India stands at a historic juncture where it possesses a confluence youth power, diversity, scientific temperament, democratic spirit: Karnataka Governor

Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot said India currently stands at a historic juncture where it possesses a remarkable confluence of four elements: youth power, diversity, scientific temperament, and democratic spirit.

Mr. Gehlot urged India’s youth to focus their capabilities towards India’s growth story while addressing a packed audience of Pan IIT Alumni summit here on Saturday.

According to the Governor, to make the coming decade an era of innovation, India must focus on the areas of research and development, in addition to becoming a self-reliant ecosystem capable of solving complex challenges.

He also said the Indian Institute of Technology served as a hub for India’s talent, research, and innovation and IIT alumni have demonstrated the prowess of India’s intellectual capabilities.

Prabhat Kumar, Chairman, Pan IIT Alumni India, said, the story of the IITs was the story of India, from the first campus in Kharagpur to a powerful network of 23 IITs and over five lakh alumni shaping the nation’s technological destiny. “From Silicon Valley to India’s new ‘Indus Valley’ in Bengaluru, this journey is now about innovation, sovereignty in technology, research, entrepreneurship, and building a stronger India together,” he added.

Energy digitisation complete

Speaking at the summit on “Artificial Intelligence for Governance”, Gaurav Gupta, Additional Chief Secretary, Energy Department, said that the process of energy digitalisation is complete in Karnataka. “We are now moving towards the intelligisation of energy,” he said.

Karnataka has one of the most renewable-intensive grids, 70% of the installed capacity is from green energy, and the new wind addition was approximately 3.47 GW, the highest in India, he stated.

“The operational capacity now is beyond what humans can manage; hence, there is a requirement for the integration of artificial intelligence,” he explained. To achieve a seamless result in the integration of artificial intelligence for governance, he added that there was a need for coordination amongst the government, academia, start-ups, and big tech.

“The idea of what a product is has evolved in the last 20 years. Now products are talked about in terms of ecosystems,” said Sailesh Kumar, the head of AI at Jio. He further added that to understand the complexities, we must now look at a smart city as a product, which would help evolve our IT and AI thinking.

Speaking on sovereign infrastructure for business, Bharat Goenka, co-founder of Tally Solutions, said, “We think of sovereignty in terms of nationalism; we must approach it also in terms of digital infrastructure.” The existing infrastructure is not appropriate for businesses due to its high cost and the country must democratically approach this problem to ensure that technology is available for everyone, he added.