INDIAai - the national AI portal turns two today. A virtual session was held to celebrate on 30th May 2022, to exemplify the work done in the AI domain and a commitment to strive for the best in the future. 

The event commenced with the welcome note by Vinay Thakur, COO of NeGD, had the esteemed presence of Abhishek Singh, President & CEO of NeGD; Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM; Sangeetha Gupta, Senior Vice President, NASSCOM; and Asna Siddiqui, Head of the National AI Portal. The event was moderated by Jibu Elias, Content & Research Lead at INDIAai. 

A fireside session with Abhishek Singh and Debjani Ghosh on the theme "How can we ensure that AI adoption will benefit the bottom of the pyramid?" stole the show. Asna Siddiqui moderated the session.

Debjani Ghosh begins by congratulating the team for their attempts and achievements, stating that "INDIAai for me is not just a portal, it is a movement that is driving AI channel in India." As per some reports, developing countries like India will not be able to harness a good amount of potential from AI. However, Debjani shared a different opinion - India will not only make the best out of AI but will show the world how technology like AI can be for problem-solving. She pointed to three major reasons behind it:

• The very first thing to understand is that AI needs problems to solve. Being a vast country, India has some tremendously challenging problems to solve. When we solve for India, we solve for the world, whether it is water, energy, food crisis, and more.
• Secondly, AI demands talent, and India has a good talent base that is fuelling innovation in the AI domain. We only need to figure out how to channel this talent base to further fuel the innovation.
• Thirdly, AI needs data; India is generating a lot of data. Meanwhile, even the government is working on data framework and utilisation strategies to make quality data easily accessible while having guardians of privacy and security. This will open the floodgates to what startups can do with AI.

The need of the hour for India, as per Debjani, is in order to mainstream AI - there is a need to have trust in AI. Thus Explainable AI (XAI) is a priority. For example, making algorithms open and accessible is a good start. "I do believe that India has a tremendous opportunity not just to deploy AI at scale, but to show how it is done right," said Debjani. In her opinion, inclusion is good for other countries, but in an Indian scenario, inclusion is a must to do.

According to Abhishek Singh IAS, "INDIAai has become the go-to platform for AI". He added that the portal had become a coherent pillar in AI for India. Following this, he stressed the need to look for ways in which AI can be used to benefit people standing last in the queue first. Abhishek seemed more concerned about using AI in measuring learning outcomes and recommending personalised learning materials. 

Commenting on the need to have responsible AI, Abhishek said, "There is a lot that has been done, but I feel a lot more needs to be done to enable the adoption of responsible AI." Finally, Abhishek Singh addressed questions on AI for the future and explained various current use cases in AI. 

Further, the chat moves towards the widening gap between developed and developing nations in garnering economic benefits from AI. To this, Asna pointed out the gap that exists within India too. "I don't think AI widens the gap; I think humans do, based on how we use technology," said Debjani. A desired set of principles need to be set across the globe with inclusion and security built in. 

Abhishek stressed the need to adopt voice-enabled services to cater to the needs of the people who are non-tech-savvy, devoid of basic smartphones, lack digital literacy, etc. He further backs the need for multilingual AI in an Indian setting. Moreover, Abhishek reaffirmed the commitment of the government to provide better services to the citizen using AI, for social betterment.