The latest session of AI Pe Charcha was held on the 10th of June. The session brought together some of the brilliant AI experts and practitioners from the USA and Philippines who discussed important ideas and practices on the topic “Leveraging Data for AI towards Social Empowerment.”

“AI Pe Charcha” has been envisioned as a part of the RAISE 2020 summit and is a series of thought leadership sessions between the esteemed government officers and Industry AI experts. This initiative aims to explore the potential of AI enablement in health, agriculture, education, logistics, security, infrastructure, urban/rural governance, and improve citizen-centric services, leading to better ease of living for the Billion+ population.

This month’s Charcha was hosted by Mr Vinay Thakur COO NeGd, who expressed his gratitude to the panellists and participants.

The first expert of the session, Mr. Saurabh Gaur, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Govt of India, shared his thoughts on how AI has huge potential and is no longer to be called an incremental change rather a paradigm shift. He also stressed the fact that AI has great potential in a data-rich country like India and shall definitely be used for efforts in the direction of social empowerment.

Mr. Zia Khan, Senior Vice President, Innovation The Rockefeller Foundation, briefed the audience about Atlas AI, which is a collaborative project by The Rockefeller Foundation, Airbus Ventures, Micron Technology, and Member of the World Bank’s Development Data Partnership. It provides unparalleled insight into where organizations can grow most successfully, along with informing where development capital can have the greatest socio-economic impact.

Mr. Eric Schwartz, Co-Founder, BlueConduit Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, presented how he is using AI and ML capabilities for a project that will help local authorities and people. BlueConduit is a water analytics company that has developed cutting-edge, predictive machine learning methods to locate lead service lines, empowering local officials with the information to efficiently remove those pipes. The model enables utilities to focus their resources on digging where the lead is, accelerating the removal of this significant health concern and saving millions of dollars in avoided digs. 

The Rockefeller Foundation and BlueConduit have partnered to improve community health by developing efficient and cost-effective Lead Service Line Replacement programs. The idea is to increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of lead service line replacement programs in the cities of Trenton (NJ), Toledo (OH), Detroit (MI), and Benton Harbor (MI). Studies have shown that lead primarily enters drinking water through plumbing materials, such as pipes. Health problems from lead exposure range from stomach distress to brain damage. “In 2018, researchers estimated more than 400,000 deaths a year in the US are linked to lead exposure,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

Dr. Reina Reyes, Chief technical Advisor, Pintig Labs (UNDP), gave insights on how data can be used more effectively and meaningfully for social good, such as for confronting the pandemic and building resilience for future crisis. Pintig Lab was launched in a bid to help inform the government’s response and recovery strategy against COVID-19. Pintig Lab has set up a visual dashboard to track the latest developments on COVID-19, capturing the trends of cases, deaths, recoveries, hospital, and laboratory capacities from the region.

It will also connect with data from the recently conducted surveys with government and non-government partners on the socio-economic impact of the pandemic on households and small enterprises.

The info-packed session witnessed Mr. Evan Tachovsky, Steering Committee Member, Lacuna Fund Director & Lead Data Scientist, Innovation, The Rockefeller Foundation sharing how his project supports the creation, expansion, and maintenance of equitably labeled datasets that enable the robust application of ML for problems of social value. In addition, he shared his progress of raising $4.9 Million, reviewed over 230 proposals, and funded 16 projects to support agriculture and language datasets across Africa.

The session concluded with a QnA where enthusiastic participants raised their queries to respective panelists. It is a great platform for AI enthusiasts and scholars to understand the global perspective and the latest AI trends worldwide. This also provides them an opportunity to talk to industry stalwarts.