(a): No, Sir. Government was earlier planning to organize the summit on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with focus on social empowerment in New Delhi on 11-12 April 2020, however due to sudden outbreak of Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), the same has not yet been planned. Through this summit Government wanted to outline India’s vision for utilizing the power of Artificial Intelligence to responsibly transform the social landscape for a better tomorrow. The following were the objectives of proposed summit:
• Unveil India’s vision for AI
• Launch Action Roadmap
• Showcase India’s Tech talent
• Create national awareness
(b) and (c): In view of (a) above, the question does not arise.
(d): The following steps were taken by government to create awareness among youths about the positive impact of AI:
• Government has supported 38 training programmes in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related technologies and 33 workshops. For building AI awareness at school level especially in rural and remote areas, school awareness programmes were initiated in various districts across the country.
• Government initiated Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme for Electronics & IT in 2014 with the objective of enhancing the number of PhDs in Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) and IT/IT Enabled Services (IT/ITES) sectors with a budget of Rs. 466 crore for 9 years. The scheme encourages PhD Fellows to take up research challenges in areas of Information Technology. Scheme provides fellowship amount to PhD candidates. As on 12 March 2020, a total of 1239 PhD (930 full time + 309 part time) candidates have been enrolled at various institutes.
• Government has initiated a Future skills programme titled ‘FutureSkills PRIME’ which aims to create a re-skilling/up-skilling ecosystem for B2C in emerging and futuristic technologies including Artificial Intelligence to cover a target of 4.12 Lakh beneficiaries (4 lakh Professionals, 10,000 Government Officials and 2,000 Trainers) over a period of 3 years.
(e): The following steps have been taken by government to promote AI
• Government of India has launched a National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) at a total cost of Rs. 3660 Crores for a period of 5 years. NM-ICPS has plans to establish Technology Innovation Hubs in Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, Quantum Computing etc. The core activities of these hubs include: Technology Development, translational research and commercialization of new technologies, accelerate entrepreneurship and start-up ecosystem development in these new technologies
• Under the Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0) Scheme to promote tech entrepreneurship financial and technical support is provided to incubators engaged in supporting ICT startups using emerging technologies such as AI, IOT, Block-chain, Robotics etc. in areas of societal relevance. The Scheme will be implemented through 51 incubators through a three tiered structure with an overarching objective to promote incubation activities at institutes of higher learning and premier R&D organisations.
• In order to foster innovation and to promote start-ups in the domains of Emerging Technologies like Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Data Analytics etc, MeitY has established Centres of Excellence (CoE). These centres connect various entities such as start-ups, enterprises, venture capitalists, government and academia to work on various problem areas and develop emerging Technologies based solutions.
• MeitY through NIC (National Informatics Centre) & NICSI[National Informatics Centre Services Incorporated (NICSI)] created Centre of Excellence for Data Analytics (CEDA) to support government departments to unlock the hidden potential of the data that they are generating as a part of the governance processes, and use it to improve the overall governance.
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