UK-India Joint Workshop Discusses Rebuilding Kerala For Resilient Future

Leeds University, UK and Kerala’s TKM College of Engineering hosted a two-day international workshop titled ‘Rebuilding a Resilient Kerala after the Floods’ in Kerala’s capital city, Thiruvananthapuram on January 6 and 7.

The workshop focussed on bringing academia, industry, and government agencies together with a common interest in rebuilding Kerala for a resilient future.

Through the workshop, key stakeholders from both the countries jointly identified short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals to deal with the challenges such as, reconstruction of critical and civil infrastructure in a resilient manner, building capability to cope with any future floods due to climate changes, land use planning for a sustainable and resilient society and, educating the next generation of engineers to deal with the above three aspects.

The workshop was co-hosted by the Kerala State Planning Board, Government of Kerala and the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) under the aegis of the Newton-Bhabha Fund to support the UK-India bilateral science and innovation collaboration.

Deputy High Commissioner Jeremy Pilmore-Bedford said, “I’m delighted that the jointly funded UK-India Newton-Bhabha Fund has been able to support such a vital discussion in Trivandrum to help rebuild a resilient post-flood Kerala. Our high commissioner Sir Dominic Asquith and I met the chief minister of Kerala recently to express our concern for the loss of life and property during the floods and we are glad that UK-Kerala academic and research practitioners are coming together for this timely knowledge-sharing event.

“This event highlights how the best minds from India and the UK can together help solve real-world problems with solutions that can be applied to meet global challenges. It is of course part of wider work. The Newton-Bhabha Fund has supported 61 projects and grants in Kerala in sectors like public health and wellbeing, sustainable cities and urbanisation, energy-water-food, big data, advanced manufacturing and skills,” he added.