For a developing nation like ours, it is of utmost importance for the top governing and policy-making bodies like NITI Aayog to be on the forefront of tech innovation.
To avoid any hurdles in the future, NITI Aayog is imbibing new strategies and roping in new talents to meet global standards. They have partnered with premier institutions across the country to make itself available to the rich resources and talent that these think tanks have accumulated over decades of research and development.
Here are few institutions which are leading the innovation on tech front; which NITI Aayog can use to strengthen its policymaking.
Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR)
Funded by Reserve Bank of India, IGIDR aims at conducting research on the influence of international trading, financial and economic systems on countries and also the analytical foundations of the positions adopted by India and other developing countries in international forums and negotiations.
Right now, IGIDR has undertaken research projects like Policy Research on India Digital Payments Ecosystem in collaboration with PAYPAL. With the Indian government being determined to achieve a cashless state, the research such as these will help NITI Aayog in assisting the policymakers.
IISc Bangalore
Video Analytics Laboratory (VAL) is part of IISc Bangalore’s Department of Computational and Data Sciences. At VAL, Prof. Venkatesh Babu and his team build computational models on recurrent neural networks to temporally map objects to human like guesses. This is an attempt to mimic human capabilities at carrying out trivial tasks with very vague information.
The premise of the research is very advanced and even key AI players across the world are putting a lot of time and money into projects such as these. With a vision like this, IISc complements NITI Aayog’s mission of transforming India and productization of home-grown talent.
IIM Bangalore
The NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), the incubation and entrepreneurship hub at IIM Bangalore (IIMB), selected by NITI Aayog to receive 10 crores scale-up support under Atal Innovation Mission. NSRCEL is one of the 6 established incubation centres in the country to receive this funding.
Atal Innovation Mission is India’s grand initiative to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. Of which, Atal Tinkering Labs is one such program, established to provide world class facility at the school level by setting up state of the art Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) in schools across all districts across the country where the students get to have a hands-on experience with Robotics, IOT and other miniaturized electronics used globally in most modern devices. Creating intrigue and encouraging the problem-solving capabilities in children is one of the core principles of NITI Aayog in its mission to upgrade the future talent pool and to prepare for complete digital revolution.
IIT Kanpur
The First Global Initiative on Academic Network GIAN course on Sustainable Urban planning using remote sensing and Geographic Information System, GIS has been launched at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur’s outreach centre in Noida and is actively supported by NITI Aayog.
This course aims to train the participants with state-of-the-art remote sensing and GIS skills which will allow them to tackle issues such as water resource management, water pollution and providing solutions for strategic placements for water treatment facilities in a rapidly growing urban environment.
National Institute for Smart Government(NISG)
NISG is a not for profit company whose primary focus is on helping the Indian Government in achieving an indigenous e-governance vision. Formed in 2002, with the help of National Task Force, NISG has now grown into a decisive player in multiple national level projects like MCA21 for Ministry of Company Affairs, GoI, and Passport Seva of Ministry of External Affairs and in the conceptualisation of UID for Department of Electronics and Information Technology. With many key projects under its belt, NISG empowers NITI Aayog to embrace digital revolutions with more confidence.
Research And Information Systems For Developing Countries(RIS)
RIS with NIAS has initiated a joint research program on this. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has emerged as a new concept and practice in Science Policy. RIS is contributing to national health policy and governance, particularly on AYUSH.
For example, RIS published a study on multi-sectoral policy intervention on Indian pharmaceutical industry and how to facilitate AI and biotechnology revolution in India. NITI Aayog collects data from remote sections to design policy frameworks assisting the overall healthcare of the country. So the studies done by RIS will prove as great source to customise the policies.
Centre For Science And Environment (CSE)
The Urban Management Programme launched by NITI Aayog focusses on Urban Planning & Governance, Water, Wastewater & Solid Waste Management. This unique initiative of NITI in partnership with Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) and Temasek Foundation Singapore provides a platform to State Governments/ULBs to share the challenges being faced in urban transformation in these key areas and to evolve and design efficient solutions to some of these challenges through a partnership with urban sector experts from Singapore.
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) too has launched two unique web-based tools: SANi-KiT, a web-based portal to enhance the which offers a comprehensive collection of essential tools to enhance the capability of urban local bodies in India to prepare high quality, city-owned City Sanitation Plans (CSP) whereas, MOUNT is an aggregator platform for various sustainable technologies, encouraging and disseminating knowledge and good practices for wastewater management with the preference for sustainable technologies.
