Prof B Ravindran, head of Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI at IIT Madras, says regardless of profession, everyone should use AI tools just like we use computers today. “You do not even have to be in an engineering college. Regardless of what you are studying, you should know how to use AI in your profession. It is like how you use computers. Everybody uses computers, whether you are a doctor or a lawyer or an auditor, does not matter,” he said, delivering the keynote address as chief guest.
He said people have been using AI for a long time in social media, drones, maps and shopping apps, but did not recognise it as AI. “Whenever you speak to your phone, you are actually using AI. But it is not in-your-face AI. What ChatGPT did was give you a raw interface to a very capable AI system. It is like you are talking to an AI system and you can ask it anything… This kind of a raw, unstructured interface is new for people. It is revolutionary,” he said.
Ravindran said the technology faces challenges when translating into real-world applications. “When you start to use, say, medical AI tools in real hospitals, especially in India, there’s trouble. Because the laboratory conditions are different from deploying these systems in the field,” he said. AI, he said, is often only a fraction of the process. “More than 70% of your effort is spent in building the entire system out. You have to work with domain experts and users to understand complications. Indian problems need Indian solutions,” he said.
He urged the students to play with AI tools, experiment with them.
‘Transform every district’
Suresh Sambandam, founder and chief executive of Kissflow, says it’s important to build innovation in an inclusive fashion. “Distributing development will make each district an economic powerhouse. A focus on inclusive development by engaging districts and actively involving women fosters ideas that enable people to create impactful products,” he said at our event in Chennai.
Speaking in the context of Tamil Nadu, he said there is a need to shift to a job creation mindset to fuel the next stage of growth, and that requires rekindling the entrepreneurial spirit. “We need to move a lot of youth from just simply job seekers to job creators and also transform our IT industry output from $20 billion to $100 billion to achieve the goal,” he said.
‘Cafeteria approach in education’
Vanitha Venugopal, chief executive of Tamil Nadu Technol- ogy hub (iTNT hub), the state govt’s deeptech incubator, said the state is following the ‘cafeteria ap proach’ to education, meaning, those across streams had the flexibility to be part of the technological learning ecosystem, and not be restricted to a very narrow course of study, as was previously the case.
Venugopal said her organisation has also been taking initiatives to set up internet centres in colleges for students, and is providing basic communication skills in English, and basic digital literacy. “Not everybody can afford smartphones and high-speed internet. We need better internet penetration so that students in Ariyalur or Ramanathapuram district can access the courses/programmes online without high-speed internet,” she said.
Venugopal said more than 27 lakh students have been trained by the Naan Mudhalvan skilling programme .
Last week, we conducted our Technovate for India programme – in association with startup ecosystem builder Talrop – in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. We had a large gathering of students, stellar speakers and we announced the winners of the case competition for students in these regions.
The objective of the campaign, which we will do across 35 states & Union territories over an 18-month period, is to encourage students to digitally skill themselves and to use that knowledge to build startups that solve big problems. Talrop COO Jones Joseph says it is important to build an ecosystem that will reduce the failure rate of a startup. And that’s what this campaign is eventually working towards.
He said people have been using AI for a long time in social media, drones, maps and shopping apps, but did not recognise it as AI. “Whenever you speak to your phone, you are actually using AI. But it is not in-your-face AI. What ChatGPT did was give you a raw interface to a very capable AI system. It is like you are talking to an AI system and you can ask it anything… This kind of a raw, unstructured interface is new for people. It is revolutionary,” he said.
Ravindran said the technology faces challenges when translating into real-world applications. “When you start to use, say, medical AI tools in real hospitals, especially in India, there’s trouble. Because the laboratory conditions are different from deploying these systems in the field,” he said. AI, he said, is often only a fraction of the process. “More than 70% of your effort is spent in building the entire system out. You have to work with domain experts and users to understand complications. Indian problems need Indian solutions,” he said.
He urged the students to play with AI tools, experiment with them.
‘Transform every district’
Suresh Sambandam, founder and chief executive of Kissflow, says it’s important to build innovation in an inclusive fashion. “Distributing development will make each district an economic powerhouse. A focus on inclusive development by engaging districts and actively involving women fosters ideas that enable people to create impactful products,” he said at our event in Chennai.
Speaking in the context of Tamil Nadu, he said there is a need to shift to a job creation mindset to fuel the next stage of growth, and that requires rekindling the entrepreneurial spirit. “We need to move a lot of youth from just simply job seekers to job creators and also transform our IT industry output from $20 billion to $100 billion to achieve the goal,” he said.
‘Cafeteria approach in education’
Vanitha Venugopal, chief executive of Tamil Nadu Technol- ogy hub (iTNT hub), the state govt’s deeptech incubator, said the state is following the ‘cafeteria ap proach’ to education, meaning, those across streams had the flexibility to be part of the technological learning ecosystem, and not be restricted to a very narrow course of study, as was previously the case.
Venugopal said her organisation has also been taking initiatives to set up internet centres in colleges for students, and is providing basic communication skills in English, and basic digital literacy. “Not everybody can afford smartphones and high-speed internet. We need better internet penetration so that students in Ariyalur or Ramanathapuram district can access the courses/programmes online without high-speed internet,” she said.
Venugopal said more than 27 lakh students have been trained by the Naan Mudhalvan skilling programme .
Last week, we conducted our Technovate for India programme – in association with startup ecosystem builder Talrop – in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. We had a large gathering of students, stellar speakers and we announced the winners of the case competition for students in these regions.
The objective of the campaign, which we will do across 35 states & Union territories over an 18-month period, is to encourage students to digitally skill themselves and to use that knowledge to build startups that solve big problems. Talrop COO Jones Joseph says it is important to build an ecosystem that will reduce the failure rate of a startup. And that’s what this campaign is eventually working towards.
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