Niti Aayog set to open public data for startups via a portal

There might be negative notions about government policies, but they are made with good intentions. The government organizations gather and analyse tons of data related to a particular sector before introducing any policy for the sector.

Agriculture, footwear, apparel, and medicine industry, to name a few, the government is sitting on a pile of useful data, on almost all the industries, which startups desperately need. The government departments which have till now been so much protective about public data will open the floodgate of data for startups in the country.

The government think tank NITI Aayog’s CEO Amitabh Kant on Sunday said that the Aayog will soon launch a new portal that will allow private organisations, especially startups, to use public data available with various ministries for innovation and come up with sector-specific solutions. Startups can leverage the data with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to address India-specific issues.

He was speaking at a conclave on artificial intelligence organised by Bennett University. The university has launched the leadingindia.ai initiative, which has created a network of 100 academic institutions and industries to fulfil the gap in quality workforce and trained manpower in AI technologies. It aims to skilling a million people.

Talking particularly about AI, Kant added the technology could help increase India’s year-on-year growth rate by 1.3 per cent. The government has already introduced the use of AI in increasing agricultural productivity and has been working with different organisations such as Microsoft, IBM and ISRO in different sectors.

The university also informed that Amazon had set up its first Intelligent Devices Lab in the country, on the varsity campus that would help create new skills and promote cutting-edge research in speech technology.

Recently, NITI Aayog announced to build 5000 Labs in all districts in India in next ten months. The Aayog had last year selected additional 1,500 schools across the country for setting up Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) programme.

The development was first reported by ET.