Summary
Campus RAKSHAK integrates various applications into one to ensure COVID safety
Talks on to devise affordable and flexible pricing model, product, marketing and sales strategy
Campus RAKSHAK, a decision framework for educational institutions devised by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur to ensure smooth reopening of campuses and check the spread of COVID-19, has been tested at IIT Jodhpur and the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad.
IIT Jodhpur collaborated with IISc Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, IIT Kharagpur, IIIT Hyderabad, IIT Bombay, Algorithmic Biologics Pvt Ltd, HeathBadge Private Limited and Prithvi.AI for this initiative.
The team is in talks to devise an affordable and flexible pricing model, product, marketing and sales strategy to reach out to campuses across the country.
Campus RAKSHAK integrates various applications and tools into one. It has four components— Tapestry Pooling, Go Corona Go App, Simulators and Healthbadge. These form a single platform that monitor, predict, and recommend mitigation strategies for campuses against COVID-19.
“The tapestry pooling method assigns individual samples to multiple pools, reducing the cost of screening to one-fourth. Based on the results of each pool, the algorithm predicts COVID-19 positive samples,” said Manas Bairagi, chief technological officer, iHub Drishti.
iHub Drishti at IIT Jodhpur is a technology innovation hub focussed on computer vision, augmented reality and virtual reality.
“Go Corona Go is a mobile app similar to Aarogya Setu, but the data is accessible to the administration for making the right decisions to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Its primary purpose is to conduct contact tracing. Users will remain connected to the campus server through the Bluetooth of the phone,” Bairagi said.
The simulator has three models — Campus Modeler, CampusSim and EpiSimmer. “The simulator will be able to predict where the COVID-19 positivity will spread in the coming days. This can be considered an advisory system to help the administration make decisions,” Bairagi said. “Healthbadge is an information management and badging system that issues red, orange, and green badges to students after the coronavirus infection is investigated, depending on the adversity of the situation,” he said.
The integrated information management system and dashboards can help administrators keep track of the screening and vaccination status of the entire population on campuses and prevent possible spread of the disease.
Institutions will be able to rely on the Campus RAKSHAK solutions with indigenous innovations in screening and pooling strategies at affordable costs. “Using this technology, future epidemics can be controlled and public health interventions evaluated across the nation and the world,” Bairagi said.
iHuB Drishti is charging Rs 250 per user from the institutions opting for the programme. However, the team is working on its pricing model and also exploring a subscription model, as the numbers grow.
“The Campus RAKSHAK project is the outcome of consortium-based research to serve as an advisory system for the campus administrators. The agent-based simulator can model the mobility of agents on a campus, and the contact tracing app can build an anonymous contact-graph for the institution. The Information Management system manages COVID-19 on campus in an economical and efficient way through digital accounts,” IIT Jodhpur director Santanu Chaudhury said.
Last updated on 21 Feb 2022
