Pune, May 11, 1999

The second floor of the C-DAC within the Pune University campus was a beehive of activity on Tuesday afternoon during 3.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. Hordes of enthusiastic children accompanied by their parents, youngsters and technology buffs had come to take a peek at the C-DAC's achievements on the occasion of the National Technology Day. On this occasion posters and charts were on showcase explaining the masterpiece of series of PARAM supercomputers and its applications. On display were charts and graphs explaining in detail how collaboration between C-DAC and the University's Bioinformatics Centre had resulted into visualization tools for molecular modeling. The help of supercomputer was taken for prediction for biomolecular structure. Even multiple sequence alignment is now tried out. For students it was a novel exposure. Particularly surprising was the biotechnology application of supercomputers where assisted model building of various nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates with energy refinement was possible. The cooperation of the Vikram Sarabhai Centre in Thiruvananthapuram has resulted in tackling great problem of simulation of flow-past of geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle. Work is still under way to solve the problem. The supercomputer series is quite helpful in seismic data processing, especially detailed imagination of subterranean geological structures. The available seismic information is also used to prepare a parallel architecture methodology with the help of National Geophysical Research Institute. In the remote sensing field, a parallel Digital Elevation Model (DEM) software is used to extract digital elevation model from IRS IC's pan achromatic data. Accurate terrain mapping, measuring of forestry, geology, watershed, and land use is being undertaken. In the field of medical informatics C-DAC aims at providing world class solutions. Integration of hospital information system with picture archival and communication systems with radiological information will result in creating a database which can be used is disseminating medical information. The institution is trying to create a medical informatics road map. With the help of ADVIT Labs of Singapore efforts are under way to develop a financial market simulator, which will simulate real life capital markets. Another package will help manipulate short-term market directions. A Data Mart is being prepared for the Reserve Bank of India which will help check if the rules are being followed properly. On this occasion C-DAC demonstrated its various and most popular commercialized 'multilingual and multimedia' products such as MANTRA, SHAILI, LIPS and iLEAP. "On-Spot General Quiz Contest" for visitors was the another excitement of the NTD session. Among the visitors 49 were participated in the contest. The 3 Lucky Winners were given the LEAP Personal Publisher - the Indian Language Word Processor as an Award. National Technology Day was an effort towards educating and creating awareness among the citizens of our country on the Science and Technology capabilities which India possesses.