Kharagpur,India:  IIT Kharagpur conducted the National  Webinar on “Leveraging Technology for Good Governance on September 30, 2021 (Thursday) on the virtual platform. The event was organized as a part of the Completion of Programs on Good Governance, organized by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education.

The webinar’s inaugural session was commenced with the welcome address by  Shri Rakesh Ranjan, Additional Secretary (TE), Ministry of Education. It was followed by the keynote address by Professor Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay who highlighted the growing importance of a connected digital world in our lives. He praised the AADHAR system as landmark progress in realizing Digital India.

The highlight of the session was the inaugural address by Chief Guest, Shri Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Hon’ble Minister of State, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. In his address, he brought into light the great transformations in governance, quality of democracy and citizen’s lives over the past few years. He mentioned that the Government aims to bring 1 billion people online over the next few years through digital education and digital health and digital business services and create one of the largest digital economies in the world. He concluded by saying that technology and good governance are two sides of the same inseparable coin.

It was followed by the technical sessions which highlighted the leveraging of technology for healthcare, education, administration, agriculture, and manufacturing. The discussion focused on new and emerging technology that contribute to community development, good governance, participatory democracy, accumulation of scientific knowledge, achieving the SDGs, and realizing a self-reliant India

The speakers and panelists for the sessions were as follows-

1. Session I: Leveraging Technology for Healthcare

Technology in healthcare offers precise diagnosis, real-time simulation of epidemics, delivery of medicine, and much more. It has made medical resources more accessible, affordable, and democratic.

 The Lead speaker is Prof Suman Chakraborty, the Dean of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy, Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur.

The Panelists consist of –

• ·    Prof. Dr. Randeep Guleria, the Director of AIIMS, New Delhi.

• ·   Mr. Girish Krishnamurthy, the Managing Director and CEO of Tata Medical and Diagnostics Ltd.
• ·   Prof. Jonathan Cooper, Emeritus Vice Principal & Wolfson Chair of Bioengineering (Biomedical Engineering), University of Glasgow, UK & International Visiting Professor,        IIT   Kharagpur.
• ·   Shri Brahmanand Jha, Senior Consultant- Programme Management,  National e-Governance Division, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India.

2. Session II: Leveraging Technology for Education and Administration

Digital learning and virtual classrooms have revolutionized the circulation of knowledge, reduced costs, and made it a fun and interactive experience.   It has helped expand the government’s education mission in the form of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 to far corners of the country despite the pandemic.

The Lead Speaker is Prof Santanu Chaudhury, the Director of IIT Jodhpur.

The Panelists consists of-

• ·    Prof. Sarit Kumar Das, the Institute Chair Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras and Former Director of IIT Ropar.
• ·    Prof. Chittaranjan Mandal, the Head of ERP and the Professor of the Department of the Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
• ·    Prof. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, the Director of ISI Kolkata
• ·    Shri Vinay Thakur, the Chief Operating Officer, National e-Governance Division, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India.

3. Session III: Leveraging Technology for Agriculture and Manufacturing

India is digitalizing agriculture to protect, educate and invest in the prosperity of farmers. Remote Sensing, Geographical Information systems, Data Analytics and Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, the Internet of Things, Robotics, Drones & Sensors, and blockchain are tools used to meet this goal.

The manufacturing sector, too, keeping up with global transformations in the labor market, is implementing low-code software for floor management, Augmented Reality for upskilling the workforce, and various self-learning robots to ramp up cutting-edge production indigenously.

The Lead Speaker is Dr. C R Mehta, the Director of ICAR- Central Institute of Agriculture Engineering.

The Panelists consist of –

• ·  Prof. Surjya Kanta Pal, the Chairperson of the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology; Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya Chair Professor of Manufacturing, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Dean of Alumni Affairs and Branding, IIT Kharagpur.
• ·   Prof Amaresh Chakrabarti, the Senior Professor and Chairman of the Centre for Product Design and Management (CPDM), IISc Bangalore
• ·   Dr. Arpan Pal, the Distinguished Chief Scientist and Research Area Head, Embedded Devices and Intelligent Systems, TCS Research.
• ·  Shri Debabrata Nayak, the Project Director DigiLocker, National e-Governance, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India.

While delivering the closing remarks of the event, the Director of IIT Kharagpur, Prof Virendra Kumar Tewari concluded that this webinar on the importance of leveraging technology for good governance was a watershed event to set the ball rolling for concrete action on improving people’s lives in all corners of society by using indigenous technological solutions.

Keywords: IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay, Ministry of Education, Government of India, MeitY, National e-Governance Division, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurships, Director, ISI Kolkata, University of Glasgow, Good Governance, Technology.