Data should benefit common man: Nandan Nilekani

Bengaluru: "India is transforming from a data-poor country to a data-rich country very quickly with development in a lot of systems," said Nandan Nilekani, well known entrepreneur and bureaucrat, citing GST as the latest addition with 1 billion invoices coming in.

"The government is being required to proactively disclose data about their performance under the Right to Information Act is an example of how the combination of law and technology offers transparency as data is published," he said.

Speaking on the challenges faced by data scientists at the moment, D.J. Patil, former US Chief Data Scientist, asserted, "Opening up data in the absence of a technology model to get feedback from the user perspective is challenging at the moment. A developer community to think on how to take the data forward is essential."

Nilekani, who is also the former Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India, focused on the need for a public policy to ensure data reaches the common man. "Instead of data being monopolised by the government and certain companies, it should be made available to the people themselves to help them advance their lives - to get better education, loan and related facilities," he said.  "Optimise the curiosity to learn new and more facts and start playing with social media data and local data," asserted Patil, as an advice to upcoming data analysts and scientists. "Getting a tangible feel of the data one handles is essential as it adds to the probability to implement a finding at a local level itself which can be later used at a different level," he said.

"Technology is neither radical nor revolutionary until it benefits every single person and so are the policies framed," summed up the experts.  The In-Conversation session held at Good Shepherd Auditorium witnessed the experts discussing on "How Data Analytics and Automation will transform India," in the presence of hundreds who signed up for the free public event.