Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human cognitive processes by machines. It automates processes & aims to ape Human Intelligence by applying Cognitive Computing to IT Systems. Towards this, the Tech-Bootcamp on Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Principles and Practices was held on 8th December2022 at National Informatics Center (NIC), Bhubaneswar for senior officers of the state government.

Inaugurating the Bootcamp, Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee, Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment informed that AI can be used to search for recognition of patterns, discovery of new insights, extract meaning from raw data, make predictions, and interaction with people, machines and the physical environment. He highlighted how AI can be used in agriculture for field harvesting, health monitoring, weed and pest control, detection of nutrient deficiencies in soil and other tasks.

Guest of Honour, Shri Dasarathy Satpathy,  Secretary, Odisha Legislative Assembly, informed that AI involves programming for Knowledge, Reasoning, Problem Solving, Perception, Learning, Planning & Automating Processes. He highlighted how AI can be used for Assistance services to Members of Legislative assembly such as chatbot based on conversational interface technology as well as Natural Language Processing, to automate Legislative drafting and making assembly videos searchable using the latest speech recognition techniques etc.

Participating in the Bootcamp as Guest of Honour, Smt. Sharmistha Dasgupta, DDG & Head, Artificial Intelligence Resource Division, New Delhi highlighted initiatives of the division on Model building in the fields of Image & Video Analytics, Speech Synthesis & Recognition, and Natural Language Processing.

In his welcome speech Dr. Ashok Kumar Hota, Deputy Director General (Training), informed that NIC has established the Centre of Excellence(CoE) in Artificial Intelligence in 2019 to explore more opportunities for AI applications in governance. The guests joined to release the AI Brochure on the occasion.

Shri Choudhury Bijoya Kumar Das, DDG & State Coordinator (Odisha), NIC, New Delhi joining virtually offered Vote of thanks. The workshop was coordinated by Smt. Sarita Sahoo, Senior Technical Director, NIC, Odisha

More than 60 officers from various departments participated and interacted with the experts. The brainstorming session was organized to identify various domains where Artificial Intelligence can be integrated. Participants were from Agriculture, Higher Education, Forest, Home, Industry, Health, BSNL etc. Experts from NIC New Delhi presented various solutions available like Swachhata-AI Mobile App, Sangyatmak Sahayak API for assisting Lower Judiciary with Motor Accident Claim Precedents, Face Verification Services for Contactless Attendance, Life Certificate Mobile App based Verification, Fuzzy logic based Phonetic & Text Search for Farmer Name across Soil Health, PM Kisan & Land Records etc.

Officers received their participation certificate from the Chief Guest.