A high-level digital conference on Rebooting the Economy through Science, Technology and Research Translations titled ‘RESTART’ will be organised on National Technology Day which is celebrated on May 11, the government said on Sunday.

The conference will be organised by the Technology Development Board (TDB) which is a statutory body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

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“Keeping in mind the need of the hour to formulate a comprehensive action plan to reboot the economy, TDB is celebrating National Technology Day, focusing on technological solutions towards that end. These technologies would include, medical technologies, advanced technologies and manufacturing that would prepare India for the post Covid-19 time,” Ministry of Science & Technology said.

Union Minister for Science & Technology, Health and Family Welfare and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan would be the Chief Guest for the occasion and will deliver the National Technology Day address.

The programme will also include special addresses by Member, Science, NITI Aayog Dr V K Saraswat; Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India, Prof K Vijay Raghavan; Chief Scientist, WHO, Dr Saumya Swaminathan; DST Secretary Prof Ashutosh Sharma, and a few others and will be attended by other officials from TDB, DST and CII.

Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary, Department of Biotechnolgy, Dr Shekhar C Mande, DG, CSIR and H.E.Vincenzo de Luca, Ambassador of Italy to India will deliver special addresses in various sessions.

In the COVID 19 crisis, technology has been at the forefront of the battle against the pandemic. As the world adjusts to its new normal, business leaders world over are rethinking and devising new strategies to harness technologies that would help drive resilience and make them emerge from the crisis stronger.

TDB, on behalf of the Ministry of Science & Technology, celebrates May 11 every year as National Technology Day to commemorate achievements of innovations and technological excellence in the country. The day has a historical perspective as it was on May 11, 1998, that India achieved a major technological breakthrough by successfully carrying out nuclear tests at Pokhran.

Further, the first indigenous aircraft “Hansa-3” was test flown at Bangalore on this day; and India also performed successful test firing of the Trishul missile on the same day. Since 1999, the day is being celebrated as National Technology Day.