An insightful virtual celebration was held on May 30th, 2023, as INDIAai, the National AI Portal of India, completes its successful three years in the industry. The National AI Portal, a joint initiative by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), National e-Governance Division (NeGD), and NASSCOM, focuses on creating and nurturing a unified AI ecosystem in the country. The portal aims to drive excellence and leadership in knowledge creation to develop an AI-ready robust workforce for the future and use AI to foster economic growth. The portal was launched on May 30th, 2020, by the then Hon’ble Minister for Electronics and IT, Ravisankar Prasad. Since its inception, the portal has played a crucial role in evangelising and nurturing India’s AI ecosystem through numerous impactful initiatives that aided the portal in connecting with its audience. 

The event commenced with the welcome note of Mr. Abhishek Singh, MD and CEO of Digital India Corperation, President and CEO of NeGD and CEO of Karmayogi Bharat. Abhishek Singh claimed INDIAai, with its one-of-a-kind content, has made it a go-to place for any AI-related information in India and globally. He complimented how the “AI for everyone” demystified the concept of AI. “This is how we ensure that AI doesn’t become something only for coders and techies but even common people get to understand how AI works and, more importantly, how to use AI responsibly in their day-to-day life”, Abhishek Singh stated. He welcomed the event by mentioning how INDIAai is a perfect example of how government and industry create magic together.  

The event later had the esteemed presence of Debjani Ghosh, the President of NASSCOM, to deliver the welcome note. After congratulating the team for all the achievements, Debjani Ghosh said, “This is the moment to decide the relationship we want to have with technology and human beings”, explaining the need to see innovations through the lens of a human-centric approach than fearing the AI as a threat to humanity. “I believe that the world needs a very strong focus on building human-centric technology and AI”. 

The speech was followed by a video that showed a glimpse of the national AI portal’s achievements over the years, the unveiling of the revamped website, and the summary of Lab2market 2023, which aims to help students and researchers at Indian universities commercialise their research. The most anticipated “AI for everyone” video was screened, which was one of the significant goals of the National AI Portal. The portal launched the AI for Everyone booklet last year to overcome access barriers and to educate the public about AI. The booklet explains basic AI concepts in the form of a story. Narrated through the eyes of a school-going girl, the AI for Everyone booklet provides first-hand information about where to begin if you want to know AI. 

The event then witnessed the launch of the generative AI report, which was the result of various research and three roundtables that featured some of the prominent voices in generative AI, AI policy, AI governance and ethics, and academia to analyse the impact, ethical and regulatory questions, and opportunities it brings to India. It is intended to be used by policymakers, entrepreneurs, practitioners, and students. The report contains an introduction to generative AI, analyses the current state of generative AI, explores its opportunities, addresses the challenges and puts together key recommendations for policy formulation. Also, the report includes AI-generated images contributed by popular AI artist Tapan Aslot. The full report can be downloaded from the INDIAai website. 

Prior to the panel discussion, Jibu Elias, Content and Research Lead, answered the queries brought up in the Q&A session. The event then witnessed an informative panel discussion that predominantly talked about the National AI Program, generative AI, challenges and potentials of generative AI and responsible AI. The discussion was moderated by Khushal Wadhwa, MeitY along with Dr. Shashikumar Ganeshan, HOD of Data Science and AI, IISC Bangalore, Dr. Manish Gupta, Head of Google Research India, Inder Gopal, CEO of India Urban Data Exchange and Ankush Sabharwal, the founder and CEO of CoRover as the panellists.