February 2, 2023

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Artificial Intelligence will have a direct impact on Future Urban Planning

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When we think about a future city, we imagine flying cars and robots selling coffee when we head out to work, like in a Sci-Fi movie. But upcoming technology, especially Artificial Intelligence has real potential to deeply and fundamentally impact the shape of our cities. AI, at its core, is powered by algorithms.

From a simplified process perspective, data is pumped through these algorithms, or models, to find patterns in data. With enough data and improved accuracy in this pattern recognition, companies/products can generate actionable insights that help a user.

In simple words, AI can be understood as developing machines and enabling them to perform tasks that traditionally require human intelligence like speech recognition, decision making, language translations, etc.

Today, we are used to AI when it comes to face and voice recognition on our smart devices and secretly get excited at the prospect of having self-driving cars transporting us through long and tedious commutes.

Ravi Bedi

This same excitement around AI’s potential to transform urban spaces led us, here at OpenGov, to Ravi Bedi, Technology Innovation Principal Director at Accenture and an SME for Intelligent Automation and AI. He is also the GTM lead for Accenture’s Data Business group in ASEAN and Automation Engineering Lead for APAC.

Ravi first recognises and highlights two fundamental occurrences that one, lots of data is now digital and two, reduction in the cost of processing data (especially with cloud providers). These changes have positioned Automation and AI to play a key role in today’s world.

Moreover, Ravi believes AI technology can drastically improve the planning and functioning in modern cities. He understands Intelligent Automation solutions as a constellation of various technologies, when combined together, represent the functionality of a digital co-worker, encompassing both rules-based activities as well as judgment-based activity.

He believes it is important to focus on creating Intelligent and connected platforms that look at the constellation of various technologies such as blockchain, AR/VR, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision.

Urban Planning and AI is already a hot topic of discussion in the tech world, especially after the release of the study, Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030, which outlines the dramatic impact Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having and will continue to have for our cities and the way we live and work in them over the next couple of decades.

Ravi too delved deeper in it to explain how Data Analytics solutions, machine learning, and eventually the 3rd tier of AI solutions using deep learning, will be able to create a digital crystal ball, allowing us to peer into the future, and predict outcomes, with a high degree of accuracy.

He explained that there are three tiers of applications for AI-backed solutions that can be used in Urban Planning:

The first is, Data Analytics, which takes raw data either in real-time or historical, and provides current insights, for example, intelligent traffic lights. Intelligent traffic lights can use data analytics to coordinate and track time changes in traffic lights, based on the current flow of traffic, making daily commutes smoother.

The second tier of AI applications uses Machine learning. Ravi explained, “ML is a more advanced form of AI. When machine learning is applied to data sets, the algorithms look for patterns in the data, in order to make near term predictions and deeper insights into the data.

A good example within urban planning could be road maintenance. Instead of road crews looking round for potholes to repair, or to wait for citizens to complain about potholes, urban planners can use computer vision techniques to collect and annotate data sets, so that machine learning models can be applied to predict which roads will have more “wear and tear”, resulting in potholes. These maintenance crews can then focus their energy on repairing potholes, instead of looking for them.”

The third tier of AI solutions uses Deep Learning: an advanced version of machine learning. Ravi explained, “Deep Learning AI solutions use highly advanced and complex algorithms. Deep learning is used to crunch very large data sets over a fairly long period of time, to be able to give planners, predictive insights, into the data”.

He provided the following example, of how Urban Planners may use Deep Learning techniques to help design the cities of the future. “Assume a city has won the bid to host the next Olympic games. A multi-year project to build all the sporting facilities is underway.  Using deep learning models, urban planners will be able to look into the future, and understand how the nature of traffic will change, how to best manage new traffic flows, how best to design the roads leading up to sporting venues and leading away from sporting venues, how best to design new public transportation etc.”.

Further, on the wider debate between the Tech optimists and pessimists on how much we should let AI take control, Ravi is an optimist who believes AI should be democratized and humanized. Today, most major corporations are incorporating AI as an effective tool to boost their businesses and one such example is Netflix that suggests users shows to watch content based on the pattern of previous views.

Hence, as businesses increasingly adopt the AI-first and Data-first approach in their operations, AI is bound to be a prominent trend across various fields in 2020. Enumerating some of them would include: AI improving healthcare accuracy and cost, empowering cybersecurity, enabling more data synthesis methods, driving efficiency in manufacturing, etc.

Despite these current and prospective adaptations and use cases, AI is still in its infancy stage. Currently, we are at the “Narrow AI” solutions stage that translates to applying algorithms to solve very narrow problems of work. But, even within these narrow applications, when AI is applied, it can work at a scale, that far outstrips what a human can and could do.

Hence, while Automation is inevitable, the focus should be on humanizing it. For instance, AI still needs good data to function well. If the data at hand is biased and not curated carefully, the algorithms will learn wrong patterns. In essence, it is equally important that we (tech users) and the governing authorities understand AI’s potential but also be mindful of its limitations to ensure holistic wellbeing in the long run.

Singapore Tourism Board Launches UNSEEN/SINGAPORE

Image credit: www.nationalgeographic.com/unseensingapore/
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SINGAPORE – February 2, 2023 – Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has collaborated with National Geographic CreativeWorks to unveil UNSEEN/SINGAPORE, a campaign that showcases Singapore as a travel destination from the perspective of intrepid photographers from Southeast Asia. Through photography, the campaign includes a virtual exhibition which encourages travellers to explore the city-state’s cultural diversity and hidden spots, by taking a moment to observe the unseen beauty of destination Singapore.

Running from 2 February 2023, UNSEEN/SINGAPORE will showcase a collection of photographic works through a virtual exhibition, captured and curated by six photographers from across Southeast Asia. UNSEEN/SINGAPORE features the works of:

  • Amani Azlin from Malaysia
  • Tino Renato from Indonesia
  • Chanipol Kusolcharttum, better known as “Rockkhound”, from Thailand
  • Phạm Gia Tùng from Vietnam
  • Gab Mejia from the Philippines
  • Jayaprakash Bojan from Singapore

In curating the UNSEEN/SINGAPORE collection, each photographer visited Singapore in mid-2022, covering areas in Singapore that showcase nature, heritage buildings, cultural sites, and art. Each presented their vision of an UNSEEN/SINGAPORE through ways that resonate with their passions and personal experiences.

The photographers ventured across Singapore, going beyond its famous attractions and iconic skyline, to discover spots equally captivating – from charming neighbourhoods to lush and thriving offshore wetlands and a lighthouse at the island’s edge.

“We aim to inspire travellers to Singapore to rediscover the joy of travel once again. One way is to portray our destination in a different light, by helping visitors to see it afresh through another person’s eyes. UNSEEN/SINGAPORE set out to do this, through the lens of talented photographers from Southeast Asia, who tell their journey of discovery through photography. We hope they will inspire a new wave of visitors to discover a Singapore reimagined,” said Mr John Conceicao, Executive Director, Southeast Asia, STB.

“If you want to experience a country, you have to go down a layer below into the more local stuff to get a feel of what the country is. For people who’ve already visited Singapore, they should try and look for some of the unorthodox locations which they probably missed in their previous visits because

there’s a lot more to Singapore with the culture and heritage,” shared Jayaprakash Bojan, a full-time photographer and documentary filmmaker who advocates conservation via visuals and participated in the campaign.

UNSEEN/SINGAPORE is part of STB’s efforts to boost travel recovery through SingapoReimagine, a tourism campaign that highlights new, innovative and unexpected experiences in Singapore to audiences worldwide.

Between January to December 2022, Singapore recorded 6.3 million international visitor arrivals. Visitor arrivals were driven by strong demand from Singapore’s key source markets, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.

Get to know the photographers

Amani Azlin from Malaysia

Amani is a multi-disciplinary visual artist who expresses her passion for minimalism through her work for various local brands. When Amani is taking pictures, she goes in with her camera and doesn’t give it too much thought. It’s all about taking pictures in the moment and only scrutinising them afterwards. For her, it’s about capturing candid, unscripted moments in daily life, even when she’s travelling in a different country. As the only female photographer in the group, she offers a fresh take on travelling to must-visit sites with her passion for slow travel rather than touch-and-go experiences.

Jayaprakash Bojan from Singapore

Jayaprakash Bojan was National Geographic’s Nature Photographer of the Year 2017. He is a nature-wildlife conservation artist whose work focuses on wildlife photography abroad. As someone who has lived in Singapore for around 7 years, the pandemic has pushed him to explore his own neighbourhood (particularly Pasir Ris Park) rather than places abroad. With this project, Jayaprakash rediscovers his home, Singapore, from a different perspective.

Tino Renato from Indonesia

A self-taught travel, food, portrait and still life photographer, Tino started his journey when he was younger, starting out with a film camera, and it remains his favourite medium for taking his pictures. For him, it’s all about capturing the raw moments of a place and its people and making them the focus of his pictures. It is what makes his photos appear simple while adding depth to the story as we can witness in the UNSEEN/SINGAPORE project.

Chanipol Kusolcharttum, also known as “Rockkhound”, from Thailand

After a few years of working as an air steward and travelling the world, Rockkhound decided to pursue and kickstart his passion for photography as a career, enabling him to continue exploring the world. The photographer-cinematographer from Bangkok started his photography journey about 10 years ago on Instagram while embracing the philosophy of slowing down to truly live in the moment and enjoy the scenery all around him when he is out and about. His style is to deliver motion and emotion, such as looking for an interesting composition to give some movement to still architecture in Singapore. He runs a production company in Bangkok, holds workshops and shares photo and filmmaking tips on his YouTube channel.

Phạm Gia Tùng from Vietnam

Tùng enjoys the photographic process – from scouting a location to finding new angles and setting up his shots, no matter how long it takes. The Hanoi-based photographer focuses on taking photos from angles people rarely consider, and constantly learning ways to improve his photography. Even though he has visited Singapore many times before, this project gave him the opportunity to appreciate and capture Singapore’s nature and people differently.

Gab Mejia from the Philippines

Gab is a National Geographic explorer and is passionate about wildlife photography and conservation. In 2021, he was awarded the World Wildlife Fund For Nature International President’s Youth Award and was also listed on the 2021 Forbes Under 30 List for The Arts in Asia for photography. His story started when his dad took him mountain climbing, sparking his interest in the natural world and the stories he could discover and capture behind it. His vision for this project is to show a different side of Singapore, capturing moments of the wild and pockets of nature.

UNSEEN/SINGAPORE will be open to the public on www.nationalgeographic.com/unseensingapore from 2 February 2023 inviting visitors to reimagine Singapore. The virtual exhibition will showcase each photographer’s ‘room’ based on their thematic-led collections. Viewers will be able to virtually visit many parts of Singapore including locations such as the Sim Kwong Ho shophouses, Pulau Ubin, Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle, Jurong Lake Gardens, Changi Chapel and Museum, and more.

To view the UNSEEN/SINGAPORE virtual exhibition, visit

www.nationalgeographic.com/unseensingapore

To watch behind-the-scenes of UNSEEN/SINGAPORE, visit www.facebook.com/VisitSingaporeMY.

HKUST and ASTRI Launch Joint Tech PhD Programme

Image Credits: HKUST, Press Release
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HKUST and ASTRI announced that they will be partnering to establish an initial Joint PhD programme through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU was signed by HKUST’s Provost and ASTRI’s Chief Executive Officer at HKUST’s campus in the presence of HKUST’s President and ASTRI’s Board of Directors Chairman.

As per the MoU, HKUST and ASTRI will jointly screen and select eligible candidates who will work as full-time R&D staff at ASTRI while pursuing a part-time PhD degree at HKUST. The selected candidates will have the chance to participate in leading-edge research projects that encompass artificial intelligence, big data, wireless communications, smart city, and advanced materials. Additionally, they will also be involved in R&D projects related to their PhD studies. Experienced R&D staff members from ASTRI may be appointed as HKUST’s adjunct professors and serve as co-supervisors for the PhD students.

With the backing of the nation, the Hong Kong government emphasised the significance of advancing innovation and technology (I&T) in the “2022 Policy Address.” The “I&T Development Blueprint” created by the government in December outlines a comprehensive plan for Hong Kong’s I&T growth in the next 5 to 10 years, including strategies such as improving the I&T environment and expanding the pool of I&T talent.

The Joint PhD programme aims to contribute to these efforts by fostering talent who can turn their research into commercial success while gaining the necessary knowledge and credentials to prepare for their careers.

The Chairman of the ASTRI Board of Directors stated that as Hong Kong’s top R&D organisation, ASTRI is dedicated to supporting the government’s initiatives outlined in the “I&T Development Blueprint” and “Competing for Talents” plans.

The first launch of the Joint PhD Programme with HKUST is anticipated to draw and retain talented individuals in I&T who want to pursue PhD studies or research in Hong Kong, thereby providing a strong pool of I&T talent to help make Hong Kong a smart city and a global hub for I&T.

The President of HKUST stated that the University is committed to its mission of promoting knowledge through education and research. With its strong foundation in basic research and partnerships with various industrial partners, including ASTRI, HKUST is well-positioned to bridge the gap between fundamental and applied research.

This will not only enhance Hong Kong’s innovation and technology ecosystem, cultivate top-notch talent for Hong Kong, the nation, and beyond, but also enable the commercialisation of HKUST’s research results for the benefit of society.

The Chief Executive Officer of ASTRI stated that bringing research and development results to fruition is a central objective of ASTRI. To maintain close ties with the academic community, the Memorandum of Understanding with HKUST was signed to foster joint R&D and technology commercialisation in February 2022, followed by this Joint PhD Programme a year later. The programme is expected to will effectively sharpen students’ creativity, critical thinking, and global perspective, enhancing their competitiveness on a global scale and hastening the implementation of HKUST’s R&D breakthroughs.

HKUST’s Provost expressed excitement about the joint PhD programme with ASTRI, stating that it is crucial to talent development for Hong Kong’s growth into an international innovation and technology hub.

The programme will use the strengths of both organisations to provide specialists with opportunities to acquire skills and qualifications while conducting R&D projects. The programme is expected to enhance Hong Kong’s talent development and expand its talent pool.

AI to Better Image Resolution and Reduce Uncertainty

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Researchers are exploring ways to improve artificial intelligence image identification accuracy on computer vision. Computer vision is an artificial intelligence topic that teaches computers to extract information from digital images. They employed an algorithm that takes the distorted image as input and outputs a clean image to the users.

The study focuses on images partially smudged or distorted due to the missing pixels. Another goal is to reduce the uncertainty estimations and inferences from the visual data acquired. The researchers then created computer algorithms to reveal the part of the signal that is marred or otherwise concealed.

“Models for doing so already exist, but quantifying the uncertainty is difficult. And you don’t want to make a mistake in a life-or-death situation,” Swami Sankaranarayanan, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the study’s lead author, explained.

So far, they have been able to reconstruct images of simple objects, such as human faces or animals. However, they wish to expand their method into more required fields, such as medical imaging, where our “statistical assurance” may be precious. If the film, or radiograph, of a chest X-ray, is blurred, they intend to reconstruct the image as accurately as possible.

They attempted to rebuild the image while preserving vital information. In the instance of a chest X-ray, this could tell whether a patient has lung cancer or pneumonia. Sankaranarayanan and his associates have already begun collaborating with a radiologist to assess whether their method for diagnosing pneumonia could be beneficial in a clinical context.

Their work is also helpful in the realm of law enforcement. The image from a surveillance camera may be grainy, but law enforcement agents can improve it using their instruments. The tools he and his colleagues are building could aid in identifying a guilty individual and exonerating an innocent one.

As a result, obtaining a more excellent grasp of that uncertainty could benefit us in various ways. For one thing, it can help us learn more about what we don’t know. MIT engineers successfully established reliable estimates of uncertainty and displayed ambiguity in a form that the average person could understand.

In a new study, Sankaranarayanan and his co-authors — Anastasios Angelopoulos and Stephen Bates of the University of California at Berkeley; Yaniv Romano of the Israel Institute of Technology; and Phillip Isola, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT — addressed the issues.

When recovering a blurred image, questions are bound to occur. How much trust can one put in the correctness of the resulting image? And, as addressed in the December 2022 study, how should the ambiguity in that image be represented? The conventional method generates a “saliency map,” which assigns a probability value between 0 and 1 to each pixel to express the model’s confidence in its accuracy.

Their approach revolves around an image’s “semantic characteristics” – clusters of pixels that, combined, have meaning, such as a human face, a dog, or any other recognised entity. According to Sankaranarayanan, the goal is to “estimate uncertainty in a fashion that relates to groupings of pixels that humans can easily perceive.”

While the usual technique may produce a single image representing the “best guess” as to what the genuine picture should be, the ambiguity in that representation is typically difficult to perceive. Therefore, according to the new article, uncertainty should be conveyed meaningfully to people who are not experts in machine learning for application in the real world.

When recovering a blurred image, questions are likely to occur. How much assurance can someone have in the reliability of the resulting image? And, as discussed in the December 2022 paper, what is the best approach to convey uncertainty in that image? The conventional method is to generate a “saliency map,” which assigns a probability value — somewhere between 0 and 1 — to each pixel to represent the model’s certainty in its validity.

Their technique is centred on an image’s semantic characteristics – groups of pixels that, when combined, convey meaning, such as a human face, a dog, or any other recognised entity. According to Sankaranarayanan, the goal is to estimate uncertainty in a fashion that connects to the groups of pixels that humans can easily perceive.

Whereas the usual technique may produce a single image representing the best guess as to what the genuine picture should be, the ambiguity in that representation is typically difficult to perceive. According to the new article, to be helpful in the real world, uncertainty needs to be communicated in a meaningful way to individuals who are not experts in machine learning.

Singapore Boosts Measures Against Scam SMS

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All organisations that use alphanumeric Sender IDs to send SMS are now required to register with the Singapore SMS Sender ID Registry (SSIR) as part of the measures announced by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) last October. This registration is intended to protect consumers from non-registered SMS that may be scams, a press statement has said.

Starting from 31 January, any non-registered SMS will be labelled as “Likely-SCAM”. This functions similarly to a spam filter or spam bin. Consumers might get non-registered SMS labelled as “Likely-SCAM” and are advised to exercise caution. If unsure, consumers are encouraged to check with family and friends. This will improve IMDA’s overall resilience against scams.

All organisations that use alphanumeric Sender IDs must register early with the SSIR. This is to give adequate time as non-registered SMS Sender IDs after 31 January will be labelled as “Likely-SCAM”. Organisations that have not registered their Sender IDs are advised to do so, the statement said.

As of January 2023, over 1,200 organisations have already registered with SSIR, using more than 2,600 SMS Sender IDs. These include financial institutions, e-commerce operators, logistics providers, and SMEs that send SMS to their customers who have registered with the SSIR.

In recent months, IMDA reached out to organisations through aggregators and associations such as the Singapore Business Federation, Singapore International Chamber of Commerce, and Association of Banks in Singapore, to encourage them to register with the SSIR. The mandatory SSIR regime is part of a broader effort to protect against scams, which also includes working with telecom operators to reduce the number of scam calls and SMS coming through the communication networks.

Since the implementation of the SSIR in March 2022, there has been a significant decrease in scams reported through SMS, with a 64% reduction from the last quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022. Additionally, scam cases perpetrated via SMS dropped from 10% in 2021 to 8% in Q2 2022, down from 10% in 2021.

To effectively combat scams, a collective effort from society is needed. Despite implementing various measures, scammers may adapt their methods and tactics. IMDA will continue to collaborate with other stakeholders in the fight against scams, but individual vigilance and awareness are crucial. Consumers should remain vigilant and share scam prevention tips with friends and loved ones, the statement said.

IMDA leads Singapore’s digital transformation with infocomm media. To do this, IMDA is working to develop a dynamic digital economy and a cohesive digital society, driven by an exceptional infocomm media (ICM) ecosystem. It fosters talent, strengthens business capabilities, and enhances Singapore’s ICM infrastructure. IMDA also regulates the telecommunications and media sectors to safeguard consumer interests while fostering a pro-business environment and enhances Singapore’s data protection regime through the Personal Data Protection Commission.

Scams and unwanted commercial electronic messages and calls are an international problem with scammers continuing to prey on unsuspecting parties. Last year, IMDA and Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to boost cooperation and fight scams and spam. The agreement covers cooperation in information sharing and assistance in investigations relating to scam and spam calls and short message services. The two sides also agreed to mutual exchanges of knowledge and expertise and collaboration on technical and commercially viable solutions in relation to scam and spam communications.

HKSTP Partner Company Launches Non-Invasive Diabetes Pre-Screening Tool

Image Credits: HKSTP, Press Release
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A partner company of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) unveiled “ARIA-diabetes risks”, a retinal imaging tool for non-invasive pre-screening of diabetes. This solution aims to tackle the problem of millions of undiagnosed diabetes patients worldwide.

The International Diabetes Federation reports that in 2021, nearly half of all adults with diabetes were unaware of their condition, amounting to 239.7 million individuals worldwide. In Hong Kong alone, at least 600,000 individuals have diabetes and more than 110 million in mainland China. This is a significant issue that has both local and global implications, as people with diabetes are at an increased risk for serious and potentially life-threatening complications such as heart disease, kidney disease, and vision loss.

The Automatic Retinal Image Analysis (ARIA) technology uses artificial intelligence and machine-learning techniques to detect various health issues. The solution provides a non-invasive pre-screening tool for diabetes that delivers results within minutes and has an accuracy rate of over 90%. It does not require a blood test and offers a faster and more accessible way for early diabetes diagnosis.

The partner company formed a joint venture called “Oneness Health” with an HKSTP incubatee to capitalise on the potential for remote healthcare offered by the ARIA-diabetes risks solution.

The joint venture combines the partner company’s retinal analysis technology with the incubatee’s network of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners, as well as their software and hardware development capabilities. This creates a one-stop service platform under the name “Oneness Health” that provides high-risk patients seeking TCM treatment with added convenience and flexibility, with the goal of “disease prevention”.

The Oneness Health platform will offer features such as online appointments, mobile assessments, diagnosis, and personal health management in the first quarter of 2023.

In the near future, it will also provide prescriptions for traditional Chinese medicines that can be dispensed through auto-dispensing machines at over 100 convenient locations in 18 districts of Hong Kong or collected at various NGO centres. Additionally, door-to-door courier service will be available for single elderly individuals or needy families.

The CEO of HKSTP stated that the Park is dedicated to promoting innovation by providing a comprehensive support system for translational research, product development, and commercialization. The ARIA-diabetes risks solution from the two firms which is now being offered under the Oneness Health platform is a prime example of how innovative solutions can be developed in Hong Kong and at the Science Park.

The combination of breakthrough science, world-first technology, advanced software, and hardware to create an innovative primary healthcare delivery platform through Oneness Health, is a testament to the speed, talent, infrastructure, and innovation capability of Hong Kong’s I&T ecosystem.

In line with the HKSAR Government’s Primary Healthcare Blueprint announced in December 2022, the Oneness Health platform will contribute to the government’s goal of establishing a more community-based primary healthcare system. The platform will significantly improve healthcare convenience, expand treatment options, lower patient costs, and alleviate the burden on Hong Kong’s hospitals and clinics.

The Blueprint sets out a strategy road map towards establishing a primary healthcare system that can improve the overall health and quality of life for popular in a stable manner, under the challenges brought on by an ageing popular and increasing chronic disease prevalence.

India Integrates AI Skills into Public School Curriculum

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The National Institute of Transforming India’s (NITI Aayog) Atal Innovation Mission, the Central Board of Secondary Education, and a private player are collaborating to improve the education sector by adding IT skills to the formal curriculum.

The larger aim is to align the National Education Policy 2020’s (NEP 2020) guidance to increase the pace of tech integration for youth, bridge the future skills gap in the country, and optimise the current infrastructure (including Atal Tinkering Labs) towards making India AI-ready. Together, they launched the AIoT Integration in School Curriculum in September 2022 and initiated a pilot.

A recent showcase, which was the outcome of the pilot programme, included a display of AIoT integration-based lesson plans created by teachers after they were trained by experts from the academic and technology sector. It also included a demonstration of AI and AIoT-enabled social impact projects built by students using tinkering and AI, with guidance from their teachers. The hosting organisations also released a compendium with 70 lesson plans to promote digital readiness.

The compendium is a collection of lesson plans created by the teachers and each one provides a comprehensive understanding of how AIoT integration can be used to enhance learning in a classroom. For example, one of the lesson plans for class 9, helps to guide the students to analyse the reason for back pain and develop an AI-led solution where an LED light glows every time it detects incorrect posture and green light glows once the correct posture is retained.

In another lesson plan for social science, a student is guided to first make use of the design thinking process to understand why plants die in winter. The student is given insight into using tinkering tools like sensors and Arduino UNO to record the moisture level of the soil and then supported to deploy a supervised AI model to predict the plant’s health by making use of the recorded data.

According to an industry expert, the new methodology will enable the shift in teaching pedagogies from traditional to digital with several additional benefits and increased efficiency. Integrating AI with lesson plans and making them part of everyday teaching-learning activities can help enable the students to imbibe the digital-first mindset.

One of the objectives of the project is to empower teachers with skillsets, mindsets, and toolsets to integrate AI and Tinkering. Through this methodology, students are expected to gain a thorough understanding of how emerging technologies can be used impactfully and responsibly.

To bolster the rate of digital literacy in the country, state governments have been urged to offer courses and initiatives in AI and other emerging technologies. Last year, the Indian Institute of Technology of Madras (IIT-Madras)’s Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC-DSAI) invited students to the national-level ‘Summer Internships 2022’ programme. The goal was to help students gain hands-on experience working on cutting-edge discoveries, with some of the country’s leading experts in data science and AI, as OpenGov Asia reported.

Last May, the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and the Indian Institute of Technology of Delhi (IIT- Delhi) jointly designed a curriculum for schools that include robotics, AI, machine learning, and data science. The curriculum was for grades 9 to 12 in schools affiliated with the CISCE board.

AI and ML to Better Understand Earth Systems

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The application of artificial intelligence (AI) can transform the ability to observe, comprehend, and anticipate processes in Earth’s systems. AI and ML computational capabilities can assist researchers and scientists in collecting, understanding, and analysing enormous amounts of data with a faster, more accurate, and more knowledgeable process for decision-making agility.

The researchers and scientists then collaborate to promote Earth and environmental science by using AI and modelling approaches such as machine learning (ML). They convened a workshop to determine particular priorities for addressing computational difficulties and attempted to nurture advancements in AI and ML, algorithms, data management, and other areas.

The workshop was designed by roughly 100 specialists based on 156 white papers given by 640 writers from 112 institutions worldwide. These principles’ consequences can help develop a technology infrastructure that is efficient, accurate, strategic, and convenient while also reaching across resources.

“Effective improvements in Earth system prediction necessitate significant advances across the ​Model-Experiment (ModEx) environment,” said Nicki Hickmon, Associate Director for operations for DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Office of Science at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory.

The workshop narrowed down 17 issues relevant to the integrated water cycle and extreme weather occurrences within that cycle during the session. Experts debated nine topics connected to Earth system forecasts, including hydrology, watershed research, coastal dynamics; the atmosphere, land, oceans, and ice; and climatic variability and extremes.

Researchers analysed issues in each session that indicate the need for revolutionising AI technology and infrastructure to manage complicated tasks in environmental science. Participants investigated the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover scientific discoveries using technologies such as neural networks, knowledge-informed machine learning, AI architectures, and co-design.

“We need new AI methodologies that integrate process understanding and respect physical laws. (It is) to make estimations of Earth system behaviour scalable, trustable, and relevant under future climate regimes,” Charu Varadharajan, a research scientist at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, directs the Earth AI & Data Programme Domain, added.

Through the workshop and report, the researchers and scientists created 2-, 5-, and 10-year targets for the integrated framework development for each focal topic. They also identified priorities for Earth science, computational science, and programmatic and cultural improvements that would support the mission of AI4ESP.

Experts prepared a comprehensive list of scenarios in which AI research and development could help address some of Earth science’s most critical concerns. These challenges include handling and analysing massive volumes of data to increase the ability to detect and predict extreme events and promote the incorporation of human behaviours into theory and models.

Forrest Hoffman, group leader for the Computational Earth Sciences group at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, suggested developing new hybrid models that integrate process-based and ML-based modules is one of the most intriguing prospects.

The modelling frameworks allow for the addition of data regarding poorly understood processes, which can increase accuracy and often result in enhanced computational performance for Earth system models, allowing for more simulations and analyses to be performed within given resource constraints. The workshop provided a cross-disciplinary and cross-mission opportunity for the scientific and application communities to collaborate toward understanding the required advancements.

Programmatic and cultural adjustments are also required to promote a more cohesive mission across diverse scientific and government agencies and a skilled workforce capable of successfully integrating technology into humanistic research and activities. The experts offered options such as AI research centres focused on environmental science, frameworks that enable shared services across multiple communities, and continuing training and support missions.

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