Context:

• NITI Aayog is organizing the fourth edition of NITI Lecture Series at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on 22.10.2018.
• The theme this year is “AI for ALL: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Inclusive Growth”.
• Union Ministers, policy makers, experts from different walks of life along with NITI Aayog Vice Chairman, Members, CEO and Senior officials will be a part of august gathering on this occasion..

AI & NITI

•  Artificial intelligence is the use of computers to simulate human intelligence. AI amplifies our cognitive abilities — letting us solve problems where the complexity is too great, the information is incomplete, or the details are too subtle and require expert training.
• Union Budget-2018 mandated NITI Aayog to come up with a national programme on employing Artificial Intelligence towards national development.
• NITI has, since, published a National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.
• National Strategy lays down the vision of India for evolving a robust ecosystem for AI research and adoption.
• The Strategy is termed #AIForAll as it is focused on leveraging AI for inclusive growth in line with the Government policy of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.
• NITI Aayog has signed Statements of Intent (SoI) with industry leaders such as Google, Microsoft and IBM to leapfrog India into the global arena of future technologies and enable use of artificial intelligence in key, high gain sectors of social development – healthcare, agriculture, smart mobility, education and infrastructure.

Natural Language Processing:

• In order to demonstrate impact of AI, multiple pilot projects have been launched in the areas of precision agriculture, creating AI led healthcare solutions, and bridging India’s diversity of languages by creating a digital “Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat” platform using Natural Language Processing (NLP).
• NLP is a system of protocols which allow machines or computers to understand and interact with human speech and symbols.
• The Prime Minister in his address at the launch of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution has underlined that with each wave of new technology, new opportunities arise.  
• The rise of Artificial Intelligence will help improve productivity and lead to equitable development.

Barriers that needs to be addressed

• Aiming to put AI to use for all and across sectors, NITI has identified barriers that needs to be addressed to achieve success in the use of AI.
• These include lack of expertise, absence of enabling data ecosystem, high resource cost and low awareness, privacy and security issues and absence of collaborative approach to adoption and application of AI.
• Recognising the importance of research and its commercial adoption in success of AI, NITI has also proposed setting up of Centre of Research Excellence (CORE) to focus on developing better understanding of existing core research.
• Besides this, the strategy paper also recommends setting up of International Centres of Transformational AI with a mandate to develop and deploy application-based research in collaboration with private players.

About NITI Lecture Series;

• The ‘NITI Lectures: Transforming India’ was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on August 26, 2016 and since been held annually, featuring eminent speakers from across the world.
• The first key note address – ‘India and the Global Economy’ – was delivered by the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Shri Tharman Shanmugaratnam.  Bill Gates, Co-Founder, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation delivered the Second lecture in the high-powered lecture series on ‘Technology and Transformation’ on the November 16, 2016 and on May 25, 2017, Dr. Michael Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, delivered the Third Transforming India Lecture, titled ‘Competitiveness of Nations and States: New Insights’.
• With the vision of disseminating cutting-edge, innovative ideas in development policy to India, the NITI Lectures are attended by the Government’s top decision makers, including members of the Cabinet and senior officials across ministries and departments.
• Through the lectures, NITI Aayog has been bringing policy makers, academics, experts and administrators of global repute to India. The aim of the series is to enable learning, both at the Centre & States, from successful development practice world over.

Source:PIB