IIIT Hyderabad to host conference on emerging tech to benefit rural areas

The International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) is hosting a conference on February 23 to promote the understanding and impact of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning with an aim to assist rural education, healthcare and entities at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP).

The first edition of the annual conference on technology and society will bring together social scientists, NGOs, technologists, research groups, innovators, policymakers, impact funders and CSR organisations to catalyse tech-related change.

It will include a plenary discussion on how artificial intelligence can enable social outcomes and another discussion on how healthcare can be taken to rural doorsteps.

The conference will also include a series of closed-door roundtable discussions among changemakers where they will deliberate the use of CSR to bring about social change and tech-led impact. It will also include a showcase highlighting the successes of start-ups and grassroots organisations that have used tech for social impact.

The panel of plenary speakers will include Raj Reddy, chairman of IIITH governing council, P.J Narayanan, director of IIITH, Srinath Reddy of the Public Health Foundation of India and Vivek Raghavan of EkStep Foundation.

Other speakers may include Ganesh Natarajan from 5F world, Ramji Raghavan of Agastya Foundation, Amir Ullah Khan from the research team of Centre for Development Policy and Practice, and Manoj Gopalakrishnan from Care India.

The conference coincides with the formal inauguration of IIITH's Raj Reddy Center for Technology and Society (RCTS) to pay tribute to Prof Raj Reddy's passion for research that supports the BoP. RCTS has lined up several projects with a few leading NGOs. For more information on RCTS, visit: https://rcts.iiit.ac.in/.