World Ayurveda Congress: Experts Make Strong Pitch for Innovations and Research in Ayurveda

PANAJI:
The traditional wellness system of Ayurveda has enormous potential for innovations, but that requires extensive technology-based research and a concrete roadmap to give it a global brand and make its products effective and successful, said experts at the 9th World Ayurveda Congress (WAC) here.

“There are great possibilities of innovations in Ayurveda. There are challenges to develop techniques more advanced than supercomputers. We will have to work on those areas of computing which have not been heard of,” Padma Bhushan Dr Vijay Bhatkar said, while chairing a plenary session on ‘Innovation and Entrepreneurs in Ayurveda’.

“I am looking forward to new ideas of innovation and I am sure that new ideas will stem from this Congress. We have to show the mysticism of Ayurveda,” he added.

Dr Anirudha Joshi, who is credited with developing award-winning Nadi Tarangini, an Artificial Intelligence-based instrument for pulse reading, said he was envisaging developing wearable devices that can provide vital information about the human body.

“It will be very helpful if we can develop wearables which can do Astha-vidha-pariksha. Our vision is to go into prediction of different stages of a disease so that we can defer a disease if we cannot prevent it,’’ he explained.

In his concluding remarks, Dr Bhatkar said, “There is a need to develop new devices like Nadi Tarangini. We will have to think of ways of marketing, packaging, advertising our products and how they can be shown to the world.’’

Kartikeya Baldva, CEO, Ixoreal Biomed Inc, said Ayurveda has finally arrived but there is still a long way to go. “It is very important to ensure the success of products but that would require quality, efficacy, branding, marketing and innovation,” he emphasised.

Dr Ajit Kolatkar, Founder- Director of Pune-based Gastrolab India Pvt Ltd, said Ayurveda has to move in such a fashion that a doctor can diagnose the ailments of a patient by using minimum devices.

‘’We will have to start with fundamental research from Ayurvedic perspective. There has to be a concrete roadmap. There is a need to revisit Ayurveda in the context of contemporary science,’’ he said, adding: “There are many key areas where Ayurveda can contribute significantly.”

Rishabh Chopra, founder of Ayurveda Experience, an Ayurvedic health and wellness platform, said Ashwagandha has now become a popular product in the west. However, there are several challenges to make Ayurvedic products globally acceptable. He also informed that Ashwagandha, turmeric and Yoga are some of the most online searched words in the west.