Hyderabad: The Telangana government, as part of its ‘Year of AI’ initiative, launched two new projects which use artificial intelligence (AI). Both projects are part of the state government’s efforts to make government services more efficient with emerging technologies such as AI and blockchain.
The first project was a “crowd estimation and management” application. The application, developed by Awiros, uses video feeds from CCTv cameras in a location to estimate, using AI, the number of people there are and ways they could be controlled without problems. The application was launched by IT minister K.T. Rama Rao via facial recognition.
The application is set to be used by the state police. Rajesh Kumar, DIG Intelligence, speaking at the launch said, “Crowd management is a very important area of concern. It can be a problem anywhere — in a temple, a political meeting or at celebrations of festivals. Through this application, we hope to reduce the risk of stampedes.”
Awiros is a Gurgaon-based start-up, whose Hyderabad unit is being incubated in T-Hub. Vikram Gupta, founder and CEO of Awiros, said, “We tested this application recently at the Uppal stadium during the India-West Indies match on December 6. Using the existing CCTv network, we were able to predict the attendance to a 90 per cent degree of accuracy. We were able to develop this application within a few months. It is still in developing stages but we are very excited about it.”
Addressing ethical concerns, Mr Gupta said the application was being designed in a way that only pre-determined, select officials have access to it. “The authentication is being done using facial recognition,” he said.
The second project was Medha, an AI-powered chatbot that has been deployed on the website of the state government’s Stamps and Registration department. The Medha chatbot will answer public queries with regard to various services offered by the department.
Officials from the department said the chatbot has been made live on the website. Still in its initial stages of deployment, the chatbot can only answer queries right now. Soon, an official at the event said, it would be integrated with a payment gateway system.
“Medha will use AI and machine learning to interact with citizens. Soon, they will be able to pay make payments without any human intervention,” he said.
