Monday, the 25th January 2021 was celebrated, nation-wide as the AI (Artificial Intelligence) Day by the National Informatics Centre. Hosted at NIC HQ, the event witnessed the participation of NIC officials from across the nation through video conferencing. Live webcast of the event was made for wider viewership.  

The programme of the AI Day included Launch of AI as a Service of NIC, Release of the White Paper on COE-AI, and speech through video conferencing by invited guests, Shri Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Asia South at NVIDIA, and Dr. (Prof) N N Mathur, Director & Additional DGHS & Director Professor (ENT) Lady Hardinge Medical College. 

During the event, Dr. Neeta Verma launched the NIC service AIAAS (AI as a Service) on NIC Cloud and released the white paper on COE-AI services consisting of NIC achievements in the last two years in different e-Governance applications.

It was on the same day last year, the newly set-up NIC’s Centre of Excellence in AI (COE-AI) at NIC HeadQuarters was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Union Minister, Shri Ravishankar Prasad in the presence of various dignitaries including Shri Ajay Sawhney, IAS, Secretary, MeitY, GoI.  

Addressing the audience, Shri Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Asia South at NVIDIA, who was one of the invited guest speakers, spoke on the increasing use of AI in NVIDIA and accelerating adoption of NVIDIA GPU in the cloud. He also presented a demo on Speech Synthesis which understands the question and searches for the answer and also generates the natural human voice response.  

The AI Day event witnessed felicitation of the top winners of the AI Hackathon which was held last year. Dr. Neeta Verma, DG, NIC has given away merit certificates. The gold award went to the “Online verification of Applicants Identity using AI during the time of filling the Application Form”. The Silver award was won by Chhattisgarh for their “Speech to Sign language Conversion and vice versa” system. The bronze award was won jointly by Assam for “Automated Perry Disease Detection System” and the Meghalaya for “Live Certification of Pensioners”.  

Dr. (Prof) N N Mathur, Director & Additional DGHS & Director Professor (ENT) Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC), the other guest speaker spoke on the use of emerging technologies like AI from a health sector perspective. He also highlighted the importance of the Vaidya VANI Application, an AI-enabled virtual OPD jointly developed by NIC & LHMC.  

Dr. Neeta Verma, in a detailed speech, highlighted the significance of chat/ voice bots to connect/ communicate with the citizens and the use of AI in applications to reduce the workflow cycle, giving more transparency, and contributing more to the data-driven economy. Dr. Verma also stressed upon the programme management and cyber security in the applications.  

The event began with a welcome address by Shri Nagesh Shastri, DDG & HOG, AIRD. The participants watched the entire event with so much keenness and enthusiasm. Vote of thanks to the guests and participants was given by Smt. Sharmistha Dasgupta, DDG & HOD, AIRD. The event concluded with the recitation of the National Anthem.