I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics (IHFC), the Technology Innovation Hub (TIH) of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) and iHub Anubhuti, the TIH of Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIITD), signed an MoU on Wednesday to set up India’s first Medical Cobotics Centre (MCC) at IIIT-Delhi. 

The ceremony was held in the august presence of Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, former DST Secretary as the Chief Guest and Dr. K.R. Murali Mohan, Mission Director of NM-ICPS, DST.

Medical Cobotics Centre (MCC) will be a technology enabled medical simulation and training facility for the young resident doctors besides acting as a validation centre for the research outcomes in the area of healthcare robotics and digital health. The Centre would facilitate the training of other healthcare professionals, paramedical staff, technicians, engineers, and researchers.

The TIHs are funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India under its National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS). 

On behalf of iHub Anubhuti, the TIH of IIITD, its Project Director Prof. Pushpendra Singh and the CEO, Mukesh Malhotra expressed their happiness to be able to set up this prestigious Centre on its campus in association with IIT Delhi’s TIH, i.e., IHFC, and expect to develop this joint centre as a Centre of Excellence. As per them, MCC will develop strategic partnerships with companies, undertake expert-driven research and will also work towards the commercialisation of technologies.  

The training programs will be designed in consultation with leading doctors/experts, mainly from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at New Delhi, Jodhpur, and other prestigious medical colleges. They shall be empaneled as guest faculty for conducting the same. The training programs would be at multiple levels (basic/advanced) and cohort-specific like urology, neurology, laparoscopy, and others but initially limited to minimum invasive surgeries. 

It is planned to induct the first batch of trainees in April/May 2022 with some of the basic training simulators, which are widely available in the open market, whereas advanced surgical robots will be inducted in the next phase. The MCC is expected to cater to the needs of medical colleges in the Delhi NCR region and this activity is also in line with the National Education Policy for medical subjects.