Monday, 5 March 2018
IIT Kharagpur to boost Artificial Intelligence education supported by Capillary Technologies
IIT Kharagpur to boost Artificial Intelligence education supported by Capillary Technologies
Kharagpur: IIT KGP, the first IIT, is setting up a first of its kind Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence Research. This covers education, training, research, projects, incubation and entrepreneurship in AI and related domains.
The Center will be seed funded by Capillary Technologies Limited, for an amount Rs. 5.64 crore for setting up computing infrastructure, hardware simulation platforms, software and designing the coursework.
“IIT KGP has developed a deep expertise in the overall area of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Sciences and its applications in several critical domains over a long period of time, among others. It is time that we lead this initiative in AI to fulfill the need of AI technologies in the 21st century” said Prof. P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur.
IIT KGP would start the Center with teaching and learning and knowledge dissemination program. Faculty from the Institute, Capillary specialist and deep-learning industry experts would work together to prepare the curricula. The Well-planned curriculum will include short-term credit courses and certificate program for internal and external students and industrial training programs. The Institute has already taken initiative to create infrastructural facilities and programs for the Center.
“The way we look at AI, it is the future not just in our industry but in every aspect of life. We wish to support the envisaged programs of the AI Center in various ways. Over the last few years, we have invested over Rs 40 lakh annually in various research projects that hold the promise of shaping the future of our industry. We wish to continue our association with IIT KGP by investing a similar amount over a period of time to make this AI Center a truly industry-leading one.” said Aneesh Reddy, Co-Founder and CEO, Capillary Technologies.
Capillary Technologies has been a major motivator towards setting up this Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence Research at IIT KGP. The company was incubated at IIT KGP and has worked towards becoming an industry leader in the domain of cloud-based Customer Engagement, e-Commerce platforms and related services. It has already supported such activities in IIT KGP through funded projects for developing AI applications in retail sector, manpower training modules, internships, recruitment and enabling industry as well as government engagement.
“The Institute already has AI experts in the domains of Digital Healthcare, Industrial Automation, Intelligent Transportation System, Intelligent Urban Infrastructure, Financial Analytics, Agricultural Internet of Things and Analytics, Safety Critical Cyber Physical Systems, Big Data Analytics for rural development, climate studies and oil and gas. These experts will work towards developing new AI technologies for various domains and also aligning them with these domains through custom applications, interfacing, training etc.” explained Prof. Pallab Dasgupta, Dean Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy, IIT Kharagpur.
Prof. Sudeshna Sarkar, Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering along with the departments of Electronics and Electrical Communications Engineering and Electrical Engineering would be driving initiative at IIT Kharagpur. From Capillary Mr. Subrat Panda, Head of AI Technology and Pravanjan Choudhury, CTO would be leading the initiative.
Let’s not teach towards the test
Let’s not teach towards the test
The greatest obstacle to entrepreneurs in India is the attitude towards education. There is little room for the outliers
“Why hasn’t India built its own Google or Facebook?” That’s a question perennially asked in technology circles. In other words, when will this country — which is rich in highly trained software engineers, English language skills, with such an entrepreneurial spirit, and with a vast market — develop the conditions to build a global tech player?
India has many of the essential ingredients that fertile tech ecosystems need. It has more young people than any other country in the world — as many as 600 million — with over half the population under 25 years and two-thirds under 35. By the end of this decade it will produce the highest number of graduates in the world, the second-highest number of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates and double the number of engineering graduates as the US and China every year.
Indian talent is thriving around the world, exporting the country’s soft power and demonstrating the country’s pioneering approach to technology. Fifteen per cent of Silicon Valley startups are founded by Indians, and many Indians have reached senior management positions in US tech firms, including Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO.
Right ingredients
India’s vast population and shortage of job opportunities creates a competitive environment that requires energy and initiative — two essential qualities for entrepreneurs. Access to investor finance has also improved dramatically since around 2010. The old assumption that India’s creaking infrastructure makes startup creation difficult is outdated. Digital India has performed well; and the revolutionary Aadhaar digital identity and payments infrastructure beats any international competitor.
The real barriers to tech success are cultural rather than physical, internal rather than external. There needs to be a transformation, particularly among middle-class parents, on what is considered a successful career. The weight of expectation falls on young people to become either engineers, doctors or accountants — careers that offer prestige and security for their families — rather than the perilous but potentially vastly more rewarding path of the entrepreneur.
At Davos last week Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he wanted young Indians to be job givers rather than job seekers. Currently, even those who enter tech prefer to work for employers such as Google or Microsoft rather than start their own company. Figures from the IIM-Ahmedabad show that of its 383 graduates, nearly half (46.5 per cent) pursued careers in finance or consulting. Only eight opted to start a business.
Change we must
Creating a visionary company requires grit and a willingness to defer financial rewards until long into the future. Most importantly, it demands that you ignore the insistent voices telling you to abandon your dream and settle on a career. Indian society does not give enough support to entrepreneurs who are on this arduous path.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to entrepreneurs is Indian attitudes towards education. Though education is revered, it is treated as important because it is the gateway to prestigious universities, which will eventually lead to a prestigious, established profession. Education is valued as the first rung in the ladder to a secure job rather than for its capacity to inspire creativity, critical thinking and knowledge for its own sake.
This utilitarian attitude also distorts subject choices: liberal arts, which are seen as less useful for a career, are treated far less seriously than the sciences. However, creating a successful tech business often requires lateral thinking and insights into human behaviour — skills that are honed by the humanities as much as the sciences.
Famously, Steve Jobs claimed the most important element in the design of the Apple Macintosh was a calligraphy course he attended at Reed College (a liberal arts school). Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter owe as much to sociological insight as technical innovation.
Jobs’ experience shows that inspiration comes from leaving students some freedom to pursue their own intellectual curiosities — which is the opposite of the preoccupation with ‘teaching towards the test” that dominates in India. With India ranking 94th in the world for creative outputs, according to the 2016 Global Innovation Index, Indian education must take the liberal arts more seriously.
Indian education must learn to leave room for the outliers: the freethinkers whose vision the start-up scene needs. Those young people who feel stifled by conventional education face the additional pressure of feeling they are letting their parents down. (I was one of those restless, short-attention span pupils who failed 8th and 12th grade). Such a narrow definition of success in the education system can be damaging because it can erode young people’s self-belief: a quality every entrepreneur needs.
Nurture entrepreneurs
However, much is changing in India for the better. The Indian tech diaspora, steeped in the culture of Silicon Valley and knowledge of what is required for global success, are returning home and applying their knowledge. A generation of Indian clean-living tech entrepreneurs such as Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Vinod Khoslahas been elevated to hero status for their financial success, civic-mindedness; and because, beneath it all, their work depends on hallowed science skills. This, in turn, is slowly changing parental attitudes.
It’s important that these role models from beyond traditional professions are discussed and showcased in our schools and throughout the media. One huge ratings success is the TED Talks India Nayi Soch show — a programme presented by Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan that profiled entrepreneurs that are tapping into new trends. It is being viewed by tens of millions each week.
The greatest sign of India’s readiness to create a global tech giant will not just be the familiar metrics on investment rates or internet speed — but when Indian society finds better ways to nurture its entrepreneurs. It is then that more and more young students across the country — from the academically gifted to the unconventional – will receive the support and encouragement needed that can inspire them to create an Indian global tech player.
The writer is CEO and co-founder of Blippar
Google to make Machine Learning education available for all
Google to make Machine Learning education available for all
Google on Thursday introduced “Learn with Google AI” — a set of educational resources developed by Machine Learning (ML) experts at the company, for people to learn about concepts, develop skills and apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) to real-world problems.
“Learn with Google AI” comes with existing content as well as the new Machine Learning Crash Course (MLCC).
“We believe it’s important that the development of AI reflects as diverse a range of human perspectives and needs as possible. So, Google AI is making it easier for everyone to learn ML by providing a huge range of free, in-depth educational content,” Zuri Kemp, Programme Manager for Google’s machine learning education, said in a statement.
“This is for everyone — from deep ML experts looking for advanced developer tutorials and materials, to curious people who are ready to try to learn what ML is in the first place,” Kemp added.
The course features videos from ML experts at Google, interactive visualisations illustrating ML concepts, coding exercises using cutting-edge TensorFlow APIs and a focus that teaches how practitioners implement ML in the real world.
Originally developed by Google’s engineering education team, more than 18,000 Googlers have enrolled in MLCC so far.
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