Policy regime should be pro-innovation and progressive

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on January 11 said that policy regime should be pro-innovation, light touch and have progressive technology when asked about how the government keeps pace on its policies, practices and other systems in the country that are not technology driven.

Speaking at tech giant Microsoft’s annual flagship event, FutureReady, Kant said, “Your policy regime should be pro-innovation, light touch, progressive. You should benchmark yourself against the world’s best, even better than the world’s best.”
Kant also shared his perspective on the transformation that digitization is bringing in and the government’s goal of putting India on the global map of sustainable development.

Speaking on policy and innovation, and how India could leapfrog technologically, in the session, “The Growth Trinity – Digital Innovation, Sustainability, Social Balance”, Kant emphasized on the digital uptake in India and how, supported by ambitious policy goals, it has touched lives of millions of Indians across the nation.

“Starting with, the JAM Trinity, in terms of the India stack, to biometric, the e-locker, the digital signature, we’ve really grown and evolved hugely. As far as the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), is concerned, linking up all these banks has been transformational. If you look at the FinTech movement, many young unicorns have really transformed the insurance space or even stock markets. So there has been huge transformation, as far as digitalization is concerned,” Kant said.

The country is seeing creation of three unicorns a month, which has been possible because India’s young entrepreneurs are tapping into this data and using it to technologically leapfrog and that is what the country needs to do, according to bureaucrat.

“We need to leapfrog in all these emerging areas of technology, whether it is metaverse or Artificial Intelligence, because India has the size and scale of data and the use cases, which no other country has. We are also doing a lot in terms of making India go green, in the context of renewable energy and the hydrogen mission. I think that story is still unfolding in the next three to four years and India is set to take the global lead in this area,” he further added.

Meanwhile, the Microsoft #FutureReady is a leadership forum curated by a stellar line-up of world thinkers and innovators. Over a period of two days, it covers 10 technology trends, over 30 topics, and conversations with 55 world thinkers and innovators.

Future Ready Talent is Microsoft’s virtual internship program. As per the company website, it is aimed at empowering India’s youth with technology skills for employability.

The internship program is for students in their second year of college and upwards. The initiative aims to impact over 1.5 lakh higher education students who will join the workforce between 2022-2024.

The program is open to students who will graduate in 2022, 2023, and graduated in 2021. Students from all specializations are open to participate.

The platform provides an opportunity to learn the in-demand azure cloud and security skills aligned to industry needs. It aims at preparing learners work towards solving business challenges and creating innovative solutions using the power of Microsoft Azure & GitHub tools. Moneycontrol