Tri-services symposium to boost synergy between armed forces, academia to be held in Sep

A first-of-its-kind tri-services symposium that seeks to enhance synergy between the armed forces and the academia towards development of niche technologies and developing a robust defence ecosystem in the country will be held here on September 22 and 23, officials on Friday said.

Several top academic and research and development (R&D) institutions will take part in the 'Tri-services Academia Technology Symposium', which will be hosted at the Manekshaw Centre, the Army announced at a curtain-raiser press conference here.

The announcement of the symposium comes nearly two months after India conducted Operation Sindoor in which indigenous technology and platforms played a key role.

Senior Army officials announced the schedule of the event, which will include two seminars, a panel discussion and exhibitions.

The academic institutions will get an opportunity to present their ideas, proposals or innovations, and after evaluation some of those will be taken up for scaling up through R&D and D&D (design and development) routes, said Major General C S Mann, Additional Director General (ADG), Army Design Bureau (ADB).

The aim of the event is to develop an integrated perspective for creation of a synergised services-academia R&D ecosystem for development of niche technologies for the defence forces, he added.

A portal was also launched on the occasion through which students, faculty or academic institutions can apply, in a bid to present their proposals or innovations, which have either been completed or in advanced stages of completion.

Later, Maj Gen Mann also fielded some questions from mediapersons, ranging from Operation Sindoor to the defence industry's role in the symposium.

He was also asked about the Chinese technology being used in drones in markets, and how India plans to prepare itself further when it comes to use of drones and non-contact military warfare.

''As far as you talked about drones and counter-drones, our focus is on them. A lot of things are happening for it, recently an emergency procurement announcement was also made, and our focus is on such equipment,'' he said.

''As far as Chinese drones are concerned, I had said this in September last year that we were working on a framework and a framework has been made and pending approval. Once approved, tests will be done accordingly, so that there are no security vulnerabilities in our drones,'' the Army officer said.

The sub tagline of the upcoming symposium is 'Vivek Va Anusandhan Se Vijay'.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Pakistan, in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.

The strikes triggered four days of intense clashes that ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions on May 10.

India's homegrown platforms and air defence technology played a critical role during the conflict.

The ADG of ADB also told reporters that the need for 'Atmanirbharta' or self-reliance is ''well known to all of us''.

''But that' Atmanirbharta' is not restricted to manufacturing. What is required is that we need to have our own designing capabilities. And, for doing that... research is the start point. And, therefore, there is a need to further develop the R&D ecosystem in the country,'' he said.

The R&D ecosystem is ''spurring'' in the country, but what is now required is how one is able to ''harness that system and its potential'' to be able to customise those dual-use technologies for military use or get new technologies developed for defence applications, and ''thereby we start leading the technology curve in times to come'', said Maj Gen Mann.

He said that a need was felt to have a platform wherein there was a mechanism to ''understand each other's capabilities'', capabilities of the academia, requirements of the services, and challenges faced by both of them.

''And, therefore, to deliberate on the mechanisms of collaboration,'' the Army officer added.

He said there will be 'technology clusters' of the three Services and each will consist of about three to five officers, who are domain experts.

The applicants, after initial filtration process, will be guided by these clusters and the applications would be ''refined or aligned as per our requirements, so it can be converted into a military use case'', Maj Gen Mann said.

''Out of these, we are going to shortlist some of them which will be taken up for the R&D or D&D projects, to be funded by the Services,'' he added.

Also, innovations or projects which have been completed or in advanced stages of completion, which are to be exhibited, would be evaluated by technology clusters for selection for ''scaling them up or customising them to our military use case'', the official said.

Applications on the symposium portal can be made till August 10 and applicants will be intimated by the first week of September.

The event is to get the ''best possible ideas'', as also create a ''better understanding of each other's capabilities and requirements'', he added.

Also, even if ideas pitched are futuristic but has ''good military applications'' will be open for consideration, Maj Gen Mann said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)