India at 75 - Leapfrogging the future with AI

#India is celebrating its #independenceday this 15th August. As an #indian and being an #expat this makes me proud to see the #country reaching different milestones with all its hurdles and complexities. There are a few democracies in the world with such enormous challenges in terms of the size and complexities such as #India

I believe #technology would be the crucial factor in bringing #changes in the #India and Artificial Intelligence (AI) would be the key to enable those transitions. I had written my thoughts last year during #independenceday on a broad range of topics and how India can leverage the next years to fair better on a range of indicators and position itself as the country with #globalinfluence but also standing up for principles like #equity #fairness #humanrights and basic social rights.?

In this article, I focus on some key suggestions on how #ai can #impact and benefit #indians and country as a whole.

1) Building an Indian Institute of #artificialintelliegence which covers all aspects of #ai from research on the methods and techniques in AI across different fields (#health, #space, #mobility, #urbanplanning, #climate change, #ethics, #humanrights, #migration) to initiatives that can enable a solid awareness in common public about #technologies like AI and their influence on the everyday life. Such an institution can attract a lot of global talent and cooperation for future.

2) Branching the current #skills mission to National AI skills mission that can cover providing access to best quality of existing knowledge and vocational training on AI to develop a significant workforce which can add value to the growing demand of skilled labour with basic knowledge and experience.

3) Building a #creativeai initiative to integrate #ai into creative spaces and allowing creativity to be the core while designing AI solutions & products

4) A robust national framework on AI guidelines and regulations for the field and its implications in different fields. Such a framework requires more lateral incorporation of talented and experienced individuals to be part of the governance decision making bodies. At the same time, as the requirements and challenges evolve, this also requires continuous updating of the framework to the time and needs. On the similar line, India can provide an unique opportunity to provide #bilateralframeworks for #AI

5) Integrating #AI backed methods and solutions in the national welfare programs to learn and predict the future needs of the population. One of the solid examples in this regard could be in terms of #impact of #climatechange on migration within the country and also providing its impact on #agriculture. The heatwaves, flash floods are just a few of the main impacts of climate change directly seen in the present time line. In this context, using #AI backed solutions to predict such disasters and matching responses would enable India to mitigate some of the immediate challenges in the upcoming years. Finding solutions to #wasteclearance #wasterawareness #wastetreatment can reduce a substantial burden on the system. #health is primarily one of the most challenging sectors in India and as we see a rapid innovation combined with national integration of advanced AI solutions would support India's vision of #onehealth. Finally India has unique #defense challenges and we already see a sustained motivation to tap in AI resources for the country's security.

6) Building trusted #globalpartnerships in #bilateral and #multilateral formats to effectively build inherent capacities of India which remain apolitical in critical situations. Some of the Indian engagements with countries like #germany and in the formats of #quad do include this component. However a more systematic and large umbrella of engagements focused on AI in these partnerships would add momentum to projects that happen #insilos.

Anyone interested in the #indogerman community for the topic can join my LinkedIn group - German Indian Bilateral AI Forum)

https://www.dhirubhai.net/groups/9016061/

7) India has seen a tremendous change in the sports culture in the last few years. This also marks progress of the country. Merging technology including #AI solutions to support athletes and sports personals can support India in #leapfrogging across all #international #sporting #events

8) Using AI in some of the core and more Indian specific topics such as #languages #history #culture #food #media can build connect with the masses and bring scale to the different activities or solutions in these fields.

Finally, I believe India as country needs to also envision a #futurewithai & #beyondai to build solid capacities to serve itself and to the world. I specifically did not go into the topic of #startups as that is broadly covered by every day updates and the ecosystem as such is potentially aware of the fastmoving changes and adapting to the them.

Recently, I had also done a few short interviews for the LinkedIn group on a broad topics surrounding #ai and in the #indian #context. I thank all the guests for giving me feed for this article and for bringing in diverse perspective on the topic.

Check out my interview with Shalaka Verma from 微软 #microsoft on 'Leapfrogging with AI & building capacities'

Interview links

You can also check my interview with Sarayu Natarajan from Aapti Institute on 'AI at the intersection of system & Society'

My interview with Renee Y. on the 英伟达 's engagement with the #indian #ecosystem

Feel free to comment and share your thoughts on leveraging #AI to build capacities for #India.