr. A.Singh from IIIT-NR.