Tech giants aim to skill government officials in AI, cloud

As the Narendra Modi government goes bullish on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, blockchain and data analytics, the daunting task ahead is to train millions of government officials so that these disruptive technologies can be optimised for the benefit of over one billion-plus people.

Beyond skilling students, young coders and entrepreneurs in emerging technologies, the onus is now on tech giants to train the men in the system — especially in the information technology (IT) departments — and Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is retail giant Amazon’s Cloud arm, is set to embark on this journey.

There is already a lot of talk happening within the government agencies about the success they have had after moving to cloud.

“This is the right time to skill them, train them in AI-enabled Cloud computing so that India can move faster on embracing new-age technologies. We have had successful meetings with senior government leaders on this subject as AWS is already leading in skilling the students and upskilling the workforce in the country,” Peter Moore, Regional Managing Director for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Global Public Sector — APAC and Japan, told IANS.

According to Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, training relevant government employees is the key to fulfil the mission of Prime Minister Modi who aims to create a Cloud-first approach towards skilling and digital transformation, thus empowering over a billion people.

“It is high time the Indian government deploys AI and Machine Learning-driven Cloud models to make sense of the humongous sets of data. Training is a crucial part of this exercise,” Carlson told IANS.

As part of its vision to provide a “One Government” experience to citizens, the Modi government is moving forward rapidly to implement the India Enterprise Architecture (IndEA) — a single window digitisation solution for cashless, paperless and faceless services. This will require a quicker and seamless implementation of AI-driven Cloud across the spectrum.

Microsoft India is also not behind on its vision to train Indian government officials in emerging technologies.

The company last month announced the “Digital Governance Tech Tour” programme to skill government IT officials in technologies like AI and intelligent Cloud computing.

Microsoft will organise a series of physical and virtual workshops to train 5,000 government IT personnel over a period of 12 months.

“The first-of-its-kind ‘Digital Governance Tech Tour’ for government officials reiterates our commitment of being a trusted partner to the government by enabling and empowering officials to do more with technology in service of the citizens,” said Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India.

According to NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, as India moves beyond pilots and understands how to scale AI implementation and Cloud adoption across states and sectors, “it is vital to equip the ecosystem with the right know-how and skills”.

As India advances towards fulfilling its vision of becoming a $5 trillion economy, applying AI and data analytics using secure and compliant Cloud-based tools can provide actionable, predictive and effective citizen-focused services.