Indian Bioresource Information Network (IBIN) is being developed as a distributed
national infrastructure to serve relevant information on diverse range of issues of
bioresources of the country to a range of end users. Its major goal is to network and
promote an open ended, co-evolutionary growth among all the digital databases
related to biological resources of the country and to add value to the databases by
integration. Indian Bioresource Information Network (IBIN) is designed to serve
relevant information on bioresources of the country to the professionals involved
in bio-prospecting, marketing, protecting bio-piracy and the conservation of
bioresources. IBIN is proposed to be uniquely placed as a single portal data provider
on India's bioresource - plant, animal, marine, spatial distribution and microbial
resources.
Such an approach intended as a portal called IBIN PORTAL aims to offer a platform
for all the data holders in the country to host their data at the same time maintaining
their ownership on it. Its major goal is to network and promote an open ended, co-
evolutionary growth among all the digital databases related to biological resources
of the country and to add value to the databases by integration. Therefore it is hoped
that the network would be a valuable asset for the country's research scientists, bio-
resource managers, conservationists, policy makers, common man, and entrepreneurs.
IBIN portal will provide platform to the diverse data providers in a mutually sharable
environment with full ownership protocols. The data will be maintained and compiled
by the owners independently but agree to organize the datasets in uniform standard
and provide the data through the Indian Bio-resource Information Network (IBIN)
portal. The value added and knowledge acquired from diverse datasets will be of
immense value and the IPR will lie with the knowledge builder. Thus IBIN Portal
aims to collate, translate and complement information from diverse data servers on
bio-prospecting and utilization, protection of rights, conservation and management
of biological diversity of the country. It aims at expanding the existing IBIN program
through a) creation of a inter-communicating network of databases, b) promoting an
open ended and collaborative growth of participant digital databases and, c) serving
value added information on issues related to biological diversity and associated
knowledge in multiple languages. Such integration would translate the independent
databases to useful, relevant and contextual information to the end users involved in
bio-prospecting, marketing, protecting bio-piracy and conservation of bioresources.
Thus a major outcome of these discussions on the policy document was the
suggestion that the core of IBIN shall expand to involve other potential contributors
to IBIN through the development of a Portal. Accordingly the following steps are
prioritized for the further growth and expansion of IBIN.
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A set of participant organizations willing to contribute to IBIN Portal would
be identified and facilitated to be partners of IBIN.
In the meanwhile, it was also suggested that IBIN shall develop a business plan
for itself and accordingly several rounds of discussions were held on the possible
business plan.
Among these steps, the first two are submitted as a project already and the third, the
establishment of BRICs is being brought through this proposal:
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It is planned to expand the IBIN network system in to a portal on bioresources system.
This would be done with the structure shown in figure 2. It calls for two important
additions:
- Identify a set of laboratories willing to link their databases with the IBIN and
invite them as BRICs (Bio-Resource Information Centers) of IBIN.
- Facilitate their updating the data in specific areas of their expertise and
budgets can be allocated accordingly to different units
- Develop a component in the portal of IBIN that can accommodate the data
compilation by the end users with profile/ history of the provider.
- Set up a National Refereeing System which meets regularly and vets the
compiled data to be uploaded on to the web by IBIN (Figure 2).
Steps Taken:
Following two workshops, a set of potential partners were identified based on
their own progress, interest and the datasets available and from among them eight
organizations were considered for further discussions. However through a process of
interactions and interest shown the following five organizations were finally invited
for submission of the projects as a first Phase.
-
Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technology, Palampur, Himachal
Pradesh.
- Bio-informatics Center, NEHU, Shillong.
- Foundation for Revitalizing Local health Traditions, Bangalore
- National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow.
- Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore.
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