World seeks India as trusted tech partner: MoS, MeITY
Startups have unprecedented opportunity to succeed and grow in Indian startup eco-system:
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, celebrated Diwali with Bangalore based startups. In a program organized jointly by NASSCOM and STPI (Software Technology Parks of India) in Bangalore, the minister interacted with startups knowing about their journey, the challenges they face and their suggestions on how to further strengthen the government’s support to the startup program.
He had an engaging and interactive conversation with DeepTech, TechWe and STPI IoT OpenLab startups based out of Karnataka along with industry leaders. The minister also viewed the game changing solutions of the startups and the people they have impacted in their digital inclusion journey. Deliberations were also held on ‘Strategies to develop the Deep Tech ecosystem in India by 2026’.
Chandrasekhar mentioned that the way the Indian economy has bounced back post the pandemic, a lot of that has to do with the strong foundations laid by the Digital India program, launched by the PM launched the ‘Digital India’ program in 2015.
Chandrasekhar remarked: “There has never been a better time for the startups than now. The startups have a universe of opportunity and the world is now looking for new trusted suppliers like India.” He added that it is the priority of the government to digitalize all its services and this shall further result in creating additional demand.
Chandrasekhar also stressed upon the need to spread the entrepreneurship to smaller cities and to replace the outsourcing model wi t h the c o - d e v e l o p ment / co-working model to support the next stage of entrepreneurship. He assured the startups that the government is willing to play an active role in assisting them with all necessary policy support and by facilitating market linkage.
The interactive session saw active participation from the entrepreneurs who shared their experiences, challenges and suggestions for making the startup ecosystem more vibrant.
Harnessing power of AI for good governance
Embracing the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in governance can help in devising better policies and predict challenges earlier. Focused on this thought, the National eGovernance Division (NeGD) under the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) recently organised an ‘AI Pe Charcha’ (AI Dialogue), wherein the panelists discussed the importance of datadriven and AI-enabled governance along with the global best practices.
The session had speakers from diverse backgrounds leading to an engaging session for government officials, AI enthusiasts, AI practitioners, youth, and those who want to understand the implementation aspects of AI. The eminent panelists spoke about the importance of using the right data and how different governments around the world have employed AI to standalone departments and processes for devising prudent policies.
Abhishek Singh, President and CEO, NeGD noted that there are ample amount of case studies from around the world on the use of AI in the fields of healthcare, agriculture, skilling, manufacturing, etc. “What is needed is that such solutions become more ubiquitous and benefit people more and more,” he said.
The keynote speaker at the session, Dr Martin Klein, Global General Manager, Public Services, SAP, Walldorf, Germany, shared his views on AI for public sector, defence & security, postal services, future cities. He noted that with a lot of data present across the globe, it becomes imperative to use the right data for the betterment of governance and processes. “AI-driven governance empowers us with the knowledge of predicting challenges and endows us with the ability to successfully mitigate such challenges. This helps us take actions proactively, draft citizen-friendly policies and also enhance our overall working processes,” he said.
Rahul L o d he , S e ni o r Dir e c t o r, Engineering, Head of SAP Artificial Intelligence Foundation, India gave a presentation & demo of AI driven solutions like covid city-scale simulator and logistic modelling, complex document extraction to government resource planning systems and intelligent accounting automation – invoice, receipt, accounts reconciliation using machine learning. He shared an insightful case study about a project of SAP, done in collaboration with Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru on how an AI application helped in predicting the infection spread and impact of covid in India during the first wave. “Government of India is ready to harness the advantage of AI for building a better nation, especially in the area of social empowerment,” he said. Every speaker’s session ended with live interaction between the attendees and the experts.
The AI Pe Charcha series has been initiated as a part of Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE), India’s first global AI summit, which was organised by MeitY in 2020. Such initiatives by the government of India have commenced a much-needed discourse on AI and would lead to certain positive, tangible meaningful changes in the overall economic and the social sphere. The knowledge partner for this session of AI Pe Charcha was SAP.