Intel Building Digital Readiness Program Minister Speech

The state of Karnataka has always been at the forefront of new developments in the field of
information technology. It is no small achievement for Bangalore, our capital to be regarded
as the Silicon Valley of India and to be the top exporter of information technology in the
entire country. Many of the world’s biggest tech companies are headquartered in Bangalore.
Our people embrace innovation. We know that change is not to be feared, it is an
opportunity to prove yourself and emerge victorious. Therefore, it is no surprise to me that a
technology giant such as Intel chose the state of Karnataka to pilot its Artificial Intelligence
(AI) for Schools project in government schools. This five-month long project has sought to
use a fresh approach to bridging the digital divide for students who come from
underprivileged sections of society by teaching them about technology, specifically about
artificial intelligence and coding through games and other interesting applications that can be
easily downloaded on smartphones. This project was made possible by the hard work of so
many people. Thanks must be given to those hidden government officials who work behind
the scenes and encourage and support such projects. The country needs more people like
you. Thanks must also be given to Yuva Chintana Foundation and Workbench Projects
Innovation Foundation for working closely with Intel and offering their expertise in the form of
resource people, facilitators, master trainers and experts in computer languages such as
Python. It gives me so much pride to think that we have so much talent in our state, from
teachers and trainers to domain experts, to enable such a path-breaking project to reach
completion.
I eagerly look forward to watching these student presentations, for which we have gathered
here today. I understand that these student presentations offer concrete AI solutions for
some of the problems that we face as a society. These presentations are a small snapshot
of what our younger generations are thinking about and what our future world could look like.
It is amazing that Intel has found a way to give these students a voice. Not only have they
given them an opportunity to share their opinions, they have also given them the skills with
which to frame their concerns, use research to arrive at conclusions, build an argument for
the problem they have identified backed up by data and organise all their findings to make a
compelling pitch for the solutions they have arrived at. These higher order thinking skills, as
they are called, are very valuable in today’s day and age. These are skills that are going to
be extremely useful to these students as they enter the workforce. These are also skills that
are going to be extremely useful to us as a nation as we go forth into a future completely
dependent on technology. We want our students to be leaders and innovators in whatever
field they choose for themselves. In order to do this, we need to teach them how to think like
scientists about the problems that they see around them. This wonderful project is the first
step in this direction and I am so proud that this first step was made in the state of
Karnataka. I hope we continue to be pioneers in this regard in the years to come. I hope
Intel, YCF and WPIF continue to work with us on projects such as this one. I am sure I speak
for everyone when I say that you have the support of the government of Karnataka with you.

Implementing Partners