guwahati president droupadi murmu on thursday emphasised on a bigger role of iits in grooming statelevel institutionsspeaking at iitguwahati on the first day of her maiden visit to assam as president murmu said the premier technology institute must nurture other institutions in the region to uplift the overall academic environmentiitguwahati is a knowledge centre that can provide technology solutions to connectivity issues and other challenges in the ne region since this is the only iit in the ne region it must shoulder the responsibility of nurturing other institutions in the region work with the state government and the defence forces to strengthen our borders and provide technological solutions to prevent recurrence of natural calamities in the region she addedmurmu urged the the institute to encourage innovations work towards indigenisation in cuttingedge technologies provide skill development avenues and be a forerunner in making the country atmanirbharshe said the region should be the torchbearer of spreading knowledge and inculcating a scientific temper in the country in the spirit of the constitutionmurmu also inaugurated the northeasts most powerful supercomputer paramkamrupa in iitguwahati on the occasion and also a laboratory for the design and development of high power microwave components at the institute she virtually inaugurated dhubri medical college and hospital in western assam and also virtually laid the foundation stones for two zonal institutes of national institute of virology at dibrugarh assam and jabalpur madhya pradesh from the iitguwahati venuemurmu said the powerful supercomputer facility will help iitguwahati address the challenges in healthcare quantum computing big data analysis advanced weather prediction and other fields it will also help in advanced use of artificial intelligence and provide immense service to the nation she added the president insisted that science and technology institutes should ultimately work for the larger good of society and said the national education policy 2020 clearly acknowledges that addressing todays socioeconomic challenges requires highquality interdisciplinary research that must be done in india and cannot simply be importedmurmu said the northeast is taking giant strides towards development and extraordinary efforts to provide quality healthcare and education that is not confined to the region she lauded assam governments initiative to provide support to iitguwahati to set up an advanced multispecialty hospital stating that it will set a precedent for other esteemed institutes in the country she said it is heartening that iitguwahati had constructed a 3dprinted sentry post for developing costeffective and sustainable defence infrastructure for the army