NEW DELHI: As many as four leading tech and IT firms — IBM, Persistent Systems, Wipro Limited and Capgemini — on Wednesday announced collaboration to develop technology to limit the impact of natural disasters. Led by IBM and supported by Invest India and NASSCOM, the collaboration aims to bring start-ups, academic and enterprise developers together to solve one of the most pressing societal issues — preventing, responding to and recovering from natural disasters — under IBM’s “Call for Code Global Initiative.”
Seema Kumar, country leader, Developer Ecosystem & Start-ups at IBM, said that India has 3.5 million developers who can create innovative solutions to minimise the impact caused by natural disasters. According to her, 2017 has been the costliest year ever for natural disasters in the Indian sub-continent.
Executives of other firms said that they are already witnessing the use of technology in providing relief works and other areas during a natural calamity.
“From creating a supply channel to collecting relief funds, implementation of technology during and after Kerala floods limited the impact and hardships. The impact of natural disasters in the ecosystem we see today is certainly less than what it was five years back,” said R Venkateswaran, Senior VP, IoT Solutions, Persistent Systems.
However, the most crucial area — weather forecasting and early alert system — is something that has not developed with time. “Prevention is one area that needs more focus. How soon can we predict and provide early warning system is something that needs more attention as it can severely bring down the impact,” said an executive, adding that India needs more capital and resources to carry out disaster management work.
‘Metro Man’ E Sreedharan had recently credited bad weather forecasting for the extensive damage during Kerala floods. Seema Kumar said they have access to weather data and proper processing of it will improve weather forecasting in future. Apart from dealing with floods, the tech firms expect the developers to create technologies that can give early warnings in case of natural calamities like tsunamis and earthquakes.