Electronics and IT Minister reports Govt has Rs 100 cr budget for chip design programmes, praises AI projects for Youth

Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that semiconductor design is a highly knowledge-intensive field and needs exceptionally skilled manpower and tools.

He said India has a huge talent pool for semiconductor design and a high number of design patents and intellectual property rights (IPR) are produced in the country by design engineers.

“The total budget allocation for chip design related activities / programmes in the current financial year are Rs 100 crore,” Vaishnaw said.

He said that the government is focused on broadening and deepening the Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector with semiconductor design as one of the focus areas.

Currently, semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities for strategic requirements are available at SemiConductor Laboratory (SCL), Mohali; Gallium Arsenide Enabling Technology Centre (GAETEC), Hyderabad and Society for Integrated Circuit Technology and Applied Research (SITAR), Bengaluru, the minister said.

To push development of semiconductors, the government has approved ‘Establishment of Gallium Nitride (GaN) Ecosystem Enabling Centre and Incubator for High Power and High Frequency Electronics’.

The project is being implemented by Society for Innovation and Development (SID) under the auspices of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) at Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), Bengaluru at the total project cost of Rs 298.66 crore.

Felicitating AI projects towards govt schools program

Ashwini Vaishnaw, who is also Minister for Railways and Communications felicitated 20 projects offering solutions to various social and economic problems using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Responsible AI for Youth, a National program for Government Schools .

He also awarded start-ups under the BHUMI (BSF High-tech Undertaking for Maximizing Innovation) Challenge which successfully identified impactful solutions to address various problems faced by the BSF.

The award distribution ceremony to felicitate the most innovative projects under the ‘National Program for Government Schools: Responsible Al for Youth’ and start-ups of the BHUMI challenge was also graced by Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY; Rakesh Asthana, Delhi Police Commissioner; Nivruti Rai, Country Head Intel India and Vice President, Intel Foundry Services; Abhishek Singh President and CEO, NeGD, and MyGov; and Bhuvnesh Kumar, Joint Secretary, MeitY.

The program was organized in three phases. In the first phase, the program reached out to students from government schools across 35 states and 5,724 cities and towns. Out of the 52,000+ registered students, 11,466 students completed the AI training.

In phase two, top 100 ideas were shortlisted. These 100 ideas were represented by 125 students from 25 states and UTs comprising 67 girls and 58 boys from state-run government schools, central government KendriyaVidyalayas, government aided schools, and Navodaya Vidyalayas.

The students learned basic AI concepts, domains, introduction to programming languages, data structures and project pitching in batches conducted both in Hindi and English. In addition, students who completed their first level of training were awarded a certificate, a message from the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Hon’ble Minister, Electronics and IT, and were also enabled to continue their AI journey with content and access to the internet.

In phase three, 60 shortlisted ideas were invited for a virtual showcase and evaluation, and top 20 projects represented by 27 students were shortlisted as the winners.

The shortlisted projects are: The AI Waste Classifier, Ayurtech Band, AI Idea in Healthcare to diagnose patients, App of Growth for farmers to identify crops that can be best harvested at a given time, Divyang Roshni a computer vision based Cerebral Palsy detector,Virtual Assistance cum Parental Guidance, Tree Thinning Scanner, ‘Mitti ko jaano, fasal pehchano’ Soil analysis and crop recommendation technology, Artificial Intelligence is a Boon for Healthcare, Helper of visually challenged, Be attentive or Drowsiness detection in students, AthleteX for the Atmanirbhar Athlete, Smart Eye, Body Tracker, App for hearing-impaired, Weed and Crop Detection System, Life Saver and Doctors Helper.