Botany student modifies palace into India’s first digital garden
Trivandrum (Kerala), Jul 1 (ANI): A post graduation Botany student in Trivandrum combined science and nature in a unique way by digitising a palace garden on the lines of Digital India initiative by the government of India. The young man, Akhilesh S V Nair documented all the 126 species of both tree and garden plants in the palace campus, spanning 21 acres, and linked the information with a QR code unique to each of them, to a website through a mobile application enabling the general public to get an access to the information about the trees and plants in the garden. The details of the trees accessed with the application include its species, nativity, distribution , botanical character, including flowering period at the moment but Nair and his professor, Dr. A Gangaprasad are planning on more diverse and detailed knowledge about the big greens. Kanakakunnu palce is one of the most important tourist places in Trivandrum and has been declared a heritage monument by Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. (INTACH), and is a unique model of conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem management. “The 21 acres of Kankakkunnu Palace is functioning as a unique model of conservation of biological diversity and ecosystem management and in this project, we linked all the trees and garden plants species of Kankakkunnu Palace with QR code and through QR code, all the persons who visit Kankakkunnu Palace can access more information of the trees and garden plants, and through this digitisation Kankakkunnu Palace becomes first digital garden of India,” said Akhilesh S V Nair, M.Sc student who completed digitalisation of trees.
