MyGov to focus on having more state chapters, campus ambassadors: CEO

Government's citizen engagement platform MyGov to crowdsource ideas on governance will now foray deeper into states, districts and campuses to seek direct feedback on policy issues.

"The closer we go to the citizens, the better it gets. We want to go to every district and panchayat as wider consensus is obtained on every issue," said Abhishek Singh, chief executive officer of MyGov and National e-Governance Division (NeGD). "This is where our regional language push comes in. We plan to expand our offline reach through town halls, events to ensure policy consultations for rural drinking water supply or higher education will get inputs directly on Whatsapp or any other social platform," he said. 

The platform assumed significance during the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic after it joined hands with Whatsapp to create artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbots to answer queries regarding Covid-19 in March. "The platform has answered queries of 80 million citizens while our Telegram channel has 2.7 million followers in six months," he added. It app was conceptualised to create awareness among the citizens about the preventive measures that could save them from falling prey to the highly contagious virus.

The platform, launched in July 2014, has 13 million users who contribute their ideas through discussions. Around 94 suggestions received for Union Budget 2020-21 made it to the file, while the new education policy (NEP) received 1.5 million suggestions till date.

 

MyGov is one of the partners that worked along with National Informatics Centre to develop the Aarogya Setu— India's official contact tracing app aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19 virus. The app's recently launched open application payment interface (API) feature will help businesses to check the status of the customer remotely with their consent, he added. "Businesses like cinema halls, airports and theme parks can check the status in real-time and this can assure all the people are safe till the last minute of availing services," he said. 

Singh also refuted claims of Aarogya Setu app having weak anonymisation and the released open source code being different from the one used on the app, adding that a lot of foreign governments were reaching out to create a similar version of the application for themselves.

Singh is also one of the architects behind Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE) 2020— India's first artificial intelligence summit that will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week. "AI will lead to a big leap in terms of technology, just like the internet changed things in the last decade. It's being dubbed as the fourth industrial revolution," he added. 

The country is estimated to clock $400-500 billion worth AI capabilities by 2024, or 4 per cent of GDP will be contributed through the AI-enabled internet of things (IoT), chip design and software.