Visit to "Make in India" centre in Mumbai

On Wednesday, 17-Feb I got a chance to visit the ‘Make inIndia’ centre at Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai. Being a resident of Mumbai, I was quite eager to visit this since I had seen all the advertisements on large hoarding as well as on the Web. I happened to pass through the adjoining road of the BKC Complex a couple of days before this event was inaugurated by Hon Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi. Then I was simply astonished by looking at the massiveness of the structure being built for the event.

After reaching the venue, we first thought of heading back due to the huge crowd. But kudos to the Organizing team for very efficient management, due to which we could complete the registration and enter the exhibition within 20 mins.

The exhibition at the centre was organised across 27 halls spread across a vast area. Several national and international establishments took part in this event as well. Other than these, there were other halls for holding conferences, meetings and other seminars. Over 2500 international and 8000 Indian companies are claimed to have participated in this week-long event.

During the 2.5 hrs we spent out here, we visited:

1. Defence & Aerospace, Indian Navy & Civil Aviation
2. Automobiles
3. Technology, IT & Electronics
4. Defence
5. Maharashtra Pavilion (highlighting initiatives and achievements from the state of Maharashtra)
6. States Pavilion (highlighting initiatives in various states of India)

Each of these exhibition areas gave an idea of the magnitude of initiatives taking place in our country, which are mostly not known to the common Indian man. My personal favourite was the Defence & Aerospace section. This section showed India’s progress in developing world class defence and aeronautics capability. The major achievement here was the frugal way in which India has developed some of these. Some of the exhibitors in this area were ISRO, DRDO, Boeing India, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., Indian Navy and others.

The hall housing the Automobile sector was the one that attracted the biggest crowd. Particularly the DC (Dilip Chhabria company) stall has the most number of people flocking around. Some other exhibitors in this area were Jaguar Land Rover, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra, Mercedes India, Renault India, Volkswagen India etc.

Country and State-wise pavilions showcased their achievements across various sectors. 17 states from across India held the pavilions and Germany, Korea and Sweden had country pavilions in this event.

A week after the conclusion of this event, there have been reports mentioning about the success of this event and the magnitude in which investment commitments have been made. It is hoped that this summit will create positive environment for attracting investors from across the world. I myself had not seen such a multi-sectoral industrial event and felt proud to be an Indian, every minute of my visit.

(Posting a few photographs from the event)

Makes from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. at the entry gate

Odisha state pavilion

Andhra Pradesh state pavilion

                                       

JCB products on display

Defense section

DC exhibit in Automobile hall

Artificial Intelligence - marching into the common man's life

Couple of weeks back, I read a news article that US army plans to actively use Artificial Intelligence for creating cyber soldiers and also to fly its fighter jets. This was not at all astonishing, but the next piece of this article really was. DARPA has admitted that enemies are already ahead of them i.e. this technology is already being in use on the battlefield by several others. One other striking news was that in the military budget of 2016, US has kept $15 bn separate only for Artificial Intelligence. Most of the countries entire defence budget itself is lesser than this amount.

Usage of AI is becoming common day by day, with Mobile assistant (Siri, Google Now), Speech recognition, IVR’s, Medical surgeries and several others using this on a very active basis. 2015 has been considered to be a breakthrough year for AI inmany ways. Various companies are seen testing self-driven or autonomous cars which they claim would ensure increase of road safety. Just as I have been writing this post, there was the news that the National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration (NHTSA) has given support to Google’s Self-driven vehicles by declaring that the AI system in control of the vehicle can be termed as a driver. There still is some time to actually see the autonomous cars running on the roads, but hurdles in its way surely are decreasing by the day. All of the IT giants,from Google to Apple and IBM to TCS are investing large amounts to build expertise in this field. The Healthcare industry is also seeing a major transformation with the concept of Robotic Doctors. With Smart Cities and Connected Living set to become such an important part of common man’s life, AI is the perfect bridge between technology and human behaviour.

Over the years since 1990’s when the computer started becoming part of a common-man’s life, technology was initially thought of as being dumb and non-cognitive. For many years, this always remained as the biggest limitation as well as challenge. But now with AI, the scenario is set to change. It is fast transforming technology into intelligent technology. Very soon, it will be an integral part of our daily lives.

All said and done, would AI ever be able to re-create the human touch… this is a question which would be very difficult to answer. However, human life is set to undergo a rapid transformation due to AI is something that can be concluded beyond any doubt.