34th Annual Report (2021-22)

34 PUNE KNOWLEDGE CLUSTER AboutPuneknowledgeCluster Vision Mission KeyAchievements (since inception inJuly2020) ¬ ¬ PKCFocusAreas I. Health The Pune Knowledge Cluster (PKC) is one of the six S&T clusters established by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India under The City Knowledge and Innovation Cluster Initiative (CKIC). PKC aims to create, enable and nurture a collaborative S&T ecosystem for various stakeholders, including Industry, Academia, Government, and Citizens. The Pune Knowledge Cluster (PKC) aims to bring together academia, R & D institutions, and the Industry of Pune and its surrounding areas, to address challenging problems of the region through innovative means, using scientific knowledge and engaging highly skilled human resources. To act as a catalyst to bring together the large talent pool present in Industry, Academia, Government, and non-Governmental organizations of Pune to brainstorm, discuss and identify projects of importance and value to the region and to execute them through collaborative efforts PKC has raised over Rs. 5 CR in the form of grants and CSR funding fromorganizations like Rockefeller Foundation, Hindustan Unilever, Cummins Foundation, Persistent Foundation, Schlumberger, Lenovo India, BASF Chemicals India, and theUniversity of Southampton for its various projects. PKC has built partnerships with 60 organizations (national and international) and signed MoUs with 18 organizations including academia, R&D labs, industries, NGOs, and incubation centers. PKC's Health vertical aims to build collaborations across academic and industry, NGOs, and Govt departments in generating data critical for public health decisions such as serosurveys, clinical, immunological, and environmental surveillance etc., and creating an epidemiological database with comprehensive health information for Pune and access to real- time data. Projects supported under PKC's health vertical align with the Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) and the NationalHealthMission . Projects : PKCmanages 5 ongoing projects and has completed 1 project onCOVID-19. PKC is hosted by the Inter-University Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA), a UGC-supported government institution inPune. COVID-19 Sero-survey, COVID-19 Genomic Surveillance, COVID-19 Environmental Surveillance, COVID-19 Data Collection and Analysis (Supported by Rockefeller Foundation) COVID-19 Long Term Immunogenicity Study (Supported by HindustanUnilever) COVID-19Clinical Database Partners : Projects are implemented in a collaborative manner between the hospitals, R&D labs and city administration. Key partners include – IISER Pune, NCL Pune, BJMC, KEM, Symbiosis, Genepath, NobleHospital Key Future plans : Infectious Disease Platform - Building a platform for multi-institutional collaborations for data-driven policies for infectious diseases. Aligned to the National Action Plan on Climate Change , PKCs Sustainability and Environment vertical currently has three priorities: Technology-driven Urban Forestry Programs to preserve and improve tree cover in Pune City. PKC is working to create technology platforms to automate tree census, improve citizen engagement in tree plantation and adoption and build a computational platformfor carbon sink estimation. Sustainable Afforestation Program : Mission Prakriti is a PKC project which aims to develop an 1172 ha. Self- sustaining (socially, financially, and environmentally sustainable) Biodiversity Park on degraded reserve forest for carbon sequestration and biomass generation. Water Action Plan for Pune Metropolitan Region : Aligned to the National Water Mission , PKC is preparing a sustainable water Management Plan for the Pune district, comprising of comprehensive information on priority issues, and available resources (human, technical and financial), and mapped solutions. A digital decision-making support system will also be created using time-series and real-time absolute data, GISmaps, and analytics. Work with local administration: PKC works actively with PMC and Pune Zilla Parishad officials to serve as a knowledge partner for technology evaluation, project feasibility studies, and creating plans for implementing water conservation, and bio- energy projects inPune and its surrounding villages. Partners : PMC, Pune Smart City, CEE India, WRCS, Gaia the Earth Foundation, Genesys, Maharashtra Forest Department, Samuchit Environment ¬ ¬ ¬ II. Sustainability&Environment ¬ ¬ ¬