Sona College of Technology, which is known for its potential to churn out winners, has managed to accomplish yet another feat of which it can be immensely proud!
Yes, a Computer Science and Engineering department team from the college has emerged as one of the winners of the intensely contested All India Mapathon contest.
The team that won the contest has mapped the health infrastructure in Salem District. Their map will help the government make key decisions on health care and facilitate the delivery of health care to those in even the most remote parts of the district.
The national-level collaborative Indian mapping event, which was organized jointly by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB), the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was aimed at understanding the potential of Indian remote sensing data. It’s primary objective was to make maps for Indian regions using open source software (QGIS).
The participant teams had to work on a crowd-sourcing method and come up with thematic maps using remote sensing data. The teams were given ten topics to choose from including mapping of natural resources, flood maps, land use cover change maps, health infrastructure with age group, and population for vaccination planning.
The Sona College faculty team selected health infrastructure mapping, limiting the scope to Salem district.
The team created the map for identifying the Primary Health Centers (PHCs) in and around Salem district. This map gives the distance between the centres.
As a result, the government, using this map, can know the area of coverage of the PHCs and the number of beneficiaries it can serve or reach out to. It can also find out areas in the district that don’t have access to medical care and establish new PHCs there.
The map could prove to be immensely useful to the state government which has plans to establish a number of mini-clinics (AMMA clinics in Tamil Nadu).
The map could help the government locate gaps in coverage of the PHC network and select locations where the mini-clinics are most needed.
COVID vaccination drives can also be effectively implemented, thanks to the information provided by the map. Block-wise population, which will be useful to schedule the vaccination campaign, has also been added.
While the registration for the contest closed on December 22, 2020, the result was declared on February 10, 2021. As many as 5,225 teams registered for the event and 9343 participants took part in the contest. There were 175 winners and 500 notable winners. Sona College faculty team was among the select group of winners.
Sona College of Technology Management and Principal congratulated the members of the winning team comprising Dr.B.Sathiyabhama, Dr.Nirmalesh Kumar, Dr.J.Dhayanithi and Ms.T.K.Revathi.
