Center of excellence (CoE) will focus on research covering all aspects of technology life-cycle – research, technology development, translation, and management. CoE will be funded to excel in verticals (application areas) to be useful to the society; in the process, they will also develop the horizontals (core areas) too.
Full-time managers/faculty will manage CoEs. In a CoE, the academia, industries, government and user agencies will be working together side by side. CoEs will have a hub-and-spoke architecture- that allows other academic institutions, research institutions, industry, industry associations, SMEs to plug in.
Some suggestion on areas for CoEs to focus on: Smart City Verticals: Smart Energy & Power, Intelligent Transportation & surveillance, Ubiquitous Healthcare Systems and Intelligent Networks and Communication Systems and DAPT applications on Defence Systems like Drone Systems for border security, Body Area Networks for real-time monitoring of soldier’s physical and mental health and stamina and beyond apart from working on Public Distribution services, Healthcare analytics/ management, Networked automated systems, security, Manufacturing (including manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals), Dependable predictive/ warning systems, Disaster monitoring and prediction. DAPT will be aggressively used to solve water problems, energy problems, and sanitization that can impact a large segment of the population. 3-D printing is a huge prompt for DAPT technology. 3-D printing, required for customizing solutions will be facilitated through CoEs. Some suggested areas are- safe and energy efficient logistics, driverless cars, that may be considered from exploration.
CoE will be based on a cluster model approach with all stakeholders participating and benefiting from it. Tier II and Tier III colleges and polytechnics will be allowed to be the part of the CoE, as spokes that reach out to remote locations and address local problems.
Intellectual Property rights are often contentious issues which the industry would like to clarify before they are asked to participate in CoEs. Ownership of IP will be given to the hosting Institute of CoE. The DPR will provide a basic minimum guideline on IP sharing which can be modified as per the needs of industry. IPR sharing is a big stumbling block in projects involving industry; these will be addressed in the DPR itself and will not be left to CoEs. Institutions being considered for the support that lead to IP generation must also be funded for international patents.
Test-bed facilities for testing solutions/prototypes must be created on Smart City Verticals: Smart Energy & Power, Intelligent Transportation & surveillance, Ubiquitous Healthcare Systems and Intelligent Networks and Communication Systems and DAPT applications on Defence, along with a large number of innovative ideas which die in the absence of business models that can be the pull-factor.
Conclaves for CoE once in a year will be organized to discuss the problems faced, future challenges and possible solutions by each, to benefit collectively.
There will be awareness/training programmes in DAPT and related areas for government officials and working personnel who are not able to understand the jargon in the context of DAPT national mission.
