Ashwini Vaishnaw, Anil Kapoor are among Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in AI
New York, Sep 6: Union Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and actor Anil Kapoor are among Indians who have been honoured in Time magazine's prestigious list of the 100 "Most Influential People in AI 2024".
The list, released on Thursday, features 15 Indian or Indian-origin people. Among them are Sundar Pichai of Google, and Satya Nadella of Microsoft.
Writing about 54-year-old Vaishnaw, the magazine said under his leadership, India hopes to become one of the top five countries for semiconductor manufacturing-a key component for modern AI systems within the next five years.
"Yet, Vaishnaw faces significant challenges in realising these ambitions. India's tech sector struggles with low private R&D investment and a lack of advanced manufacturing ecosystems. Its educational system is also catching up to produce the specialised workforce needed for cutting-edge AI and semiconductor development," it said.
India- the world’s fifth largest economy- is trying to become a major player in the world of AI, it said.
Kapoor, 67, has been included in Time’s AI list after a landmark victory in September 2023 over unauthorised AI use of his likeness.
The actor took up the case after a large number of distorted videos, gifs, and emojis bearing his likeness began circulating online.
Nilekani, 69, is Co-founder of Infosys and co-founder & chairman of EkStep.
"Nilekani, the billionaire co-founder of Infosys, has spent fifteen years in and out of government developing digital public infrastructure for the world’s most populous country, earning him nicknames like 'India's Bill Gates'," the magazine wrote about the entrepreneur.
"Nilekani led India’s Aadhaar programme, the world’s largest biometric identity card programme. He promoted the programme as a salve to welfare fraud, alongside a means to help improve tax collection, and ease bank customer verification, among other benefits," the magazine added.
“If the world of AI was dominated by the emergence of startup labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and their competitors in 2023, this year, as critics and champions alike have noted, we’ve seen the outsize influence of a small number of tech giants...," TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs said.
The 2024 TIME100 AI list features 40 CEOs, founders and co-founders, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Pichai of Google, Nadella of Microsoft and Aravind Srinivas of Perplexity among others.
Amba Kak, Co-executive Director, of AI Now Institute, Arati Prabhakar, Director, of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy and Divya Siddarth, Co-founders, of Collective Intelligence Project, were among the women leaders featured in the list.
Other Indians or Indian-origin leaders in AI in the list include Rohit Prasad SVP and head scientist of Artificial General Intelligence, Amazon, Shiv Rao Co-founder and CEO, Abridge, Anant Vijay Singh Product Lead at Proton, Dwarkesh Patel Host, Dwarkesh Podcast, Amandeep Singh Gill, United Nations Secretary-General's Envoy on Technology, and Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures.
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BESCOM to organise EV expo for Secretariat employees in Jan 2025
Bengaluru (PTI): To encourage the adoption of electric vehicles (EV), Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) announced on Friday that a special EV fair will be organised for the Secretariat employees in January 2025.
During a meeting at the BESCOM office, Managing Director Mahantesh Bilagi said, "The fair is being organised following a directive of Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh and will be conducted under the supervision of Energy Minister K J George and Additional Chief Secretary of the Energy Department Gaurav Gupta."
According to him, the event aims to educate attendees about the benefits of environmentally friendly EVs and to encourage the adoption of two-wheeled EVs.
"During the fair, dealer discounts to government employees, particularly those in the Secretariat will also be offered. There will also be opportunities for practical demonstrations of the vehicles at the exhibition site," added Bilagi.
He said the Secretariat employees will also benefit from no down payment and low-interest loans to purchase the EV vehicles.
"EV companies are eager to participate and the sales will extend beyond the exhibition, continuing in the future," the Managing Director said.
The state, particularly Bengaluru, has the highest electric vehicle (EV) users, said Bilagi, adding that to support this, the Energy Department has provided essential infrastructure.
"BESCOM's efforts in promoting EV usage have been recognised with the 'Charge India 2024 Excellence' award. This award is a testament to our commitment to establishing excellent charging facilities. Karnataka has the country's most public electric vehicle charging stations, with a total of 5,765 stations, of which 4,462 are located in the Bengaluru Urban district," said Bilagi.
The Secretariat Employees' Association president Ramesh Sanga and other office-bearers, BESCOM Technical Director H J Ramesh as well as senior officials attended the meeting.
