It is estimated that AI has the potential to add over 500 billion dollars and 20 million jobs to the Indian economy by 2025. India has a diverse pool of talent working on innovative ideas in the space of AI to solve real world problems. To acknowledge these innovations, NASSCOM is announcing the AI Gamechangers program.AI Gamechangers will aim at amplifying the success stories of the AI Innovators in India and their journey towards successful implementation across key sectors.

India has gained ground in scaling various industries on a global scale. Information Technology, Pharmacy and Automobile industry are classic examples, wherein India has made its mark on the global map. India has also shown innovation at scale in Universal Payment, Consumer Banking technologies and Fintech space. Nevertheless, India needs significant social and economic elevation of people here and AI can play a huge role to address some of these.

Problems we face in India would be substantially different from problems people elsewhere face; hence, a felicitous solution elsewhere might not be apt for us. However, if you can make something work for India, there is a likelihood; it will work for global needs, having gone through stress testing around the Indian scale and Indian diversity. And this is where we have opportunities.

Yes, we need a special focus on AI for India. India is a massive country, with a substantial population and enormous diversity. Diversity in India goes beyond language and culture; we have diverse economic segments, diverse educational level, industries, aspiration among enterprise etc. and thus diverse datasets.

 We as a country need tech-based intervention to solve our own peculiar Indian problems, as resources we have in hand are extremely limited and not scalable to the extent. Let us look at some of the domestic and international exigency, which have the potential of becoming opportunities for our startups.

Food for All - Technology-driven Agriculture can really solve the hunger problem for India and the world. Technologies like AI, Drones and intelligence devices can be used for Crops yield improvement recommendations (using IoT and AI) Crop Density and health inspection (using Drons+AI), AI-enabled pest detection (Using Satellite images) etc. India can take a lead role in solving the hunger problem for the world. We have done this for the world in the field of Vaccine Manufacturing, and yes we can repeat this. 

Education for All - With the usage of the digital channel and AI, we can scale the effort to educate all remotely in different languages and as per individual needs. AI can address language constraints and can increase the relevancy of education vis-a-vis student’s need. 

Health Care for All - We have an unfavourable ratio of the number of doctors to the population of our country. AI-based diagnosis; screening, prevention and cure are the only scalable way for India to make health care for all and making it affordable. AI-driven drugs and molecule discovery can put India on top of the world in the business of curing lives. 5G enabled remote surgeries are not far away, thus healthcare can be made accessible to the remotest place. 

Clean Environment for All - Technology can help in improving the throughput of Solar/Wind power, reducing transmission loss, adoption and effectiveness of Smart grids. All this can give boost green fuel adoption at the right price point. 

While these are some of the Global mega problems, there are plenty of private enterprise-level problems, which can be solved using AI. This can help enterprise do things faster, more effectively to make life convenient for employee, consumers and their partners.

Startups are in the best place to solve many of these problems. India has a thriving startup ecosystem and has the presence of successful private corporate houses and Global IT Product and Services organizations. Large Corporate houses like Tata, Ambani, Mahindra, Bajaj, Singhvi, Hinduja etc. and leading IT firms like IBM, Accenture, Infosys, TCS, Wipro etc. must tap this vibrant startup ecosystem in a big way to solve larger problems. It makes perfect business sense to pick up such mega problems, use startup, scale it, solve it for India, solve it for the world…

Opportunity is here and now. Yes, there will be a need to regulate AI, Data and various other things, but all those are addressable if we come together. 

Let’s be the Gamechanger...

Visit the link below to apply or nominate for the AI Gamechangers program