Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Uttar Pradesh governor Anandiben Patel on Sunday called for the outcomes of AI Manthan 2.0 to be turned into a dedicated action plan, saying artificial intelligence should be integrated across subjects instead of being taught only as a standalone subject. Speaking at the close of the two-day event at Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University in Kanpur, she said universities in Uttar Pradesh should prepare clear, time-bound AI roadmaps for education, research, administration, healthcare, agriculture and student skills.
advertisement
Patel also urged students and teachers to engage with AI with confidence and responsibility. “Do not fear AI; understand it,” she said, asking students to build on creativity, curiosity and human empathy and move from being users to becoming innovators, while stressing that teachers and AI should work in collaboration rather than competition.
Focusing on employment and entrepreneurship, the governor said students should not only look for jobs but also develop the ability to create employment. She said Indian talent should build indigenous AI using Indian data on secure digital infrastructure. She listed possible applications of AI in mathematics problem-solving, science data analysis, smart farming, weather forecasting, early disease detection, environmental monitoring, robotics and natural language processing.
She stressed “learning by doing” and asked universities to encourage students to use AI to solve real-world problems linked to farmers, water conservation, traffic management, malnutrition, language preservation and assistive technologies. Patel also called for a dialogue between India’s traditional knowledge systems and modern AI, including the use of technology to preserve manuscripts, languages, archaeological heritage and folk traditions.
On healthcare and agriculture, Patel said AI had potential in early disease detection, medical research, crop management, weather forecasting and precision agriculture. She said universities should launch selected pilot projects and assess their outcomes scientifically. At the same time, she said AI must go hand in hand with data privacy, cyber security, fairness, transparency and human judgement, describing “Safe and Trusted AI” as the foundation of the country’s AI journey.
She said universities should not remain spectators to technological change but become leaders in it, adding that the “churn is concluding, but the mission is beginning”. Patel said the two-day event brought together experts, academicians, researchers, industry representatives and students to discuss AI’s changing role in education, research, healthcare, agriculture, robotics, the environment, urban development, governance and employment. She also highlighted the progress from AI Manthan 1.0, held at AKTU in Lucknow, to the second edition at CSJMU.
According to the governor, more than 7 lakh undergraduate students in state universities have completed foundational AI courses, while over 3 lakh students have received cyber security training in Hindi medium. She also said technical assistance had been used in evaluating more than 3 lakh answer scripts.
Dr Sudhir M Bobde, Officer on Special Duty to the governor, outlined 14 key “ratnas”, or takeaways, from AI Manthan 2.0 and announced two mechanisms to carry the summit’s outcomes forward: an AI Policy Advisory Group and an AI Implementation Group of Vice Chancellors. The five-member AI Policy Advisory Group will be chaired by Prof PP Chakrabarti, Director of IIT Kharagpur, and will include Prof V Ramgopal Rao of BITS Pilani, a representative from the agriculture sector, Dr Preetika Rangarajan of AIIMS New Delhi and Prof Vinay Kumar Pathak, Vice Chancellor of CSJMU.
The second group will work on implementing AI initiatives across universities and sectors, with representatives from technical, medical, agricultural and general higher education. Dr J P Pandey, Vice Chancellor of AKTU, will represent technical education, while the Vice Chancellor of KGMU will represent medical education. Dr Vijay Lakshmi, Vice Chancellor of Avadh University, Ayodhya, will represent agriculture, along with the Vice Chancellors of Meerut and Gorakhpur universities.
Bobde said the implementation group would not be limited to five universities and that institutions could be added according to their areas of expertise. He said Sanskrit universities, Bhathkhande Sanskriti Vishwavidyalaya and Dr Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University could also be included.
He also stressed healthy competition among universities and said institutions with more than 50 years of history could digitise their legacy documents and photographs and use that data for AI training and model development. Overall, the summit ended with a push for practical, secure and broader use of AI across universities in Uttar Pradesh.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
