AI Policy Labs in partnership with the Indo-British All-Party Parliamentary Group, UK held a virtual conference via Zoom about ‘The Digital Revolution: Future of Bilateral Trade and AI Partnerships - UK & India’ including a panel discussion on May 19 2021.
The key speakers included: Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, Virendra Sharma, MP for London & Chair, Indo-British All-Party Parliamentary Group, Ambassador Ruchi Ghanshyam, Former High Commissioner of India to the UK, Sana Kharegani, Head of UK Government Office for Artificial Intelligence, Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, Uday Nagaraju, Founder & Director, AI Policy Labs and Kevin Mccole, Managing Director, UK India Business Council.
In a recent write-up in The Diplomat, Ruchi Ghanashyam and Uday Nagaraju stated, “Both governments stand to gain tremendously through increased collaboration on new technologies such as AI. India needs to generate more jobs for its young workforce; arguably, these should be in future-proof sectors like AI, while the UK would benefit from increased cooperation as it looks beyond Europe post Brexit. Increased investment from the UK in start-ups, development and research ventures and local government projects in India is essential. The AI partnership between the UK and India is a step in the right direction to bring the relationship into the 21st century. However, more government-to-government cooperation is needed to synchronize areas of shared strategic concern in the development, deployment and regulation of AI.”
Furthering this discussion and speaking about the Covid-19 pandemic, Amitabh Kant explained, “This is not a crisis that is national in nature. It is a global pandemic.” Discussing how the UK-India partnership can further leverage the benefits of Artificial Intelligence, he said, “The UK enjoys a robust research ecosystem and we love to host the UK researchers in India.”
Sana Kharegani quite beautifully outlined how the AI Lab’s techniques can help the agricultural sector in both UK and India, establishing food production ethics, helping in diversity and inclusion agenda, “shifting the dial on diversity problems.” Sana insisted that the two countries must outline an AI Roadmap and devise a National AI strategy.
“Making data accessible is hugely important,” Sana added and also encouraged making innovative solutions and data sets open to the public, which can help in identifying flood risk for farmers, agricultural use of land, fertilisers and satellite imagery, an inspection of farmland and automation to observe farm risks.
Debjani Ghosh accepted that “We (India) have fascinating problems” and that “India is the ultimate playground”. According to her, India must come up with a National Digital Training Agenda in order to fill the huge gap in awareness of tech usage and address the sharp decline, bridging the gap by data utilisation strategy and structured implementation plans. Ghosh also emphasised making tech “intuitive” to the user. Tech needs to adapt to culture and improve the quality of insights.
“India and the UK are complementary to each other despite having a different set of problems. If you solve for India, you will solve for the world,” Ghosh added.
Kevin Mccole said that the bilateral relationship needs a 10-year roadmap on healthcare, defence and security, climate change, trade, digital businesses, and advanced technology. Kevin asserted that deriving data is not the only way to go, interpreting it is also a separate task. “Bilateral relations can drive collaboration”, he added.
Congratulating the AI Policy labs for the event, Virendra Sharma, MP said, “I’m proud to support similar work of AI Policy Labs on the UK Global AI partnership programme which looks at forging partnerships with Africa, the Caribbean and the middle east. I commend their work in India for agriculture, rural development and AI for the judiciary. I’m confident that many more discussion with key stakeholders will solidify this partnership. Let’s work together by investing not for profit, but for the future for all.”
