Asserting that merely making engineers is not adequate, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Tuesday named on Indian academic institutions to restructure curriculum, so that emphasis can be provided on specialised skillsets like artificial intelligence (AI) and information science, which are in large demand.
Speaking through the India Digital Summit organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Kant mentioned India has a lot of engineers but there is a terrific shortage of solution designers and information scientists, as the nation desires more individuals with specialised background in fields like artificial intelligence.
“Indian academic institutions need to restructure their curriculum… focus needs to be laid on emerging areas of technology. Merely producing great number of electric and electronics engineers is not adequate. You need product designers… that is where great amount of value can be created and each one of our institutions need to really work around this,” Kant mentioned.
He mentioned India can essentially generate up to $1 trillion of financial worth from the digital economy by 2025, up from about $200 billion at the moment, and there is a large possible in complete variety of locations.
“We have over half a billion internet users and the number is rising rapidly in every part of the country. This will create a huge market for a host of digital services, platforms, applications and content and solutions,” he mentioned.
The Niti Aayog CEO highlighted the challenges faced by India in the field of healthcare, education, power and how technologies can assist come across options for them. “Our engineers and our scientists must be able to find technology solutions to these challenges and without technological leapfrogging we will not be able to find solutions,” Kant mentioned.
He mentioned with Bharatnet spreading to rural locations, as soon as the optical fibre reaches all villages, technological modify will take place. “I look after the aspirational districts and when I visit them, I find that more than physical infrastructure like roads, they need internet connectivity and that will help in providing healthcare and education in these areas,” he mentioned.
Kant mentioned digital infrastructure has emerged as more important compared to standard infrastructure necessities such as energy and roads. This tends to make it vital for India to augment digital infrastructure to utilise frontier technologies in financial improvement. Digital is the future, Kant mentioned, adding that if India desires to boost the social or well being sectors, going digital is crucial.
The Niti Aayog CEO mentioned the international electronics market place is estimated to be worth $2 trillion, and India’s share in it has grown from 1.3% in 2012 to 3% in 2018. “It is still considered to be miniscule. So, the government came up with the production-linked incentive scheme for the electronics industry,” he mentioned.