Technology crucial in combating COVID-19: Intel India head

New Delhi, May 12 (IANS) Technology companies have a key role to play in developing solutions for testing, treatment and containment of COVID-19, Intel India Country Head Nivruti Rai said on Tuesday.

Intel India is working with India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) to deploy Intel client and server solutions to help achieve faster and less expensive COVID-19 testing and coronavirus genome sequencing to understand epidemiology and AI-based risk stratification for patients with comorbidities.

“I believe technology is crucial in combating COVID-19 and our ability to help save and enrich lives through Intel technology has never been more vital,” Rai, who is also Vice President, Data Platforms Group, Intel Corporation, said in a statement.

“The need of the hour is to collaborate with the government, academia, research community and the larger ecosystem and work together to develop solutions for testing, treatment and containment of COVID-19,” she said.

Intel’s initiatives include working with the government, industry and academia on technology solutions to combat COVID-19, commitment of Rs 5 crores towards key central and state government relief funds and research initiatives, and supporting affected communities through non-governmental organisations and employee volunteering efforts.

“I am also very proud of Intel India employees who have whole-heartedly pledged contributions from their salaries towards government funds for COVID-19 relief. Employees are also volunteering in their local communities distributing food kits, face masks and conducting online classes,” she added.

Intel is also collaborating with IT industry body Nasscom to build an application ecosystem and multi-cloud backend infrastructure to enable population-scale COVID-19 diagnostics, to predict outbreaks and to improve medical care management and administration.

An end-to-end COVID-19 platform developed by Nasscom’s taskforce was delivered to the Telangana government recently.

“During these challenging times, Intel’s top priority is protecting the health and well-being of employees while keeping the business running for our customers and supporting the communities we operate in,” Rai said.

–IANS

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