Use of Artificial Intelligence in Government

Masterclass by CII Digital in partnership with Microsoft

The Hon’ble PM Shri Narendra Modi, on 12 May 2020, during his nationwide address emphasized the need to enhance India’s competitiveness in the global economy and achieve self-reliance by enhancing the use of emerging technologies both by Industry and Government. 

Centre for Digital Transformation with a focus on building a robust tech-enabled ecosystem in India, has taken this address as a clarion call and has started acting as a catalyst for the widespread use of emerging technology for the benefit of the masses including the Government.  It is also comprehended that emerging technologies especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) have an array of use in Government which could benefit by integrating AI into every aspect of their work. AI has the potential to help government departments to work efficiently, improve processes, manage costs, and promote research and development.

A series of Masterclasses on the Use of AI in Government for officials across Ministries, States, and Union Territories, in partnership with Microsoft, is being organized. The objective of these training programs is to create awareness of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and encourage AI/ ML adoption by the government.

The 3^rd session of the masterclass series was organized on January 19, 2021, which briefly covered the following:

• Perspectives on AI for Government
• AI Innovations Driving Transformation
• AI Platform: Democratizing AI
• Transformative Experiences (led by Cognitive Services)
• Edge Inference: The True Power of ML
• MLOps – Leading Model Management

The session received an overwhelming response from different Government departments. It was attended by the Government of Telangana, Department of Telecom, Department of Science & Technology, Cyber Cell, National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, Government e-Marketplace, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, National Informatics Centre etc.

Data Dashboard

• Total Telecom Subscribers (Wireless plus Wireline): 1,172.44 Million (Source: TRAI)
• Total Internet Subscribers: 718.74 Million (Source: TRAI)
• No. of internet connections – 75 Cr as of Aug 2020 (Source: TRAI)
• India’s Smartphone shipment – 50 million as on Q3 2020 (Source: IBEF)
• Market Size (USD billion) (Source: IBEF)
  • Indian IT Industry – 191 as of FY20
  • Telecom Sector – 9.09 as of June 2021
  • eCommerce – 38.5 as of 2017

Centre’s Initiatives

PM-WANI: Transforming Digital Scenario in India: 18 February 2021

The Digital India program has become a mass movement since the past 5 years. Many initiatives have been taken by the Indian Government to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The launch of (PM-WANI) initiative by the Government of India is yet another endeavor to enhance internet penetration across the nation.

Centre for Digital Transformation believes that the scheme will not only bring broadband internet to remote locations at minimum investment but also boost the ‘ease of doing business with ‘ease of living’ across the country. To take these efforts further, Centre for Digital Transformation organised a Session on PM-WANI: Transforming Digital Scenario in India on 18 February 2021 over a virtual platform.

The session brought all the relevant stakeholders together to highlight the relevance of PM WANI in transforming India digitally, Challenges of implementing PM WANI in India, Value additions that can be combined with PM WANI, Best strategies to enable India with a robust internet connection, considering the low-cost data plans available in India.

Key Highlights & Takeaways

1. PM Wani project brings out the opportunity for employment generation.
2. Cloud migration helps organisations to become more agile
3. There is opportunity for creating or increasing virtual experiences
4. There is a need to work out the bandwidth cost
5. Incentives need to be aligned
6. Telecom providers will get an opportunity to strengthen fibre network.

Conference on DX Secure: Create a Cybersecurity strategy for your company in the Current Scenario: 24th February 2021: Virtual Platform

The challenges due to COVID have witnessed a greater use of digital technologies and the remote working scenario along with the distributed architecture has further enhanced the vulnerability leading to several cyber-attacks.

 In order to help Industry deal with this challenge, a Virtual Conference on DX Secure: Create a Cybersecurity strategy for your company in the Current Scenario was organized on 24^th February 2021, to deliberate upon the emerging risks in the Cyber Security Space and identify workable solutions and way forward for the Ecosystem.

Some of the Eminent speakers were ,Mr Narendra G Nath, Joint Secretary, National Security Council Secretariat, Govt Of India , Prof. Avishai Wool, Tel Aviv University& CO-founder, Algosec, Israel, Mr Sandeep Karnik, Additional Commissioner of Police, Western Region, Mumbai, Mr Amit Sinha Roy, Vice President, Global Head of Marketing ,& Communications, Tata Communications Ltd, Ms Vinita Gera, Co-Chair, Centre for Digital Transformation &

Senior Director, GM India COE, DELL Technologies, Ms Vaishali Bhagwat ,Advocate (Civil & Cyber),Mr Deepak Talwar, National Security Officer, Microsoft India, Mr Sunil David, Regional Director – IOT, India and ASEAN AT&T Global Network Services India Pvt Ltd and Mr Lalit Kumar, Lead, India Security Function, Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd

Key Highlights & Takeaways

1. Creating awareness about the threats, its implication and simultaneously developing a secure ecosystem is imperative to deal with the challenges
2. Organizations in future will operate through a hybrid model which will witness virtualization of servers, on premise apps and cloud ecosystem.
3. AI needs to be leveraged to adequately protect the dynamic enterprise attack surface, undertake analysis and threat identification that can be acted upon by cybersecurity professionals to reduce breach risk and improve security posture
4. Organizations must move from reactive to a proactive approach. Organisations should leverage threat management software to minimize the opportunity window for the hackers.
5. Data backup strategy and data classification should be emphasized upon

Special Plenary Session on ‘Disruptive Strategies for the Phygital World’ at the Southern Region Annual Regional  Meeting : Theme: Strategic Manufacturing in the Digital Era: 1545 to 1715 hrs : 6 March 2021

2021 will be the year of transition and mark the start of a decade that will require industries to proactively manage uncertainties. Economic activity which had come to a standstill in the initial months of the pandemic has resumed and is accelerating steadily. The economic recovery in India has turned out to be much stronger than earlier expected, although many challenges remain. While businesses are ready to operate in the post pandemic world using sustainable models and digital technologies, Indian industry would need to reset itself to build momentum and become more resilient.

Centre for Digital Transformation organised a Plenary Session on Disruptive Strategies for the Phygital World’ at the CII Southern Region Annual Regional Meeting on 6 March 2021.

The session covered the concept of Phygital landing into creation of a perfect balance between offline and online experience. It also highlighted the challenges and opportunities that emerged with the development of disruptive tech, including AI, ML, Automation and role play of robotics.

Some of the eminent speakers at the Session were Mr Dilip Sawhney, Co- Chair, CII Smart Manufacturing Council & Managing Director, Rockwell Automation Ltd, Mr Sameer Prakash

Head – Digital Enterprise, Siemens Ltd, Mr Ankur Goyal, Associate Director – Industrial Sector

IBM India, Mr Chaman Nasa,Product Manager, Intralogistics Business ,Hi-Tech Robotics Systemz and  Mr V Jagannath, Business Head, M2nxt (A Bharat Fritz Werner Ltd Subsidiary).

The Session was moderated by Ms Vinita Gera, Co- Chair, CII Centre for Digital Transformation & Senior Director, GM India COE , DELL Technologies.

Some Key Takeaways are as under :-

1.Every company should have a digital strategy in place and help a company be agile to face the challenges

2.Combination of Robotics and digitization can bring a real value proposition to Manufacturing and improve efficiency.

3.Digitalization also means disruption which could lead to a change in organizational structure hence communication on the benefits of digital within the organization will be the key to success.

 4.Challenges in India are profound but the ingenuity that Industry possesses with the zeal to overcome the challenges open up huge possibilities which will create a compounded impact on the global stage.

The deliberations focussed on strategies to achieve global competitiveness in the digitally connected world.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AI: March 18, 2021: Virtual Platform

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest technological breakthroughs of the 21st century by humans. AI is indeed revolutionizing businesses across the sectors such as education, agriculture, manufacturing, BFSI, and healthcare transforming the traditional way of working for the economic value it brings. It has the potential to add USD 957 billion, or 15 % of current gross value to India’s economy by 2035, as envisaged by report released by Accenture. Realizing the impact of AI in businesses and economy of any nation, various efforts over the past years have been put by Indian government, facilitating the adaption of AI across sectors in India.

Towards strengthening India’s vision for a Digital India by enhancing the adoption of AI , Centre for Digital Transformation organized a Conference of AI with the theme ‘AI for Industry ~ AI for All’. The conference primarily focussed on AI in Healthcare AI in BFSI, and AI in Manufacturing. It  majorly deliberated on how AI has been impacting these sectors; how AI solutions can be implemented across these sectors; how these sectors are improving Al workforce; and How can Industry and Government collaborate to minimize the impact of AI across these sectors.

Some of the eminent speakers at the Session were Shri Abhishek Singh, President & CEO

Some Key Takeaways are as under : - 

1. AI strategy is focussed towards society, healthcare, agriculture, education, smart mobility and industry which has a huge opportunity for stakeholders to partner with govt and contribute towards development of the nation.
2. National Programme on AI and the need for Sustainable Training, for students has led to CBSE introducing AI from Class 09th onwards which has helped to build AI projects by school children.
3. At a time when many economies are struggling to recapture rates of productivity and growth, AI promises to provide a solution. A full & responsible implementation with the ethical components in place, AI will open new growth opportunities.
4. The AI adoption in Healthcare is well poised to become successful in India, since citizens have become tech savvy in the last few years.
5. Speed of diagnosis is required without compromising on the quality and expertise which is provided by AI and Cognitive Analysis.
6. AI combined with IOT can be used to scale up preventive healthcare initiatives by having Self help Kiosks for public use to help the masses which is imp for a country like India with a huge population
7. There is a need for a Regulatory committee on AI with Focus on Ethics specially for the Healthcare sector.
8. The challenge in the current scenario is to democratize access to AI researchers and make AI scalable.

It is imperative for Government, Academia, and Industry to collaborate and work towards building a conducive ecosystem for leveraging AI.