Rourkela: The Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering, NITR held an inaugural ceremony for a 7-day high-end workshop (offline) on “Recent Advances in Artificial Intelligence for Biomedical Applications”. The workshop is sponsored by Science and Engineering Research Board – SERB.
Dr R. Pradeep Kumar (Head, Department of Cardiac Sciences, Jaiprakash Hospital Rourkela) graced the event as the Guest of Honor. The program started on 01st December and will conclude on 07th December 2022. As per the participation limit set by SERB, 25 attendees from all over the country are participating in this workshop (physical mode participation). Around 120 students from NIT Rourkela also participated in this program. This program will help the attendees to familiarize themselves with the theoretical and practical knowledge of biomedical signal & image processing. Distinguished professors & experts from IIT, NIT IIIT, IISC Bangalore, CSIR, MATLAB etc. will share their insights on the topic during the workshop. Professors from a few international institutes from USA, Saudi Arabia & Slovenia are also invited to enlighten the attendees about the engineering aspect of biomedical science.
Inaugurating the event, The Guest of Honor Dr R. Pradeep Kumar gave a short introduction to human heart functions and the use of AI in Cardiac Sciences. He said, “Today, AI is helping to solve complex issues in the biomedical industry and playing a vital role in future healthcare applications. From X-Rays to ultrasound to ECG, there are so many advanced devices today in the medical industry to predict and monitor the health status of humans in real-time. I hope that participants get the maximum out of this workshop and contribute to the evolution of this industry. However, a medical practitioner should always emphasise on using more human intelligence rather than depending entirely on AI. Earlier, our physicians were diagnosing patients by counting pulse or critically examining the body. But now, even for a small disease, many tests are done to examine the condition. We should use AI or biomedical engineering innovations as a helping tool and treat the patient with natural intelligence.”
Addressing the participants further, Prof. K Umamaheshwar Rao (Director, NITR) said, “The accuracy of the AI systems is drastically increasing by using machine learning, digitized medical data, wireless medical data communication etc. On one side, there is an effort by scientists and researchers to help humans live healthy life, but on the other side, we are taking it for granted and not taking care of our bodies. Using a smartwatch to calculate the step or observe the heart/pulse rate is of no use if humans are damaging the lungs by chain-smoking, overdosing them with alcohol or consuming regular junk food. Human intelligence comes with thoughts and emotions, and AI should never cause losing these elements from us.”
Further, in the inaugural session, Prof. Rohan Dhiman (Registrar, NIT Rourkela) interacted with participants who visited NIT Rourkela for the first time to attend the workshop and briefed them about NIT Rourkela. Prof. Kunal Pal (Head, Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering, NITR) also presented a short history of the department and welcomed all the participants. Dr Bala C Neelapu (Assistant Professor) was the convenor and Assistant Professors Dr. J. Sivaraman and Dr. Earu Banoth were the coordinators of the program.
