The National eGovernance Division (NeGD) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) recently organised an Artificial Intelligence Dialogue (AI Pe Charcha) for panellists to discuss the significance of data-driven, AI-enabled governance and global AI best practices. The event was initiated as part of the Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE) programme, India’s first global AI summit organised by MeitY in 2020. According to a press release, these government initiatives have started a much-needed discourse on AI and could lead to long-lasting, meaningful socio-economic changes.
The event involved various global and domestic leaders from the government and industry, researchers, and academicians sharing their views and experiences around AI, its related case studies, global best practices, breakthroughs in innovations, and challenges faced in the field. Experts at the event spoke about the importance of using the right data and how different governments around the world have employed AI to standalone departments and the processes to formulate prudent policies.
An official at the event expanded on several case studies from around the world on the use of AI in healthcare, agriculture, skilling and manufacturing, etc. AI-driven solutions need to be ubiquitous and benefit more people, he stated.
AI-driven governance provides authorities with the knowledge of predicting and mitigating challenges. This helps the government take actions proactively, draft citizen-friendly policies, and also enhance the overall working processes. At the event, participants gave a presentation on AI-driven solutions like the COVID-19 city-scale simulator and logistic modelling, complex document extraction to government resource planning systems and intelligent accounting automation–invoice, receipt, and accounts reconciliation using machine learning.
The Indian government is developing and implementing several AI-driven initiatives in education, healthcare, agriculture, and finance. Educational institutes and government agencies are launching centres and offering courses in emerging technology to help build a skilled workforce. For instance, last month, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ (IIT-Madras) Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBCDSAI) launched the ‘RBCDSAI Industrial Consortium’ to provide information resources on cutting-edge technologies to industries working on AI.
The consortium will help industry members learn about the scientific developments and latest trends in AI and data science through broad-based interactions with the centre and its faculty. As OpenGov Asia had reported, the centre offers two membership plans to the interested industries: platinum and silver. The membership plans will enable priority access to four RBCDSAI events, namely, colloquia, quarterly workshops, industry conclaves, and annual research showcases. The centre will organise two special half-day workshops on their voted topic of interest from a slate for its members. Additionally, platinum members will have a dedicated in-domain contact faculty at the centre for close interaction to seek suggestions on their industry’s plans. They will get to exclusively interact with the students to know more about their research and have early access to RBCDSAI publications, reports, datasets, and other research material.
The global AI market size is expected to gain momentum and reach US$360.36 billion by 2028 while exhibiting a CAGR of 33.6% between 2021 to 2028. AI has become immensely popular, and industries across the globe are rapidly incorporating it into their processes to improve business operations and customer experience.