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), recently signed an MoU to set up India’s first Medical Cobotics Centre (MCC) at IIIT-Delhi.

The ceremony was held in the presence of Prof Ashutosh Sharma, former DST Secretary as the Chief Guest and Dr KR 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).

The training programmes will be designed in consultation with leading doctors/experts, mainly from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at New Delhi, Jodhpur, and other prestigious medical colleges. 

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.