Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), the premier R&D organization of the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MC&IT), Government of India released two products for the North East (NE) region at the ongoing Indian Science Congress today. Prof. M.G.K. Menon, Chancellor NEHU and one of the most distinguished scientists of India inaugurated the PARAM Sheersh Supercomputing Facility set up at NEHU and released the unique product Cure@Home to the people of the NE region.

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Addressing the media, Shri S. Ramakrishnan, Former Director General, C-DAC said, "It is a proud moment for C-DAC to deliver two products at the prestigious platform of the Indian Science Congress through the hands of Prof. M.G.K.Menon. We are equally proud that both the products have been developed specifically for the NE region and we hope that it shall usher in new benefits for the local population. C-DAC has initiated a number of projects specially meant for N.E. region in the last one year. And these two products represent the result of two such projects in a short period. Other topics covered by various projects include multilingual technologies, geomatics, high performance computing, agri-electronics, disaster management and health informatics. The outcome of the projects will be of great significance for both C-DAC and the people of the NE region, as I am sure that it will enable us to address a wide range of developmental issues in the region. We thank the people for welcoming and enabling us to share our technological expertise for the common good of the region."

PARAM Sheersh facility is a supercomputing facility created by C-DAC at NEHU, funded by Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India under the North East Sector Projects.

The facility aims at conducting research in strategic areas of Weather, Seismic, Bio-informatics, Physics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Material Sciences, Life Sciences etc. The facility shall serve as a core back-bone platform for students, faculty and researchers of the region to develop competency skills for solving grand challenge problems in the above mentioned areas.

PARAM Sheersh facility consists of 4 TF peak supercomputing power along with 10 TB High Performance storage scratch space and 24 TB on-line storage, the facility has C-DAC's indigenously designed and developed low latency PARAMNet-3 switch along with NIC, drivers, software etc. Back-up network based on Infiniband is also present. The management capability is over Gigabit Ethernet. The system primarily has a lot of open source tools, software along with C-DAC's own Resource access and Management Portal. The entire environment such as datacenter and associated equipments has been established by C-DAC.

Cure@Home is a Decision Support System with a knowledgebase of integrative (Allopathy, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Yoga) medicine to address the healthcare needs of a common man. It is a health educational tool, which can be deployed on personal computers or at Kiosks. It can be used at home, clinics, hospitals, healthcare centres, public places & schools. Cure@Home educates common man on promotive health and disease prevention.

Available on Desktop and KIOSK (Touch Screen), Cure@Home is targeted at primary care of diseases, thus to minimise burden on health care delivery system. It offers home remedies for diseases and symptoms, as well as advice on diet and lifestyle according to constitution, diseases, seasons etc. The features also include a multimedia gallery for easy perception and Interactive applications like Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator, Waist Hip Ratio (WHR) calculator, Immunisation Scheduler, Expected Date of delivery calculator.

Dr Medha Dhurandhar, Chief Coordinator (NE Projects), C-DAC expressed her happiness at the successful release of the products and commented "the NE region is a high priority area of development for C-DAC. Cure@Home is a product that is borne out of the cooperation between C-DAC's experts as well as resource persons from the NE region. This partnership only strengthens our resolve to continue to work together and develop new products and technologies that shall not only benefit the common man but also create new opportunities for the development of the region."

C-DAC is also showcasing several other products in technology areas like high performance computing, language technology, geomatics, applied artificial intelligence, Information and communication technologies and so on. Several of these products have been deployed in real life environments and have been widely accepted.