By Gaurav Vohra, Chief Business Office, UNext Learning
The role of technology in its vision to empower lives and livelihood of laypeople will mean nothing if it does not reach the masses. The real impact and advancement of technology can be validated when a person in a metropolitan city and another person in the rural/suburbs of a state can both seamlessly leverage technology for their specific goals and benefits.
With the recent session of the Union Budget 2023-24, we as a nation seem to have taken a right step towards a better and a brighter future with inputs and emphasis on technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI).
While the Make In India campaign made waves by revolutionizing indigenous manufacturing of products and services, the latest initiatives on Make AI For India and Make AI Work For India are promising in terms of changing the grammar of the game in the emerging tech space.
With the dynamic rise of AI and with a tool like ChatGPT making the right noises, it’s time our nation picks up pace in the AI space to not only churn out global unicorns but leave a positive impact for its people as well.
As we delve deep into the topic, we realized there are different ways these two initiatives would fuel the use of AI in India.
3 Ways Make AI For India Will Be A Gamechanger For The Nation
Indigenous Problems Require Contextual Resolutions
There can never be a generic solution to any problem. While the underlying concerns could be common across frontiers, contextually, factors such as demographics, purchasing capabilities, population, environmental factors, behaviors and other dynamics differ from one nation to the other. To break this down further, it could even differ from one state to the other.
Context varies and that’s why the Make AI For India will allow for the development of indigenous solutions in the form of tools and platforms that are built on concerns for our demographics and influential factors. For instance, startups looking to resolve concerns in the context of Indian healthcare, sustainability, education or others will have a more relevant and an organic solution in the pipeline built for the nation rather than make-do tools imported and visualized from offerings abroad.
More Indian AI-Driven Unicorns
India is a land of unicorns. We’ve had some of the most game-changing startups turning into unicorns over the last few years. With the Make AI For India, this will only water the seeds that were already sown in the previous wave.
We will have more young and smart minds working on problems specific to their geography or region and thinking of ways to leverage the power of AI to deal with them. When we talk about AI, we’re not talking about this particular technology alone. We also have a whole ecosystem of emerging technologies evolving in India that will aid the minds of today work on unicorns of tomorrow. The consistent deployment of 5G is a value addition in the process that will only complement larger visions startups and aspiring businesses have.
Improved AI Literacy & Specialised Workforce
Recent reports on skill gaps in the AI and emerging technology space are a little alarming. Accenture recently released a report that shared that the prevailing skill gap in India could lead to a loss of around $1.97 in the country’s GDP.
Not just that. By 2026, India also needs close to 30 million digitally-skilled professionals and close to 2 million vacancies in the AI space will remain unfilled in the year 2023. That’s why the announcement of Make AI for India arrives as a landmark move as we need homegrown initiatives and academia to bring down the skill gap and nurture talents that will eventually lead the AI wave in the coming years.
A solid ray of hope arrives with the mentioning of pointers on the setting up of specialized AI centers in educational institutions. This means we will have access to more AI-specific tools, modified curriculum to accommodate changing tech landscape and the faculty in place to hone new-age skills in the workforces of tomorrow.
Final Thoughts
As an AI enthusiast, I cannot be more excited about this announcement as it’s good to see positive change happening in the industry you’re closely associated with. With upskilling and right-skilling the only way forward towards prosperity, we look forward to the initiatives changing people’s lives and our nation as a whole.
