From its origins in a lab in the 1950s to being heralded as the latest General Purpose Technology, Artificial Intelligence has come a long way. Particularly, the growth and development of AI in India has taken place largely within the last decade, as it rapidly accelerated from lab to market. And there are a host of factors that are poised to keep this trajectory pointedly upward.
India’s multi-billion technology industry has evolved and matured to become innovation-centric, with a keen focus on accelerating the development and deployment of solutions powered by emerging technologies like AI. There is a growing talent pool in India, and technology adoption is rising in non-tech sectors like agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing and governance. To top it off, the Union and several state governments are turning to industries to enhance digitisation. Against the backdrop of an ambitious Digital India campaign and spurred by the success of citizen centric initiatives such as Aadhaar, UPI and National Digital Health Mission, the Union government is hoping to bolster a culture of building solutions to native challenges by leveraging emerging technologies.
The state of Telangana is among the foremost proponents of these tenets. The year 2020 was declared the Year of AI by the state. Following this was the launch of Telangana AI Mission or T-AIM in partnership with NASSCOM to establish Telangana as a global AI hub and leverage innovation for societal good. In June 2020, Telangana released an actionable AI framework – becoming the first Indian state to do so. In August 2020, AI4AI (AI for Agricultural Innovation) was launched by the state in collaboration with the Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR). And the latest initiative to come from the state is the Revv Up Accelerator – a growth stage accelerator for AI startups, launched by Telangana AI Mission (T-AIM) in collaboration with NASSCOM . A one-of-its-kind accelerator in India for AI, Revv Up aims to work with startups that have a strong AI application and based in Hyderabad. These startups will be offered a host of opportunities to collaborate with and get mentored by industry leaders, enterprises and government organisations, and solve actual business use cases presented by these stakeholders.
This initiative, in line with the vision of the Govt of Telangana, will build India’s homegrown AI community that is keenly trained to solve and address native challenges based on inferences and insights stemming from locally-available datasets. Rama Devi Lanka, Director of Emerging Technologies, State of Telangana said that one of the first steps towards establishing Telangana as a global AI hub, the government has set an ambitious target of AI contributing to $5 billion of the state’s IT exports by 2025. “We want to harness the power of AI, blockchain and IoT among other emerging technologies for social innovation, especially in sectors like agriculture, healthcare and governance. To enable this, we are working towards strengthening the foundational blocks required to foster an ecosystem for these technologies to thrive.”
T-Hub is arguably one of the biggest examples that embodies Telangana’s commitment to positioning itself as a leading startup hub. Launched in 2015, the business incubator is a collaborative effort between the government, industry and academia. Over the years, similar cross-sector collectives have emerged such as Telangana Academy for Skills and Knowledge (TASK), Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC), prototyping centre T-Works and state incubator for female entrepreneurs WE-Hub that focus on upskilling, grassroots level innovation, hardware prototyping and diverse entrepreneurship. Now, Telangana AI Mission (T-AIM) joining the ranks, the state is poised to build a comprehensive and rounded community of developers, innovators, adopters, mentors and startups that embody the spirit of innovation aided by emerging technologies.
Snehanshu Mitra, Head, T-AIM, elaborated on what Revv Up can offer AI startups: “Revv Up particularly looks at growth-stage AI startups – they need to have a product in at least rudimentary stages of deployment, and a skeletal idea of sales, marketing and support functions. These startups also need to be seeking measurable growth in terms of customer growth, revenues and acquiring market share. We are aiming to attract and strategically engage with 200 AI startups by this year. Specific AI technologies that their solutions or products should be rooted in can include NLP, Computer Vision, Machine Learning and Deep Learning.”
The 12-month program will be replete with various events, activities and interventions such as PoC opportunities & market access with the Telangana government and industry leaders, investor roundtables, workshops & masterclasses on IP harvesting, Go-To Market, pitching & fund raising, mentorship from senior industry leaders in technology and business, and access to global markets.
An important caveat is that startups must have a presence in Hyderabad, while they can be registered anywhere in India.
Praveen Mokkapati, Deputy Director, NASSCOM AI, added, “One of the hallmarks of this programme is building of key elements of an AI ecosystem that ranges from infrastructure support to mentorship, which includes government datasets. Startups participating in Revv Up have the distinct advantage of using specific datasets from the government. This will help them tailor solutions to address real-life use cases.
The state of Telangana is one of India’s foremost tech hubs, and home to many leading corporations and large-scale enterprises. Industry giants like Google, Facebook, Qualcomm, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, Apollo and Novartis among many others, present in Telangana, are bullish on either adopting or building novel AI solutions. Most companies these days have expressed their intent to work with startups and academia to nurture and scale innovative solutions. Moreover, Telangana attracts a wide variety of talent in fields like engineering, management and research, who are all keen to get involved in entrepreneurship. The state is home to leading venture capital firms like Endiya Partners, Ventureast and Anthill Ventures among others, who are specialising in deeptech investments. “You need a village to support the growth of startups. All the right ingredients to support such a high potential deep tech startup ecosystem already exists in Telangana. With a state-supported and AI-focused accelerator like RevvUp, I’m optimistic of more traction in the coming months.”
As Revv Up commences operations this month, the team is geared towards building strong and strategic partnerships with industry and investor community, attract subject matter experts to mentor startups and conduct programmes like workshops and masterclasses on a host of topics like go-to-market strategies and intellectual property, investor roundtables and PoC opportunities with the government and industry.
Source: indiaai.gov.in
