From India to the Global South_ Advancing Social Impact with AI

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’d like to welcome everyone to this special session titled AI for Skilling, AI for Impact, Skilling, Inspiring and Empowering the Next Generation by Meta in collaboration with 1M1B, 1 Million for 1 Billion Foundation. India stands at a defining moment in its AI journey. Not just building technology, but building skills, innovation, capacity and future -ready talent at scale. As AI transforms industries and societies, the real question is, how do we equip young people? with the skills, platforms, and opportunities to innovate with AI and create meaningful impact. To introduce to all of you, I’m Safin Matthew. I’m a vice president at 1M1B and your host for the session.

Today’s session brings together leaders from the government, industry, academia, innovation ecosystems, and global institutions to explore how AI skilling and youth -led innovation can drive inclusive growth in India and across the global south. The session also builds on the URI initiative for skilling and capacity building led by META in partnership with India AI, AICT, and 1M1B, an initiative that’s focused on nurturing and scaling youth innovation using AI across the country with a commitment to empower 100 ,000 youth on generative AI and large language models. And I’m pleased to share that in the last two months, once the initiative kicked off, about 15 ,000 youth have already been skilled through the program, and we are looking at scaling it up in the coming months.

In a few months. We have a few innovators present here today. In fact, three of the inspiring young innovators who are here to show us how they’re using AI for good and especially innovating using large language models. The innovators you will hear from today have been identified through the UA AI Initiative for Skilling and they have been identified through a hackathon and a hunt for startups who are using LLMs in a very creative manner. So these young innovators are not just learning AI. They are applying it to address pressing societal needs across India. And each innovator will do a short pitch of two minutes. I’d like to begin by inviting one of the innovators to go ahead and present his pitch, AI for Cardio.

Let’s have a round of applause as we welcome the young innovator.

Good morning. My name is Nandakishor. Hello, everyone. In India, there are… There are around 30 ,000 primary health centers out there. so imagine a farmer having chest pain going to this primary health center what they are going to do, they will take an ECG and a blood report but the problem is there is no in house cardiologist they have to send it to a central hub then return the results back to the primary health center so the problem is it’s around 30 to 40 minutes delay is happening delay means the mortality rate is going high so we build AI for cardio a desktop application that works completely offline where the medical practitioner can upload ECG image along with blood reports to get the final diagnosis so it’s powered by LAMA 3 .11 division model we fine tuned on 800 GPUs and it has been published in one of the most reputed medical journal in the world called British Medical Journal so this one is actually have an interpretation system called cross model attribution system but the model is actually giving the idea where the model is actually focusing on you can see on the image there is a red mark that the model is actually more focusing on that part so we actually implemented on around 100 plus PHCs and helping 1000 plus patients so the motto is simple, wherever you are even you are in a rural area, the life should have been saved, thank you

Thank you so much, I think that deserves a round of applause excellent use of AI for the masses, thank you so much Now we have the Honourable Minister here with that we can begin with an insightful fireside chat that aims to explore India’s vision for AI skilling and how collaboration between the government, academy and industry can unlock large scale potential and opportunity, now it’s my privilege to invite on to the stage Sri Jayan Chaudhary Sir The Honourable Minister of State Independent Charge for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Minister of State for Ministry of Education and joining him for a fireside conversation is Mr. Aman Jain, the Senior Director and Head of Public Policy, India Meta Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause

Firstly, it is incredible to see so many people in the room still. It’s been five days, and I feel like my first reaction when I came today was that, you know, it seems like more people every single day. So it’s incredible. Thank you, everyone, for being here. I hope the traffic will get better where you’re exiting. But thank you for being here. Firstly, thank you to the Honorable Minister and guest who’s graced us with his presence. You know, one of the things that’s become very, very clear at this event, and especially in the last five days, Honorable Prime Minister in his remarks also spoke about, you know, a lot of the importance of AI and what we want to be able to do with AI is essentially going to become a function of skilling.

And we are. We are lucky to have a dynamic minister in charge for that very, very important portfolio. So. So I had a couple of questions, and we could just hear your thoughts on them. Just to start off, I’ll ask the sort of – I don’t want to be provocative, but just make it interesting. Why not? So make it interesting. So, you know, and because I referenced the Prime Minister’s remarks, you know, at the beginning of the summit, you know, he did say that, look, AI taking away jobs, the very notion is kind of misplaced, you know, stating that technology actually creates new opportunities rather than eliminating them. So I want to know what are your thoughts on this, because that’s obviously top of mind for folks that, you know, with more proliferation of AI, are we going to end up losing jobs?

And then, you know, depending on how you think about it, also from your vantage point, then what would be your advice to you?

I think it comes down – when any new tech comes in, if as a society we adapt to it early, and if you’re a first mover, second mover, maybe even the third mover, then you’re in an advantageous position and the size of the pie will go up. So as currently we are not seeing that because AI is not adopted at scale yet. It’s the promise of it, the idea of it, the multi -dimensional nature of it that is exciting everyone. And everyone in the room knows whether I’m a farmer, I’m a student, I’m a professional, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m an accountant, I’m a strategy consultant, I’m a student. It’s going to affect all of you in very personalized and intimate ways.

You’re going to be using it and you’re going to be affected by it. So I think India is in a position where after this event, we’ve created a huge mass of people that are going forward on this, that are engaging with this without fear. There is no fear. Yes, there’s confidence. And with time, we’ll be able to, with our architecture, build trust because trust becomes very important when you are… giving away a lot of space to technology but it is inevitable. If you look at the offline online retail for instance as an example, people still like going to the small shop the Kinara shop and having that conversation but at the same time you can see a dramatic shift towards the online model.

The impact that internet had, it probably took away a lot of jobs but if the share of the pie went up, the possibilities today using social media monetization that I see, I have gone to villages and I see people I would ask them earlier what are you doing, they would say have you done BA pass, I would say what are you doing or even an MBA and they say what are you doing now and they say I am doing agriculture, I came back. Basically I lost out or I gave up and I said okay now I have no choice I have my two acre, I have to till that land till I die. Now when I go to the villages you see young boys and girls walking with a stick.

So they have been able to monetize and create a new space for themselves. I do believe AI will come up with a whole set of new jobs. context mapping for instance we are just assuming that large enterprises will take 500 agents, who is going to train those agents so that the process flow actually gets automated, who is going to contextualize even now in India the voice that speaks in the lift doesn’t seem like a voice that is familiar they still have not been able to get the kind of the language, the nuances and India is so so diverse, so for any AI model to represent all of us as Indians, it will take time, so that contextualization is a story where I think you are going to see a lot of people at the grassroots getting opportunities our startup system is very robust and the best part is that with a huge population that is savvy, that is adept adaptive, that is trained and skilled the probability is higher that the best new ideas of the future are going to come from India this is what that event is about seeding that ambition in every young person and when those enterprises get created there will be job creation but will every job be the same as it was 10 years ago it isn’t even now the catch is that we are told every time technology comes in it’s supposed to make your life easier but everyone ends up working harder so this is the question in the room AI will make us all more productive will we be able to be more humane and will we value our experiences as human beings more as a society or will life become harder for us this is where the tagline of the event can we become happier citizens can we engage with our governance models in a more transparent manner can we take out more time for more productive aspects of our life the blurring between technical and non -technical can we make the world a better place can we make the world a better place can we make the world a better place can we make the world a better place qualified people, I believe that would be great because it offends me when we say white collar, blue collar.

That itself is offensive because what are we trying to say? So I think those things will get blurred because opportunities are immense. You don’t need to be have knowledge of programming to become a coder or to create apps, to create products. That is the beauty of this AI.

Absolutely. You know, you said said something on the pie increases and as an example and just to corroborate that point further, we’ve seen that in retail for instance where overall the pie has increased in size and so e -commerce actually is just 7 % of the total retail in India and as we go towards a 5 trillion, 7 trillion, 8 trillion dollar economy, that retail continues to grow sort of a fair bit. To that, while they receive a lot of criticism and they must evolve to better practices. and social security benefits for the big economy. But if you look at the aggregating platforms, were those small dhabas and restaurants actually getting any business? And could they have survived?

And if not these aggregating platforms, what other tool would have come that would have changed? So we just sit here thinking that life will be the same, it will not be the same. There will be something, something all the time, there is going to be flux and that’s the dynamic nature of a globalized world. Absolutely. You know, you mentioned the theme of the summit, the theme is AI for all. So your thoughts on how we can use AI to ensure that it, you know, skilling and the benefits of AI reaches, you know, what would be called traditionally underrepresented groups. So, you know, whether it could be people with disabilities, it could be people in far -flung areas or, you know, in the Northeast or anywhere else across the country.

How do we make sure that AI and the benefits of AI and skilling, along with it, reaches every part of the country?

AI impact and the kind of products we’re already seeing some of them are displayed here have a tremendous possibility for people with special background, handicapped disabled people and one of the challenges in the education system is that we need to screen and identify those students earlier so that a customized more sensitive environment can be created for them in the classroom so one aspect is teacher sensitization does a teacher have the capacity are there tools out there which is why we tried a precious app in our schools and a second iteration is now being rolled out I’m sure there can be a layer of or some kind of augmented augmentation using AI but if you’re screening early because in the Indian case our if you look ask me how many school going students in India are categorized as with special needs less than 1 % and what is the actual figure probably 6 -7 -8 % so and why are children then dropping out?

This is one of the reasons, one of the biggest reasons why if children are not completing school because that school is not able to capture their unique capability. So no child should be left behind. The best teachers were the ones who didn’t teach the best kids, who paid the most attention to the weakest kids, children who are not following, right? Every child is important in that classroom. And now with AI, there are so many teacher tools out there that individual journeys can be mapped, can be analyzed, and corrective action can be taken real time. So that is the power of how AI at scale can transform our capabilities and competence. Northeast, tough geographies, again, AI has solutions there.

On the Skill India Digital Hub, we’ve tried, Meta has been partnering us and we created Skill India Assistant, which again is making the journey easier for anyone who comes to the portal. Skill India Digital Hub is now a DPI we are now going to add more and more data layers on it and try and create more value for researchers create an open stack if you can IIT Madras is working in similar fashion on the Education Centre of Excellence in Education that also includes elements of skilling but the idea there that is being proposed is also to create a full education stack. So all of the ed tech solutions all these new start ups, all the vibrancy that we are seeing in this summit and in this room those players can now come on board and partner government in our journey to change lives

I probably should have started with this thank you for visiting our booth you were just there and we had the honour of also hosting the Honourable Prime Minister on day one and I was there and he was very sort of engaged and what we had shown to him was this feature on the Ray -Ban glasses Meta Ray -Ban glasses is called Be My Eyes. And that exactly is that point that how it helps, you know, that is a specific feature for people with, you know, impaired vision and or blindness. But there are so many different sort of use cases where AI can truly help.

Language is so important. That language, people will slowly move away from this parochial mindset of its pronunciation is not good or it does not speak my language. It does not speak Tamil, does not speak Kannada, does not speak Hindi. It’s going to go away. Our way of thinking will then migrate to what is he saying? What is she trying to communicate? The idea that she is talking about. That is most important. The medium, which is just a language, should not matter. Those barriers will go away very easily with AI. That capability is already there. You are working on that. Sarvam has come up with a very small edge computing model that is not expensive and can run on your, you know, any device that you own.

and because you mentioned Sarvam as well we are working with them on essentially what we call the AI coach and again the focus there is on multilingual, omnilingual, how many more sort of languages we can add and that’s I think also a fairly sort of good framing I think the Indian government did at this event in essentially saying that look it’s about it’s not necessarily a race for frontier models but it’s more about models that work for you here and that should be a focus. You briefly touched upon it so I wanted sort of you know we’ve got many organizations represented here you know what would be sort of your advice or clarion call for industry to partner with you as you’re thinking of advancing many of these skilling initiatives how can industry partner more with you in your work?

Yeah so my one ask really is that enterprises are created and value is created and value is created when you are able to widen your engagement with your clients, with your new markets, with a new base of employees. But if you do a real analysis of corporates in India, as they have come to this point, they are still hiring on closed networks. It’s the elephant in the room. They will hire based on trust and faith, which must be high. So we need our industry partners. We need to move away from the first term and fix criteria. Because the same industry that is going to get to the IIT when I want to hire, when you come back and say, I’m going to do this, then we now see the system that people pick from the qualifications and the degrees and more of funding and skills and confidence, real employment.

So that we need to do a state -of -the -art business development. We don’t want our ideas and qualifications in our colleges, our engineering colleges, our state universities to be closed institutions. They need to open up their doors, have wider debates, and our industry partners need to really interact with them. And try and create models where the next IT can be generated from their institutions, rather than their own lives. So it should not be about ownership, it should be about participation, it should be about capacity. Using our academic infrastructure. One new scheme that has come in that I’d make a pitch for is PM Setu. For the first time, 60 ,000 crores, it’s a lot of money.

60 ,000 crores is being put in our ITIs. So our ITIs are the grassroots organizations, government ITIs, there’s maybe more than 3 ,000 in the country. They are going to get benefit from this. We’re going to create clusters, it’s not going to one ITI. The idea is not just you create a swanky building or a lab and let it be. It is also incorporating ideas of governance. Can these become institutions? and create a network. So it’s going to be five ITAs in a cluster working together, aligned to the local economy, to the needs of the MSME there, and with a partnership where an industry partner will be onboarded as part of the governance of that institution.

We want industry to say, we will run these five ITAs. We will design new courses in those ITAs. We will look at our trainers. Globally, if you look at the skill ecosystem, the people who are working in industry are the people who are going to their, in the TAF, for instance, in Australia, which is our equivalent of ITI. People who are currently working in industry are going there and working and training. Similar in European guilds. People who know cutting -edge practice, they know what the employers want. They are the ones who are actually going and teaching in these institutions. In our system, who is teaching? The state is the one hired by the state. The state 30 years ago, who perhaps his trade is carpentry, now he has to teach.

AI, welding, electronics, circuitry. So if you yourself don’t have that domain knowledge as a trainer, as an instructor, your capacities are limited. So we need to create a repository of trainers that again industry will come in. We need to create new courses. Do you know we still teach Hindi stenography? It’s a one year program. You should wonder why we are teaching it and why are children going and learning it? Because they need the certificate. No one will tell you this for recruitment, which is why they are doing that program. All of this needs to change. So while we are talking new technology, we are talking AI, we are seeing the visible impact at the grassroots.

We need a lot of rejuvenation in our educational institutions.

Absolutely. I know you are short on time and so again I would like to thank you for taking the time. I think in a few minutes you have really shown a very important role in the development of the education system. very exciting vision and also clear way for how industry should partner at Meta. We obviously believe in this a lot and we are already working with your ministry with the skilled assistant. We hope to do more and you’ll see that in the coming weeks and months. And to everyone else in the room as well, I’ll again mention this, it is really a privilege to have such a dynamic minister in charge of what will become probably the biggest sort of area for disruption over the next few years, which is going to be scaling education and so on.

So thank you again for your time.

Thank you so much, sir and Aman. That was a fantastic conversation and if I may, please request yourself one photograph with all the panelists. If I can request all the panelists to come on stage for a group picture. I’m not sure from morning it’s going on. Yeah. Thank you so much. While we get ready for the next panel, I would like to request our other two innovators to come forward and pitch their innovations as well. So I’d like to first invite Prasima AI, if you can come forward and present your pitch.

So good evening. My name is Ashish Pratap Singh. I am the CEO of Prasima AI. My father runs an MSME business in Lucknow. wherein all the data is actually scattered across email, spreadsheets and WhatsApp leading to 35 % productive time loss and 10 -15 % in revenue leakages. But this is actually an all India problem leading to 8 lakh crore plus of annual cost overruns across Indian MSMEs. There are 7 crore plus MSMEs across India. So how we have solved the problem is by building an autonomous AI agent that can think, act and execute on your behalf. Users can get work done by the agent by giving it simple commands to do work like tender extraction, tender tracking, CRM querying and calendar management.

Under the hood, we have used meta foundational models, particularly Scout and Maverick because in our internal evals, we have found them to be particularly good at reasoning, planning. orchestration and tool usage results. We have achieved 15 ,000 minutes plus saved monthly with 99 .9 % compliance accuracy. What sets us apart is we have reduced the productive time loss from 35 % to nearly zero with a six to nine month payback period for our clients. Currently, our revenue standards stand at 41 lakhs in the last six months. At the end, I would like to thank 1M1B and Meta AI for this opportunity to collaborate with them. Thank you so much.

And all the MSM is here. He’s someone you could reach out to for an interesting solution. Next, I would like to invite Ayurveda GPT, who’s got a very interesting solution. If you visited, I think, hall number 14, you would have seen a part of the solution presented there as well. They have a stall there. Yeah. Nand Keshav. Sorry. Ayurveda GPT.

you can just simply query to that particular model and it will give you answer right from the manuscript along with the dedicated source. So further, there are a lot of government initiatives being there, but there hasn’t been a specific model which directly rooted from the manuscript. So this was the initiative that we kind of launched. And further, our current model, you can directly see it on the screen itself. That’s a demo where I’m having a real -time conversation with a Rishi related to the manuscript. So yeah, thank you.

So are you guys ready to take it to the global level? Thank you so much. That was a fantastic initiative taking Ayurveda to the global stage using AI. Thank you so much. Now we move on to the leadership dialogue titled Empowering Youth and Driving Innovation Through AI Skilling. May I please request our respected panelists to join us on the stage for the discussion. Mr. Pankaj Kumar Pandey, IAS Principal Secretary, Government of Karnataka, Department of Education, Department of Personal and Administrative Reforms. Let’s welcome with a round of applause. Department of e -governance Mr. Rishikesh Patankar, Vice President NSDC, Mr. Bhutachandra Shekhar CEO Anwadni and CCO of AICT Mr. Darren Farron, Director United Nations Information Center India and Bhutan I think Mr.

Deepak Bagla who is the Mission Director for Hotel Innovation Mission, he will just join us in a few minutes he is in the other room and the discussion will be moderated by Manav Subodh, the Founder and CEO of 1M1B

Hello everyone in the room, my name is Manav, you know and trust me I didn’t change my name yesterday I was always Manav until the Prime Minister just you know, casted the Manav vision for us and it’s yeah, what a vision for all of us to take AI, but you know thanks to my team my parents I did, they made me one of quite some time back. So welcome everyone. We have a very high energy panel today and very limited time. And we’ll try to make it interesting and I’ll try to utilize the maximum we can out of the short time that we have amongst these distinguished people with me. So, you know, I’ll start off with, you know, AI is the, they say it’s the new internet.

AI is the new electricity. The question is who has the switch? And today that’s what we will be discussing. You know, if the past technology patterns we have seen that there have been a few countries who have made it and the rest of us consumed it, that needs to change. And India is going to change. And when the youngest population collides with the most powerful technology, which is artificial intelligence, we’re going to have creators and consumers. And this is the opportunity. This is the opportunity for India. to have AI creators like what we just saw, Ayurveda, GPT. These are local innovations that we need to see. So I’ll start with the question first to Mr. Pankaj Pandey.

And Mr. Bagla would be joining us, but Pankaj has been leading. He’s the Principal Secretary of E -Governance at Government of Karnataka. And there’s a lot of action the government is taking in Karnataka, especially on the skilling front. So the question, Pankaj, to you is, what role is the government of Karnataka playing to skill the government workforce and make sure that we are aligning the government official also with what’s the trajectory that the country is taking?

So thanks a lot and congratulations to the young innovators for having presented these three concepts. And it’s very well done. My compliments to them. If I look at the government… See, the government, the verticalization or in terms of protecting your own territory and the information is very direct feeling that, okay, this entire data and this entire data set belongs to me is extremely high amongst the department. And the government is one of the institutions where we create a huge amount of data. You take energy, you take agriculture, horticulture, various departments. Now, for a good and targeted delivery of the services of the government, we need to ensure that these data sets talk to each other.

And therefore, one thing which has to change is the change in the mentality of the people working in the government that we have to talk to each other, we have to collaborate with each other. We need not just create data, but we have to collaborate and ensure that this data set is used for the purpose for which it is meant. And, for example, I give you a simple example. Like the farmers will require data on the weather. obviously this weather data also has to be used apart from the cropping pattern to ensure that the power supply is given in the various irrigation pump set feeders which go and supply the power to your irrigation pump sets now these two are related to each other apart from the cropping pattern so your GPS data to the granular level your data regarding the energy and the data regarding the cropping pattern and the weather conditions are interrelated now these department needs to talk to each other like energy agriculture, horticulture your disaster management cell all of them need to talk to each other and therefore the mental frame of the government officials have to change in fact in this direction we had a workshop we called the second in command of all the government departments first who maintain their data every department has got some kind of IT cell they have IT cell which manages their data manages their software we wanted to target them that you need to talk to each other you should you should see that what kind of potential exists if you start collaborating.

So this is one thing and obviously this will also require the academia and the industry to come together with us and that is where we want they have to be taken. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Pankaj. My next question is to Budhaji. There’s a lot of work happening on Anwadini AI and what the minister was talking about that we need local languages and you are leading a big initiative in the country, especially in higher education. So I would like to have your views on how this is coming along and how the grassroots participation can be critical and will be critical looking at some of the work that you’re doing.

Thank you. Good afternoon all. On behalf of Minister of Education, Government of India, I welcome all of you for this thought -provoking, sharing is caring. That’s been the first standard. I think you know what a wonderful event is happening from last four to five days. Knowledge is flowing from one place to another place. Not only within our country from across the globe. You know so because we all believe Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. The entire world is our family. That’s the reason you know it says you know wellness for all. You know for everyone. You know happiness for everyone. Welfare for all. You know very very apt. So I just come back to this because I see this in a little different way.

Because have you ever seen skill books anytime? For a plumber or a painter. Most of the books has images without a description. Have you observed? So the biggest problem if you give these books to notebook LLM to Google. I’m just taking a notebook LLM. You can take any such kind of a tool. It can’t even describe what it is. So that’s where the Anuvadini Ministry of Education component comes into picture. We have created an advanced visual arts library. Learning model. It can understand what is there inside the image. And it will describe what is there inside that image in Indian language. because as you all know that 85 % people in our country, they speak their mother language.

So the way they communicate, they trade in mother languages. So that is the biggest issue. So what we did, we have translated all skill -related books into 22 Indian languages so that the plumber, painter, you know, who is not well -educated can easily understand. But, you know, we did that and we have one very big event in Bengaluru. So my wife is also from Bengaluru. I thought I will go and, you know, little show off and send a photo to my wife saying that, you know, I am there and, you know, I help your people. Then I got a shock in my life. One painter, I just asked him, sir, you are also there in that event.

So basically I asked one simple question, are you happy we have given you book? He said, sir, you don’t understand our problem. I said, please explain what is your problem. You know the shocking answer he gave, sir. He said, I am a painter. In one hand I hold a paint dabba, other hand I will hold the paint brush. how I will hold the book do you see the difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence so we are creating all technological solutions assuming that one human with less educated person can use it then we have come up with a wonderful audio based books for them because see I think this is where I see AI comes into picture but I put this in a three simple prospectus learning, earning, leading this is a simple three dots which we need to connect with respect to the skilling and connecting that with artificial intelligence but when I say artificial intelligence artificial intelligence with data intelligence with business intelligence because these three dots are interconnected but because people love artificial intelligent words so they are just simply using it but the matter of the fact here is the content what you have is not self -explanatory one.

The second thing, if someone wants to learn it, the best way of learning is in their own mother language. But here the challenge is, if you take exam, again I am taking Kannada, but you can take any language. Example, if you take Hindi. Punjabi Hindi is different than Bangladesh, West Bengal. If someone is coming and speaking in Hindi, their Hindi is different. Then Bihari Hindi is different. Then Bhojpuri Hindi is different. Then Haryani Hindi is different. Then Rajasthan Hindi is different. Do you see the issue, right? So the neutralization of the softwares, neutralization of these languages into a common neutral Hindi. Do you see? That is where Anuvadhani comes into picture because he was asked me to talk about Anuvadhani.

So basically we are a small learning model. Nothing rocket science, but we are trying to solve the major problem of making everyone understand what it is in a pictorial way, in an audio -based as well as in a video. based and recently as you know there are lot of cling and all I hope you all are using it see this advanced technology is given us wings to fly because if you are just you know talking maybe 40 % people can understand but if I am showing you something right so the because human being has a best of the best ability of capturing the impressions of images that is what we will run it so fast and we called it as videos right that is the reason people like youtube videos so now the matter of the fact is we are translating all this skill related content in a AR VR and a video and pictorial basis so that people can understand easily and at the same time it is in multiple languages not only in Indian language you know if you are interested to learn multiple languages let us assume I am the one who is getting trained but you know I am planning to play as in Japan so now the matter of fact is skill ministry come with a very wonderful initiatives where I can learn everything in Japanese as well as in my own mother language and including English so what a beautiful combination we are creating I see that this artificial intelligence is no more an artificial intelligence it’s an advanced India God sent an AI to make India as advanced country advanced India so this is where I clearly see it do I have one more minute or

yeah we can yeah please no no I have more questions for you but thank you thank you so much

in fact I mean if you allow I just connect these three dots see the learning is important as well as earning is also very much important because we are competing with something called artificial intelligence you know the much more better intelligence but I would like to take you back to one level to prove that you know human intelligence is greater than artificial intelligence the reason being is you know there is a soap company I’m sure you all use soap right so one of the European customer complained saying that I received a soap box without a soap so the company they spent 300 million and created the best ICR engine in the world which can peep inside the soap box without putting a hole to see whether the soap is there or not and he implemented everywhere but the company they have in India also it is called Sini Tarakosa you have seen the ad also in the newspapers and TVs so the guy who is sitting there he never implemented it the CEO got pissed off he came visited India and he said what is the reason you are not using you give me an explanation I spent 300 million do you see the Indian best of the best brain the guy who is sitting there is a 6th standard failed farmer and a small labor and he said sir I don’t need to use this so he said prove it in front of me that you don’t need to use it you know what he did he just took a table fan and put in front of the conveyor belt of the soap so what happened if the soap is there if the soap is not there you know it is empty box right it fly he said I don’t even need to pick brothers I am telling you dear friends this is the best of the best brains Indian is carrying you know Indians have the best capability of connecting right and left brain we are the best of the best human beings living in this world the only problem we are not confident we are not working as a team that is the only problem I think the second dot you know we are not converting our skills into a earning which is much more important because you know if you earn then only you will live right because you need money at the same time how you can survive take it to the next level maybe I will just you know try to pass on to the other panelists I don’t want to occupy their time but we will discuss further

in fact you know there is an innovator in the room Bhubaneswaran I don’t know if he is here he is a farmer’s son and he himself has created a technology which is voice based AI for farmer guidance and when I was talking to him he was saying nobody none of the farmers like the complicated apps you know there’s too much too much of content out there I’m just making a simple phone and a voice based service and that’s what he’s getting that grass root knowledge to AI which is so important and one of the stories that he was sharing so thanks Bhuvneshwaran for being here and any one of you who are interested to know his technology he’s a local innovator he’s sitting back in the room but I’ll I’ll turn the next question to Baglaji who’s the mission director at Adal Innovation Mission and one of the big things is we need policy, policy for AI acceleration and there are innovation labs that Adal Innovation Mission is putting up in the hinterlands of India so Mr.

Bagla how can a local innovator participate from the hinterlands of India and still make some thing which is globally relevant or does he need to make something globally relevant

you know first I’m sorry I got a bit late I was in hall number 17, 19 you know what was happening there they had identified so we have tinkering labs currently in 10 ,000 schools 5 ,000 in city, 5 ,000 in village actually 5 ,500 in village 4 ,500 in city and government schools and private schools all included so in the next 96 hours quick background, Atal Innovation Mission which is the government’s innovation mission it is from school to space and I’ll give you a quick introduction on that, will turn a 10 years and it’s 10th birthday which is after 96 hours it is the world’s largest grassroot innovation mission 1 .1 crore young entrepreneurs have moved to it and I’ll give you an answer you and I are now related There were three kids, one 11, one 12 and the other one 14.

You know what are the solutions they came up with? One has given a solution of radiology. How he’s brought in AI that reads your, when your MRI happens and gets it out of you. The other one is treating mental health among students with AI. These are kids which are 11, I can’t even call them kids. You know, I’ll give you a small example. I was just posted into Atal Innovation Mission in July and May. And I said I want to test the power of this platform. I’m just telling you at the school level to begin with. Garima, my colleague is sitting here and it was in September mid. And I said let’s do a hackathon.

And everybody told me it’s time for a holiday. Everyone is taking exams, midterms. Don’t do it now, do it later. I said no, let’s do it. None of you know it. None of you know about it because there was no big act. Five weeks later, we had over 25 lakh prototypes. It is now in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest hackathon. And I’ll tell you what happens, what I’m saying here. These are not just entries. These are solutions to challenges from that small village. I remember, it was a Saturday. I was doing my puja. I had my phone with me. It rang three times. I didn’t pick it up. The third time I picked it up.

The guy said, sir, I’m speaking in a jittery manner. I’m a 9th class student. I have a problem. Please sort it out. I said, what happened? He said, I want to give three ideas. The teacher is only allowing me to give one. You know what I’m trying to tell you? This is the problem. This India is a different India. He finds my mobile number Calls me up This India cannot be stopped now We talk about That we are number 3 in start -ups in the world And number 2 in the number of unicorns and all This is just a drop in the ocean This story is just 3600 years old 3600 days old This Atal Innovation Mission story Just imagine all these people Coming into your workforce And they are solving The smallest of problems Which are contextual And the other interesting thing Now, 2 months ago Yes This is just a drop in the ocean Mangalore has a government school Our 5 brothers We have a government school So every year there is a global olympiad of robotics.

They select from the best all across the world who go and present. And it’s a very difficult process to do it. This time it was in Panama. I got a call that our five children have been selected. I don’t have money for the ticket. My five kids flew to Panama. All within 96 hours of getting a visa and being there. And of over 90 countries, they came 13. It’s really unbelievable what is happening in India. And that’s what I was just saying in that room when I came from there. I said the future of India. And the biggest benefactor of AI in the world. which we call is the delta multiplier is India. We are 1 .4 billion.

We will be 1 .6 billion by 2060. You will be the largest on the planet. Just imagine each one of them with the power to make the change and the power to work together to make it happen. Which is what AI is doing now. It is empowering that youngster and it is giving them the ability to join hands with each other. The dots which you are joining. This power, we have not even thought of how it can be unleashed. But you know it cannot be stopped. You are now at that inflection point. and we are all underestimating how fast it will happen. We think it will take 10 years, 15 years. In India, it will happen now.

So ladies and gentlemen, the future is now.

Yeah, the future is now. Thank you so much.

And if you permit, I just want to add one. And see the kind of a transparent system government of India have. The school children from a small remote village, they got recognition and they got help also. This is the governance what Honorable Prime Minister Ji has created, a transparent and very valuable system for our next Gen Z as well as Millennium.

Wait, and I’m being told we have five minutes, so I’ll be making it very quick. And my next question is to Darren Farrant, who’s an Australian, and we were having a nice banter about the work. World Cup, that is going on.

sorry what is the world cup I’m not familiar with that I could draw your attention to the winter olympic medal when

and Darren and we work together and Darren is from the United Nations information center he’s based in Delhi he’s seeing it all happen and Darren not the world cup question which I’ll talk to you later but the question to you is very very quickly because we have limited time what role you think India can play in the global south and across the globe in taking AI and creating made in India for the world

well I think this week is your answer to that this is the first such summit we’ve had on AI in the global south and there’s a very good reason why it’s in India because India is a global leader in south south cooperation in sharing ideas in getting forward and of course just by sheer numbers one one one of humanity. It’s a microcosm of the world. What’s being done here, all the issues you might face with AI are already happening on a small scale, or not a small scale, but are already happening here in India. So the question of languages, well, that’s already an issue in India and you’re solving and dealing with it. So the experiences that you have, you can translate to any other country or any other context because you’re so diverse already.

So I think that’s why India is always going to be at the front of the pack in terms of getting out there and sharing ideas among the global South. And for us at the UN, that’s so important because we’re really worried about the AI divide, the people who might get left behind. So we really want to see India also as a champion of that, of making sure that people, not just in India, but around the rest of the world, get their opportunities to benefit from AI, especially in the area of skill like it’s great to hear of all the innovations. and all the skilling that will take place, but we do have to remember some people will lose their jobs on a large scale.

So what are the solutions we have to get them new skills to be ready for the future? Thanks, thank you.

And the question, Rishikesh, to you is, you know, how do you think we can scale it? You’re leading it at NSDC. You’re seeing it happen. What are one thing or two things we need to do to really scale this and make sure that the talent that we are developing is actually employable?

Thank you, Manavji. I think government’s focus is on employability, and it is always said that education is creating the opportunities, but skilling creates employability. And that is also focused in the current budget announcement which has been made, that employability has to be given more focus and employment will come through. And if you are talking about scale, I think some of the speakers have, I’ve already talked about the scale. Whatever we do in India is the world’s largest bid. digital literacy, financial literacy or the transactions which are happening online. I think with the right kind of mindset, skilling has not been that aspirational. But now with AI and multiple sectors growing in, I believe a lot of emphasis is now on improving the skill sets and it is lifelong learning.

And I think with the current government’s focus on multiple domains like logistics, maybe marine, aeronautics, aviation, I think there are a lot of opportunities which are created in the ecosystem. And with the right kind of ITIs who are now the 21st century Indian Institute of Technologies, which our Honourable Prime Minister thinks about, and the engineering institutions, TIIs. I think with all these, I think the stage is all set. We just need to create and come together. The canvas is vast. and whatever we do will be scaled up. Thank you so much. Thank you.

And I’ll just conclude with one last question to all the panelists. And, you know, public -private partnership is so important. So, one last question. Just wrapping it up. Just one last question and I’ll start with Mr. Pankaj Pandey. What can industry do to collaborate with your department to make this scalable and replicable? And that’s a question to all of us and we can wrap it up with that.

Probably we need the support of the industry the max right now. And we want to collaborate obviously with all the major companies which are there in the AI field apart from the startups which we have in Bangalore. And I think that will provide us the edge which we have in terms of being nimble -footed and adopt and adapt to the technology faster. So I think that is what we need. right now. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Pandey. Deepakji.

Today, we don’t have a choice. It is now an imperative. Everyone has to work together, which is academia, industry, government, and each one of us has a stakeholder. The biggest challenge which I see in my job currently, so Atal Innovation Mission is the core entity which is responsible for the innovation ecosystem of the country to see what can be done. My entire focus now is how do I make one higher learning institution speak to another? One young school speak to another? And how industry and government work together? You know what is my dream? If I could take a moment.

No, no, please, please.

If I have one dashboard, all my school innovation labs are there, all my incubators are there. The policy makers are there, the mentors are there. All together on that dashboard, speaking to each other, working together. My God. If it happens, unbelievable. Sorry.

The power of collaboration. Yeah.

So one thing which I really love about the Western concept is that movement of the people across sectors. So government moving into academia, academia coming to the industry. The guy who has worked in the industry also teaches there in the college. And again works in the government. This kind of a movement, if it is allowed, that will really help. The government will get to know what is happening in the industry, what is happening in the academy.

that you know we got NEP 2020. I strongly believe after the constitution of India, this is the best document have come up. It is connecting five simple dots. One is the education with the skill with the you know with our industry and with our talent and with our innovation. You know and research. I think these five dots are getting connected using this but you know I have a little different thought was all together what we need to do. Instead of doing a cast census for God’s sake no one know don’t want to know others cast. We need to know other skill. We need to do a skill census in this country so that we know what time is up.

You need to let me finish. So the skill census is much more important so that we know each and everyone skills. Let us do a SWOT analysis of it so that we know what is their strengths and weaknesses. We need to strengthen their weaknesses and you know make our country better and interconnect all these dots

together. Thank you. Thank you. And more power to India, more power to AI. Thank you so much for the panel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. A small memento for all the speakers. it’s from the impact summit team and as we conclude one message stands clear AI leadership is not just about models or compute, it’s about people skills and opportunity, if we invest in youth, we invest in impact thank you to all the panelists, thank you to all the audience you have been wonderful and have a good rest of the evening and rest of the summit, thank you so much and a big thank you to our institutional partners, Lloyd Business School and GIMS whose students have been here and engaging with us thank you so much