Covid-19 in India: Government sets up team to crowdsource fixes

BENGALURU: The government has begun crowdsourcing ideas and solutions from experts, companies, academia and citizens to tackle the spread of the Covid-19 virus in the country. An “S&T core team” has been set up in the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to look at these ideas and collaborate with labs and industry to take those solutions faster to the public.

Government agencies such as the Department of Biotechnology, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Ministry of Electronics and IT as well as the Department of Science and Technolgoy have already launched several programmes to spread awareness and find ways to tackle the virus.

“The seriousness of Covid-19 requires that we, as scientists, proactively work together to ensure synergy, develop implementable solutions that health-workers, communities need,” Prof K VijayRaghavan, the Principal Scientific Advisor to the government wrote on Twitter. “The efforts of our clinicians and health workers will benefit greatly by effective and speedy inputs from science, technology, and innovation (STI).”


The team will also reach out to academic and industrial clusters, define problems and help collaborate.