Hosts of entrepreneurs, technologists, policymakers, academicians, and industry executives come together to discuss how Odia community can collaborate among themselves and the government to tap the AI/ML opportunity for Odisha and Odias.

The second edition of the annual Global Odias in ML Conference, aimed at promoting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for the development of Odisha and advancement of Odia language in the digital era, ended in a high note, as the speakers and participants vowed to make it happen by greater collaboration amongst the community.

The virtual conference on 9th October 2021, organized by a group of Odia professionals, also called Odias in ML, with a shared interest in AI and ML, was attended by more than 200 participants on Zoom and was seen on social media by many more.

Joining as the keynote speaker, Dr Amar Patnaik, Rajya Sabha MP, and a member of multiple technology related parliamentary committees, apprised the delegates on what is happening in the policy front. He identified four areas – easier data access, government funding, capacity building, and ensuring security – that will help accelerate AI/ML rollout. Acknowledging that like Internet, AI/ML cuts across sectors, he said one of the biggest use case would be evidence-based policy making.

‘The future of problem solving for human needs lies in how well we use AI/ML,” he said, while complimenting the community for the efforts and initiatives.

In a discussion themed Building the Ecosystem for AI/ML, Manoj Mishra, IT Secretary Odisha, outlined how Odisha government has been using data-based decision making. Dr AK Mohapatra, Vice Chancellor of Shiksha O Anusandhan University, outlined the challenges of using technology in the higher education and health sectors, while acknowledging the role AI/ML can play. Debabrata Nayak, Director at NeGD (Digital India) spoke on the new digital initiatives and getting them executed in the government ecosystem. Dr Suprava Patnaik, Dean, School of Electronics Engineering, spoke on making students think computationally for ML. The session was moderated by Shyamanuja Das, co-founder of Odias in ML. 

In a highly interactive discussion on fostering entrepreneurship in AI/ML among Odias, entrepreneurs and influencers of entrepreneurship ecosystem from across the world shared their experience, learning, and advices for the young aspiring entrepreneurs. Prasanta Behera, serial entrepreneur, joining from Silicon Valley, California shared some advices on how to build an AI company and advised the future entrepreneurs to build companies that solve real problems, rather than pure AI technology companies. Priyanka Pani, joining from Mumbai, shared data on actual investments in AI space. Dr Aviseka Acharya, a post doctorate scholar, joining from Munich, shared his experience on building an AI-based healthcare product for rural Odisha. Dr Manisha Acharya, CEO- Center for Innovation and Incubation, Utkal University,, Bhubaneswar, outlined the start-up opportunities in Odisha. Chandrahas Panigrahi, Founder and CEO, Edukemy, joining from Noida, shared his experiences and learnings from building an education platform. Sambit Prasad Kar, founder of KKN from Bhubaneswar, spoke on building an IoT company, while Sakyasingh Mohapatra, founder of SakRobotix Lab, also joined from Bhubaneswar, to speak on his experience in building a robotics company. Delhi-based entrepreneur Manoj Kumar Nayak spoke on buildig a management consulting organization. Sam Biswal, founder and CEO of Scalable Systsms, based in New Jersey, shared his experience with building and running an on-shore-off-shore model from Odisha. Akash Roshan Mund from Srujanee, joined from Arizona to talk about building a local linguistic product for Odisha. The discussion was co-moderated by Santosh Panda, founder of Explara and Foundership and convener of the conference and co-founder of Odias in ML, Anjan Kumar Panda.

In the third and concluding session, Skill to Scale, Prof Prasant Mohapatra, Vice Chencellor Research at University of California delivered a keynote on harvesting federated intelligence in machine learning. Dr Sanghamitra Pati, Director of RCMC Bhubaneswar, part of Indian Council of Medical Research spoke on highly topical subject, AI/ML skill requirements for Odisha in healthcare. Today’s  hot technology topic, quantum computing and how it would impact AI was presented by Sudeept Maharana, who joined in from Bengaluru. Manoj Patra of Google joined from California to talk about using AI/ML to enhance cyber presence of Odia language. Debu Panda, an executive from Amazon Web Services in California, spoke on managing an AI product in a big tech. The security aspect was touched upon by Swati Satpathy, a security specialist in Amazon, joining from Houston. Sunil Sabat, a principal program manager at Microsoft, elaborated on how startups can use Microsoft platforms to build AI products on Azure Data products. Valliappa Lakshmanan, Director of Data Analytics and AI Solutions, Google Cloud, spoke on   ML Design Patterns – Building ML products from SQL, joining from Seattle. Vivek Pani, CTO and Co-founder of Reverie Language Technologies in Bengaluru spoke on laying the right kind of highways for data, while the concluding presentation on tapping the market, was touched upon by Ambika Sukla, founder and CEO of NLMatics and former AI Head at Morgan Stanley, joining from New York. The sessions were co-moderated by Pragyasmita Nayak, Chief Data Scientist Hitachi Vantara Federal, from Washington, D.C and Kirti Sundar Sahu from University of  Waterloo, Canada.

A heart-warming introduction to AI was provided in Odia by six-year old Sai Divyangi.

In the beginning, welcome note was delivered by convenor Anjan Kumar Panda from Silicon Valley, California. Co-convenor Abhijeet Parida from Munich, outlined the call to action before the formal discussions began, who also managed the entire event with Pradeepta Mishra from Bengaluru. Damodar Sahu, another co-founder of Odias in ML, helped in planning and executing the program.

With demand from the participants, a group has been created to facilitate smoother and continuous communication among the community.