YS Chowdary inaugurates national conference

Sriharikota, June 24 (INN): Congratulating all scientists and engineers of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC SHAR), ISRO, Sriharikota and those across the country for the successful launch of PSLV-C34 with a payload consisting of 20 satellites, Union Minister of State for Science & Technology Y S Chowdary inaugurated LAMSYS-2016, National Conference on 'Large scale Multi-disciplinary Systems of National Significance ' Trends & Challenges, here today morning.

'I was proud to reflect that apart from our Cartosat-2 series satellite and two satellites of Indian Universities, we have carried a payload consisting of 17 foreign satellites from four countries across continents ' the USA, Canada, Germany and Indonesia. It is a great achievement for ISRO and the whole nation, especially the science and technology fraternity, is extremely proud of all of you,' he said.

Emphasizing the role and significance of the Conference, Chowdary said, 'The future belongs to development of large multi-disciplinary systems like metros, bullet trains, large ship building, complex satellite systems, aircraft manufacture, defence systems and atomic energy. When such systems are to be built, we need to integrate complex sub systems of various disciplines. Systems engineering ensures that all likely aspects of a project or system are considered, and integrated into a whole. Issues such as engineering, design, reliability, logistics, and coordination of different teams, testing and evaluation, maintainability and many other disciplines are to be individually successful in the first place for the overall success of the systems.'

The Minister said that LAMSYS-2016, being jointly organised by SDSC SHAR, ISRO, and Indian Society of Systems for Science and Engineering (ISSE), has a high impact potential because in addition to scientists and engineers from different organizations, a large participation of students from different universities and colleges from across the country are participating.

'The conference will provide a platform for system engineering practitioners, managers, researchers and scientists from government, private organisations and academia to exchange innovative concepts, ideas and applications. Innovation from our world-class talent pool of scientists and engineers is vital for progress of our economy and society. Your knowledge and skills are required in vast proportions across a range of manufacturing and research sectors,' Chowdary said.

Interacting with Shri A S Kiran Kumar, Chairman, Space Commission & Secretary, Department of Space, the delegates, scientists, engineers and student delegates, Mr Chowdary strongly recommended the need to focus on bringing scientific research beyond labs and journals to the use of common man.

'India is poised to play a critical role globally in fields of science & technology. We are on our way to becoming an economic and knowledge super power. But at the end of the day, the most important issue for each one of us and ultimately for growth of India is how progress in science and technology will help the common man. I am happy that ISRO is playing a leading role in offering services like providing information necessary for accurate crop yield prediction, assessment of ground water levels, exploration of minerals, and estimation of forest cover, monitoring environmental pollution and a plethora of related functions using our remote sensing satellites. Valuable services are being provided by our communication satellites today including simultaneous relay of thousands of telephone calls and country-wide telecasting, including provision of DTH services. Similarly our meteorological satellites provide valuable information required for generating accurate weather forecasts. But while science creates new possibilities, we must never lose sight of social impact,' he added.