The Telangana government is aiming to train one lakh youth in high school in foundation artificial intelligence courses, said Information Technology & Industries Minister KT Rama Rao. He added that the state government in association with Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) has already trained over 25,000 students and 4,500 faculties and further aims to train at least one lakh youth more.
The Minister, while launching three projects —Intelligent Solutions for Road Safety through Technology and Engineering (iRASTE) Telangana, Bodhyaan car platform and MicroLabs at International Institute of Information Technology - Hyderabad (IIIT-H) said that AI is one of the fastest growing technologies according to Gartner's 2022 CEO Survey and it is the top priority for business leaders and has remained top priority for the third year in a row.
He quoted NITI Aayog estimates and said that, "AI is expected to raise India's gross value added (GVA) by 1.3 per cent, resulting in an addition of USD 957 billion to India's economy in 2035 or 15 per cent higher GVA."
With regard to three projects launched, project iRASTE uses AI & ADAS solutions and will act as a force multiplier and transform road safety. This project is in collaboration with the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection (INAI), IIITH, Intel, Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) and Uber.
TSRTC vehicles that ply the highways are the target fleet for this project with Uber's Road Safety Initiatives expertise. Bodhyaan is the car data capture platform set up at IIIT Hyderabad with multiple sensors — cameras, LIDARs, night-vision cameras, RADARs, including the required computational power to capture and process real-time data on the car.
Researchers, academicians and start-ups in India can use this platform to test algorithms or methods in vehicle navigation, data collection or anything related to Indian roads and research. Additionally, MicroLabs will work towards broad genomic surveillance of communicable diseases — real-time dashboards/ heat maps for health officers, complementary to current Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) and road map to cover all districts in Telangana.
