How Cobotics can help enhance human capacity, not replace them

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With ever increasing global demand and depletion of natural resources, industries are now looking for advanced robotic solutions to increase their productivity and safety. In post Covid-19 world, the focus is on collaborative robotics or cobotics to maximise the benefit of human intelligence.

With robots’ precision and ability to work tirelessly in an environment where the humans might find challenging, the latter’s safety seems well assured. “Without this technological revolution, our existence is in danger. From health professionals to industries to academics and to even common people getting interested in cobotics, the collaboration between humans and machines, can make the world a better and safer place”, says Amit Shukla, assistant professor, School of Engineering, IIT Mandi where researchers are developing new cobotic technologies for inspection of industrial infrastructures to detect both existing and future anomalies, and in effect, maximising cost efficiency.

Rising interest

The field recently received a boost when the Department of Science and Technology allocated funding of Rs 170 crore for IIT Delhi’s ‘I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics’(IHFC). The funding will be used partially to support startups and other companies to realise robotics products from the research at IIT Delhi and other places in the country, and also for conducting skill development programmes and providing fellowships to the students.

Wide application

In a Covid infected environment, mobile operated robots have been developed to supply food and other items in isolation wards. Cobotics, however finds application across sectors, from helping a child learn his subjects, doing repeated work without fatigue, helping a farmer apply pesticides or even a worker in a nuclear power plant.

Though, there is no shortage of technical groundwork for Cobotics in India, more innovation and engineering are needed to build application for industries.

Cobotics in Industry 4.0

“Cobots are an integral part of Industry 4.0 evolution and a huge innovation and growth driver for the robotics industry apart from military and public safety, manufacturing and mining industries”, says Abhay Bansal, joint head, Amity School of Engineering and Technology, Greater Noida.

Since cobots are affordable, highly adaptable and almost plug-and-play, small and medium-sized enterprises are eager to adopt this technology.

Source: The Times of India-Education News

WHO AM I? PART-1

 

Who am I? Do I know myself? How much do I know myself? Can I know myself better?

At some point in our lives, we, both adults and children face these questions, especially while trying to traverse the path of self-discovery. You must have noticed, each time you paid attention to discovering more about yourself and your driving force, you have accelerated your journey to the desired future.

Various guiding forces like our values, strengths, personality, styles influence our identity. Yet, at times our identity is compromised by various external factors.

In Dr. Shahram Heshmat’s words, “Few people choose their identities. Instead, they simply internalize the values of their parents or the dominant cultures (e.g., the pursuit of materialism, power, and appearance). Sadly, these values may not be aligned with one’s authentic self and create unfulfilling life.”

In this first part of our quest to know oneself, let’s understand how VALUES can be a guiding force in our personal life and career? Our values are not only our thoughts and behaviours but also our inner-most truth of what is important to us and how we perceive this truth. When we know our values, we can live in alignment with them but when we don’t acknowledge them, we are at risk of missing out on the opportunities to make the best possible choices for ourselves.

Values are held deep within us. We should take out time to uncover and learn more about them and the impact they can have on the way we choose to live our life. These hidden values become visible in our attitude to the world around us and in our behaviour in the face of various everyday situations.

Knowing our values can help us make decisions about how we spend our time, whom we spend our time with, aid us in chalking out our life goals thus helping us make better career choices.

Discovering our values can be a simple activity where we practice mindfulness, trying to understand what’s amiss from our lives and what situations make us feel calm and at peace.

We may have many values of paramount importance. But we can’t possibly pay equal attention to everything as we do not have infinite time. That is why prioritizing our values is an important exercise.

There are more involved means to identify our values through an assessment like the Personal Values Test. It involves looking through lists and identifying what resonates most with us or through a process of elimination, discarding the least valuable values.

Our decisions are influenced by a plethora of core values like reliability, loyalty, honesty, commitment, open-mindedness, efficiency, innovation, creativity, courage, compassion, motivation, freedom, respect, passion, optimism, good humour, peace, integrity, ethics, etc. Identifying and shortlisting few is essential to help us focus on our mission in life without getting distracted. Remember, life satisfaction depends on the integrity of our daily choices with our values.

Once we know our values, we can take the right steps to integrate them into our everyday life by:

1. Reflecting and introspecting on the results and deciphering what it means. It will help us determine the next plan of action.
2. Understanding and thinking about the next step is not enough. Couple the motivation with action by expressing and putting values in practice to notice the euphoric feeling it creates.
3. Sharing values with near and dear ones will help us stay on track as we start living in tandem with our values.

Values are like internal compass guiding and propelling us forward in the journey of self-discovery. The only way we can set our hearts to it is by paying attention to our values and consciously choosing to act in alignment with them. When we know ourselves, we can live our life confidently, understanding the first step towards this journey is to know our VALUES.

Do you know yours?

 

–Manjula Ovalekar

Career guidance coach-Nurture My Career