IIT Alumni Council launches competition for Covid-19 Testing Project

Team Udayavani, Jun 4, 2020, 11:21 AM IST

Indian Institute of Technology Alumni Council has started a global competition to finalize operation, technology, and funding partners for its MegaLab Mumbai project that aims to perform one crore Covid-19 tests per month in Mumbai.

IIT Alumni Council is the largest global body alumni, students, and faculty across all the 23 IITs with over 100 city chapters.

Earlier it had launched  Covid-19  test bus in Mumbai and recently, Mumbai University partnered with IIT Alumni Council for the Mega Lab project.

Ravi Sharma, president of the IIT Alumni Council said, “The IIT Alumni Council has decided to set up the largest genetic testing laboratory for Covid-19 and other infectious diseases after consulting global experts in the areas of virology, RT-PCR machine manufactures, test kits, pooling algorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and microfluidics.A dedicated team has already started the work on designing the MegaLab Mumbai with a capacity of 1-crore RT-PCR tests per month,”

Also, The MegaLab will be based on the end-to-end Kodoy indigenous technology stack and will have adequate capacity for testing the entire population of Mumbai for other infectious diseases, once a month

The lab will have an initial capacity for 10 lakh tests, which will go up to 30 lakh tests in the next 30 days and 60 lakh tests by the 100th day or the third phase