Written by Prakriti Panwar, a grade 11 student.

The Vaishwik Bharatiya Vaigyanic Summit, better known as the VAIBHAV Summit, is an initiative by various academic organisations of India, for Indian scientists and academics all over the world. It mainly aims at discussing and deliberating about the development of science, research and technology in India. The summit is recognised as a joint effort by all science and technology academic organisations.

The main aim of this initiative is to ‘boost the innovation ecosystem in India’ by bringing various academics together on a common platform to ‘debate upon the collaboration mechanisms and methods to strengthen S&T  (Science and Technology) bases in India’. It also aims at adding a new perspective to the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), a flagship initiative by the NITI Ayog which encourages innovation and entrepreneurship across the country. The main ideas of cooperation development, complementary expansion and interdisciplinary extension, aim at promoting a system of collaboration, in addition to the central purpose- innovation.

Another dimension of the same is to expand and strengthen the AtmaNirbhar initiative in the field of research, science and technology. Bringing together Non- Residential Indians (NRIs) and other global citizens, to better the Research and Development bases in India, is another important goal.

Broad categories /topics of discussion include Quantum Technologies, Computational Sciences, AI and Machine Learning, Earth sciences and many more. Reputed organisations such as TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research) and IIT-Bombay are serving as ‘champion institutes’ for the same. The various verticals also consist of respective horizontals, i.e, sub-topics of discussion.

The summit was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on 2nd October 2020. This will be followed by various ‘brainstorming sessions’ to further discuss the horizontals to ‘carve a path for future collaboration’. Each session will be led by a moderator or equivalent. These discussions will focus on general policies and schemes, specific areas of collaboration, methods of achieving educational and entrepreneurial aspects of development, and achieving global standards of the same.