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Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has appointed Ramesh Kumar, former ESPN Vice President and Head of ESPN (India and South Asia) and Global Head of ESPNcricinfo, as the Chief Executive Officer of Center of Excellence in Sports Science and Analytics (CESSA). The Center of Excellence in Sports Science and Analytics at IIT Madras will be a global platform for fostering innovation in sports technology and deliver products and solutions to enhance athlete performance and also serve general fitness and health consumers. It will also create and deliver products and solutions across media platforms and work with sporting federations and bodies (creating their platforms and enhancing on ground experience and working with other media platforms) to increase fan engagement. CESSA will also be establishing an Incubator ecosystem for Sport Tech start-ups. This will be supported by inter-disciplinary faculties accomplished in the field of modelling, data science, IoT and AI and wearables and biomechanics. The center will also deliver high quality Sports science and education courses and sports coaching products targeted at students and coaches through various strategic collaborations with IIT Madras’ credibility, expertise, content and certification. Over the next few years, CESSA will also take the lead in carrying out cutting-edge research in sports science and analytics in collaboration with leading institutes in the world. Welcoming Ramesh Kumar to IIT Madras, Prof. Mahesh Panchagnula, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations), IIT Madras, and the Head of CESSA said, “We are delighted that CESSA will be led by Ramesh, an industry veteran with a proven track record of impact. This aligns with our commitment to be at the forefront of sports tech helping athletes, coaches and all stakeholders.” Mr. Ramesh Kumar, an alumnus of IIT Madras (BTech (ME), 1992 Batch) comes with more than three decades of industry experience with an initial corporate stint with the Tata Group in India and close to 24 years in the sports industry. He has been providing leadership to drive global digital leadership, innovation and growth of the world’s no 1 digital sports brand ‘ESPNcricinfo’. He also drove overall strategic leadership for ESPN India and South Asia operations. Outlining his vision, Mr. Ramesh Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Center of Excellence in Sports Science and Analytics (CESSA), IIT Madras, said, “I am excited to join the Center and leverage the deep tech knowledge and domain strengths in the fields of AI, ML, data science, IoT/sensors, computer vision technology and bio mechanical analysis to envision solutions and products for sportspersons, general athletes, media platforms, sports fans, sporting federations and players in the sports education domain.” CESSA is already collaborating with leading institutes nationally and globally focussed in the field of Sports science, technology and engineering including Sports Authority of India, National Center for Sports Science Research, Insipre Institute of Sports, Northwestern University and University of Birmingham. The Centre is equipped not only with state-of-the-art infrastructure but also undertakes teaching, and research. It aims to incubate 25 start-ups a year and serve as develop a central data, insights and analytics hub to provide sports-related analytics service to various stakeholders in the sports industry world-wide. The CESSA is going to be housed in a state-of-the-art indoor sports facility which will provide a test bed for piloting sports tech in an agile environment. This Centre is being set up with support from the ‘Institute of Eminence’ initiative of the Government of India. IIT Madras was accorded the ‘Institute of Eminence’ (IoE) status in September 2019. It is part of the Government of India’s vision to empower educational centres to be world-class teaching and research institutions.

Mandi, 19th February 2024: Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi (IIT Mandi), in collaboration with Institut National de Recherche et de Sécurité (INRS), France, and the National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL), India, have conducted a comprehensive study on the detrimental effects of indoor air pollution resulting from traditional cooking practices in rural kitchens across three Northeast Indian states. In a series of three papers, a research team from IIT Mandi comprising of Mr. Bijay Sharma, Ph.D. scholar, and Dr. Sayantan Sarkar, Assistant Professor, School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and his collaborators analyzed the extent and consequences of harmful emissions produced during indoor cooking using firewood and mixed biomass. Despite advancements, more than 50% of the rural population in Northeastern India (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya) continues to use traditional solid fuels such as firewood and mixed biomass for cooking, leading to the release of significant pollutants into the kitchen air. The research aimed to gauge the severity and disease burden associated with the use of biomass cooking fuel compared to LPG-based cooking. The researchers measured size-resolved concentrations of aerosols, i.e., particles suspended in the air, and toxic trace metals and carcinogenic organic substances bound with it, during cooking with firewood, mixed biomass, and Liquefied Petroleum Gas. They modeled the deposition patterns of these particles and associated chemicals in various sections of the human respiratory system. The resulting inhalation exposure to these chemicals during cooking was then calculated. Utilizing this data, the researchers estimated the health impact (disease burden) on the rural NE Indian population, focusing on respiratory diseases such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Pneumonia, and various cancers, using the ‘Potential Years of Life Lost’ (PYLL) metric. This metric estimates the potential number of years lost in a population due to premature death from ill health. The study revealed that exposure to harmful aerosols in firewood/biomass-using kitchens was 2-19 times higher than in LPG-using kitchens, with respiratory deposition ranging from 29 to 79% of the total aerosol concentration. The fraction of population using firewood and mixed biomass faced 2-57 times higher disease burdens than LPG users. Furthermore, the research found that the potential for oxidative stress, which leads to damaged cells, proteins, and DNA, was likely to be 4-5 times higher among people using biomass in kitchens than those using LPG. This stress is driven by the inhalation of metals and organic chemicals produced during indoor cooking using biomass fuel. Highlighting the uniqueness of this research, Dr. Sayantan Sarkar, Assistant Professor, School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, IIT Mandi, said, “Our study combines real-world aerosol measurements in rural kitchens with dosimetry modeling to robustly estimate the impact of cooking emissions on the respiratory tract. It is the first effort to estimate disease burdens caused by exposure to indoor cooking emissions in India in terms of potential years of life lost. The study also measures for the first time the potential for oxidative stress resulting from such exposure in the Indian context, and quantifies the additional risk that biomass users face compared to those who use the cleaner alternative LPG.” This research holds practical implications, emphasizing the urgent need for rural communities in Northeast India to transition to cleaner cooking methods. Recommendations include making LPG more accessible, improving cookstove programs, spreading awareness in rural areas, funding local solutions, and organizing health camps for rural women. The three studies have been published in two journals – Science of the Total Environment and Environmental Pollution and are accessible through the following links: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167163 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2023.123246 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162539