36th Annual Report (2023-24)

38 PUNE KNOWLEDGE CLUSTER AboutPuneKnowledgeCluster Vision Mission KeyAchievements (sinceApril 2023) ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ 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. PKC is hosted by the Inter-University Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA), a UGC-supported government institution inPune. Since July 2022, PKC is registered as a private (not-for-profit) company – Pune Knowledge Cluster Foundation, under the section 8 of The Companies Act 2013. 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 signedMoUs with 15 organizations including academia, R&D labs, industries, NGOs, and incubation centres. PKC has conducted 18 training programs (incl. workshops and courses), 9 citizen-centric talks, 8 industry visits and 34 program awareness sessions, benefitting a total of 5000 individuals PKC has hosted a total of 10 stakeholder meetings, conferences and roundtables/panel discussions to foster and strengthen collaborations aswell as build newprograms PKC has hosted as well as been a part of international delegations to foster collaborations in the areas of water and wastewatermanagement, and energy. 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 National HealthMission . build a computational platformfor carbon sink estimation. Carbon Accounting in Campuses: Through this program, PKC encourages academic campuses and Industry premises to account for their Carbon emissions through efficient data collection; and imbibe practises enabling CarbonNeutrality. Sustainable Afforestation Programs: Through these programs, PKC aims to initiate forest landscape restoration projects designed to provide a sustained livelihood by meeting raw material requirements of industry on a short, medium as well as long term basis. PKC currently plans to Projects: PKC has the following ongoing programs under this vertical: COVID-19Genomic Surveillance COVID-19Environmental Surveillance Retrospective clinical study for COVID-19 (Supported by Rockefeller foundation) COVID-19 Long Term Immunogenicity Study (Supported by HindustanUnilever) COVID-19Clinical Database Dengue Incidence study Anti-microbial Resistance (AMR) study Saksham: A series of Workshops on Vector-Borne Diseases for HealthcareWorkers Partners: Projects are implemented in a collaborative manner between the hospitals, R&D labs and city administration. Key partners include – IISERPune, CSIR-NCL, BJMC, KEM, Symbiosis, Genepath, Noble Hospital, STRAND life sciences, EPIC-HIM, ARTPARK, PMC, PCMC, NCBS, AshokaUniversity, MUHS 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 the following ongoing projects: Technology-driven Urban Forestry Programs such as ConnecTree and TreeVerse, 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 ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ II. Sustainability&Environment ¬ ¬ ¬