The first of a series of NeGD-led workshops called Digital India Dialogue For Leaders was held virtually on 12th May. It is believed that the number could touch a hundred or thereabouts. Emerging technologies, despite their widespread use, are still fuzzy and these workshops are designed to distill the truth and make users feel at home while using them.

Shri Vinay Thakur, the COO of NeGD, set the context and welcomed participants including the other major contributors to the workshop namely, UNDP & Intel. Mr. Thakur explained NeGD’s pivotal role in building capacity over 15 years and training officers (Centre & States) on various aspects of tech-enabled governance. These thematic programmes have enabled expertise development in 20K+ senior officers across levels, and given its success ratio now the ground is being built towards disseminating relevant skills in emerging tech. These workshops will address various aspects of cutting-edge technologies – particularly, AI – and how they can be used for better governance. With that, he handed over to Shri Abhishek Singh, the President & CEO of NeGD. 

Mr. Singh, waded deeper and hand-held us and spoke about the remarkable breakthroughs while fighting the war against covid. Data availability and massive computing power combined were enabling better models and the development of real-time applications which helped get a better understanding of healthcare resource allocation including a deeper understanding of the mutating virus. But do most of us really know what these technologies can do for us beyond the theoretical constructs? That’s why the workshops would have a case-study-based approach and practitioners would double dip as “faculty”; though learning is always a two-way street. Answering questions & clearing doubts in well-attended workshops help in better conceptualization, as well. The most important part and Mr. Singh put a great emphasis on was the three-fold partnership involving academia, industry, and the government. The National Programme on AI that Niti Aayog has drawn up is a great example of how this partnership has worked. All three pillars must be equally strong. 

He touched upon several examples including agriculture and the way AI & data-led insights were used to increase productivity while also reducing input costs. Mr. Singh also cited several use cases of the Ministry of Healthcare (e.g. chatbots addressing vaccination-related queries). Hereon, the approach would be about massively enabling the centre & states to build AI-led expertise.              

Mr. Brian Gonzalez, Senior Director, Public Policy at Intel took over from Mr. Singh. He started by paying a tribute to the nation’s collective resilience in the midst of a raging health crisis. His address was centred on the power of technology to save lives. The Fourth Industrial Revolution through emerging tech is likely to add another 100 trillion dollars to the global economy in the next decade or so but we have to prepare ourselves right away which would mean putting programmes and policy frameworks in place. But we must always bear in mind that society has to be more inclusive and opportunities will have to be created bearing the outcomes in mind. He spoke with great passion about a future where digitalization will lead to faster delivery in a connected environment. Imagine a world in which 100 billion devices are connected. Mobility anytime anywhere would also mean developing a whole new set of skills that may not even be on the radar right away. Today we produce 2 – 5 quintillion bytes of data every day but only a fraction of it is used. But, are we ready?

That’s when he introduced the idea of Digital Readiness. And, it’s not only about skills & learnability. It includes a whole lot of other things such as TRUST, gaining confidence and creating ethical frameworks. While the potential is immense but the limitations are equally powerful and something that we can’t afford to lose sight of. This realization can only come through the commitment of leaders, a premium put on community-based learning, and collaboratively setting directions – where do we want to go? 

Ms. Shoko Noda of UNDP was the next speaker. She spoke at great length on the role of AI in mitigating climate change risks and cited some of the most prominent UNDP-led use cases in India in controlling air pollution. She emphasized smart systems and how they are being built to save lives and livelihoods. On inclusivity, she spoke about   Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN), a unique innovation that brings together technology, people, and processes to strengthen the vaccine supply chain by digitizing information on vaccine stocks and storage temperatures. In partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, UNDP aims to support the Universal Immunization Programme. The emphasis was on building consciousness and ways in which emerging tech can be used to make lives better. 

Mr. Dilip Paruchuri of Intel gave many examples to underscore the importance of having data in usable form, experiential learnings, autonomous applications to reduce human interventions, edge computing among a host of others. He drew examples from life and touched upon several aspects (agriculture, healthcare, autonomous vehicles, public distribution systems etc.) to underscore the power of these technologies and how they are being used to disrupt legacy models. The outcomes are better and infinitely faster as well. 

Finally, we had senior speakers from UNDP, Mr Calum Handforth and Ms Swtha Kolluri wrap up the day’s proceedings. How do we look at a world after we have recovered from covid? What kind of opportunities lies ahead? UNDP through its experience in implementing great change brings unparalleled richness. These experiences have come about through a four-fold approach: Building strategic partnerships, developing pathways, identifying AI advantages and its limitations. It is usually a combination of qualitative and quantitative decision-making that leads to optimum outcomes. Some powerful India-centric examples (AI-led) were shared including those from the Govt. of TN in detecting the early onset of cataracts to save lives.

Dr Alok Goel of NeGD delivered the Vote of Thanks. The three hours that we spent went by in a jiffy but the learning was immense and set the tone for a more detailed overview in the subsequent workshops. 

Photo by panumas nikhomkhai from Pexels