About Us
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is a Scientific Society under the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. It is primarily an R & D institution involved in the design, development and deployment of advanced IT solutions. C-DAC's thrust in meeting the national agenda has manifest itself in the execution of several key projects, leading to the creation of a strong brand equity for its inherent expertise and capabilities, in the global context. Presently, this expertise extends to High Performance Computing (HPC) including Scientific Modelling & Visualization; Multilingual and Heritage Computing, Applied Artificial Intelligence and Speech Processing; Software including Open Source Software (Linux), Multimedia, Graphics and Database Technologies; Strategic and Power Electronics and Agrielectronics; Real Time Systems, Embedded Systems and VLSI Design; Health Informatics; Geomatics; Cyber Security; Digital / Broadband and Wireless Networks; e-Governance and ICT for Digital Divide; and Education and Training including e-Learning. The key sectors addressed by C-DAC are Finance, Healthcare, Power, Steel, Defence, Telecom, Agriculture, Industrial Controls, Broadcasting, Education, Cultural Heritage and e-Governance.
Human-Centred Design and Computing (HCDC) Group develops multimedia information systems and tools involving archival, annotation, search & retrieval, semantics, sharing, analysis, interactivity and immersive reality by involving the human factors in the design process to achieve highest level user acceptance. The work of HCDC Group has brought recognition to C-DAC in the area of digital preservation and heritage computing from the highest level institutions such as Ministry of Culture at the national level and UNESCO at international level. HCDC Group is the designated Centre of Excellence for Digital Preservation, by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. The group has been entrusted the key agenda to provide inputs for the roadmap of National Digital Preservation Program in the country and the development of requisite technological infrastructure, tools, standards, guidelines and policies therein. Under this project, the group has established international alliances and built the capabilities and skill sets to design, develop and deploy a range of digital preservation and archival solutions across domains. The group inherits its core skills from developing interactive games, 3D modelling, virtual museums and multimedia learning applications.
Over the years, HCDC Group has expanded the range of its technical competencies intensely focusing on C-DAC's thematic area of Heritage Computing. The team has resolved to articulate this inter-disciplinary technological area considering that only India, the country which is blessed with world's richest heritage can lead and define it.
HCDC group focuses on the following technical areas of R & D:
- Digital preservation and heritage computing
- Trusted Digital Repository Development
- Multimedia information systems
- Large scale data processing, ingesting
- Information extraction, data mining, big data analytics and data visualization
- Semantic web, ontology based LODs, taxonomies, knowledge encoding / structuring
- Computer graphics and immersive virtual environments
- SMART interaction design, Intelligent sensors, SMART Tags and Internet of Things (IoT)
- Interactive multimedia, multi-modal interfaces, social media solutions
- Instructional Design / Multimedia for Learning Applications
- Game Design, 3D Modelling and Virtual Worlds, augmented reality
- Cultural Informatics, Virtual Museums
- Usability Research, Human-Computer Interaction, User Experience Design
HCDC Group was instrumental in developing the digital preservation standard & guidelines which are notified and made applicable for all e-governance projects by MeitY. HCDC Group has designed and developed many software tools namely JATAN (जतन): Virtual Museum Builder, DARSHAK (दर्शक): Mobile APP for Museum Visitors, DIGITĀLAYA (डिजिटालय): Electronic Records Management and Archival System, DIGITĀLAYA (डिजिटालय): e-Library and Archival System, DATĀNTAR (डेटांतर): e-Records Extraction Tool, e-RUPANTAR (ई-रूपांतर): Pre-archival Processing Tool, e-SANGRAHAN (ई-संग्रहण): e-Acquisition Tool, DATA HASTĀNTAR (डेटा-हस्तांतर): Data Encryption and Transfer Tool, META- PARIVARTAN (मेटा-परिवर्तन): Any To Any Metadata Conversion Tool and PDF/A-1b Converter Tool.
During November 2017, National Cultural Audiovisual Archive (NCAA), recognized as world's first Certified Trusted Digital Repository as per ISO16363, has been established and powered by DIGITĀLAYA (डिजिटालय) which is developed by HCDC Group.
There are over 50 cultural and heritage institutions in India that have benefitted by the technological solutions developed by HCDC Group. All software products are duly copyrighted and fully owned by C-DAC.