Centre for Internet and Society

Workshop on Python

Admin — 2018-04-10T14:59:29Z

A workshop on Python will be organized at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) Bangalore office on April 14, 2018.

The workshop will be conducted by Bharath Kumar, who works at AppSecCo, Bangalore. He is also volunteering with CIS on the Cyber Security project. Those of you who intend on attending the workshop, please fill up this short questionnaire by Thursday, as Bharath will be using the responses to finalise the content for the workshop. Fill the questionnaire here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-on-python

Call for Papers: #CultureForAll Conference

sneha-pp — 2020-12-23T13:34:23Z

We are collaborating with Sahapedia, Azim Premji University, and University of Cape Town to invite papers on cultural mapping for the #CultureForAll conference scheduled to be held in March 2021. Cultural mapping is a set of activities and processes for exploring, discovering, documenting, examining, analysing, interpreting, presenting, and sharing information related to people, communities, societies, places, and the material products and practices associated with those people and places. All interested academicians, researchers, PhD students, and practitioners are invited to submit papers. The conference is supported by Tata Technologies and MapMyIndia.

Cross-posted from Sahapedia.

Background

Sahapedia in collaboration with the Azim Premji University, The Centre for Internet and Society and the University of Cape Town is inviting papers in cultural mapping for the Culture For All conference scheduled to be held in March 2021.

Cultural mapping is a set of activities and processes for exploring, discovering, documenting, examining, analysing, interpreting, presenting, and sharing information related to people, communities, societies, places, and the material products and practices associated with those people and places. It was recognised by UNESCO more than a decade ago as a crucial tool in sustaining the tangible, intangible, and natural heritage of the world.

However, the exercise is either used inadequately or rarely highlighted in the Indian context thereby limiting accessibility to peer-reviewed work in this area. As part of the #CultureForAll festival and conference, an open call for research papers and action projects in cultural mapping is being made to consolidate knowledge created till date in India and regions with similar cultural history like Asia and Africa. Cultural mapping and documentation are intricate processes that attempt to solve complex questions of who, what, how, and for whom to map. We hope these papers will carve out a space to interrogate, discuss, and reflect upon the same.

Another central objective of reviewing work in this area is to develop a mapping toolkit/guide that can help make cultural documentation accessible to anyone interested. Without being prescriptive or lending itself to a homogenous practise, the toolkit/guide would be a way to bring together varied approaches, contexts, and innovations in the field. In a sector like culture where financial and non-financial resources are insubstantial, we believe this toolkit/guide will give organisations and individuals a clear roadmap for future mapping projects.

Themes

All interested academicians, researchers, PhD students, and practitioners are invited to submit their papers under any one of the following themes. All papers will be evaluated by a review committee and select papers in each theme will be awarded INR 10,000 and presented in the #CultureForAll conference. Papers will also get an opportunity to be published in respected peer-reviewed journals and Sahapedia's web platform.

Cultural Mapping—Theory & Practise: There is no fixed way to map cultural resources and the approach can be multi-fold. Efforts can also vary in terms of community involvement and collaborative processes. Papers submitted under this topic should explore and elucidate the theoretical and methodological frameworks used in mapping, with an emphasis on issues and challenges faced, the extent of community engagement, and the impact of such projects in policymaking and society, if any.

Technology for cultural mapping: Technology and digitisation have shifted approaches to culture and heritage and the recent pandemic has made it indispensable to the society at large. Papers are invited on issues related to techniques and technologies for preservation, management and dissemination of cultural heritage with a focus on innovation and social equity specifically for the Indian context.

Evaluating impact of cultural mapping applications: Cultural mapping provides rich cultural data by creating resource inventories that helps address varied issues like sustainability, intergenerational conflict, alienation of youth, and the role of women in society. It can create opportunities for communities to affirm identity and pursue land rights. Cultural mapping can be an informative classroom activity for children, and a valuable methodology for academic research. As a policymaking tool, it can be used to enhance and conserve heritage sites while promoting new tourism development approaches. Papers submitted under this topic should illustrate how cultural mapping has been used in areas like education, tourism, placemaking, conservation, and skilling, the issues and challenges faced, how impacts are measured, and the metrics associated with such measurement.

Important dates

Call for papers: November 16, 2020

Last date for submission: January 31, 2021

Announcement of final selection: February 26, 2021

Presentation of select papers: March 1 to March 15, 2021

If you have any questions, please contact us at conference[at]sahapedia[dot]org

Eligibility & Selection

All interested academicians, researchers, PhD students, and practitioners are invited to participate in the call for papers. Papers should be submitted in English and will be reviewed for their originality, relevance, and clarity. Works that have been published earlier or are found to be plagiarised will not be accepted. The submission should include a paper of not more than 3,500 words along with a presentation for the same. Please email submissions to conference[at]sahapedia[dot]org with the subject "Paper Submission: [Theme] [Applicant’s Full Name]". Please find formatting instructions for the paper here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-papers-culture-for-all-conference

Gender, Health, & Surveillance in India - A Panel Discussion

Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon — 2020-12-23T14:03:13Z

Women and LGBTHIAQ-identifying persons face intensive and varied forms of surveillance as they access reproductive health systems. Increasingly, these systems are also undergoing rapid digitisation. The panel was set-up to discuss the discursive, experiential and policy implications of these data-intensive developments on access to public health and welfare systems by women and LGBTHIAQ-identifying persons in India. The panelists presented studies undertaken as part of two projects at CIS, one of which is supported by Privacy International, UK, and the other by Big Data for Development network established by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Event note and agenda: Read (PDF)

Recording of the discussion: Watch (YouTube)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/gender-health-surveillance-in-india-panel-discussion

Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2017

praskrishna — 2017-05-16T05:51:45Z

The Centre for Internet & Society along with Prakat Solutions and Mitra Jyothi is co-hosting the Global Accessibility Awareness Day in Bengaluru on May 18, 2017.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is celebrated across the world on the 3rd Thursday in May every year to create an awareness in making technology accessible and usable by persons with disabilities. While people may be interested in the topic of making technology accessible and inclusive, the reality is that they often do not know how or where to start, Awareness comes first.

The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital (web, software, mobile, etc.) access/inclusion and people with different disabilities.

To mark this day, Prakat Solutions will be hosting an event filled with lightning talks, workshops and a lot of other activities. You can also view a series of short videos about why accessibility is important with contributions from some of the greatest minds in accessibility today.For us as a company, Global Accessibility Awareness Day is quite special. Other awareness days that we participate in focus on a specific group of people. Today, is not about a specific group of people, today is about each and every one of us.

Watch the Video on What is GAAD

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/events/global-accessibility-awareness-day-2017

Communication Design and Visualising Information

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T02:45:46Z

Saumyaa conducted a session on the broad principles of communication design and visualising information.

Saumyaa spoke about

Principles and methods of visual communication
Choosing visualisation formats for specific purposes
Aesthetics and clarity in visualisations

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/communication-design-and-visualising-information

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD 2013)

praskrishna — 2013-05-09T04:27:04Z

The Centre for Internet and Society is pleased to invite you to participate in the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Bangalore on May 9, 2013. The event begins at 4.00 p.m. and will end by 7.00 p.m.

The purpose of the day is to get people talking, thinking and learning about digital (web, software, mobile, etc.) accessibility and users with different disabilities. The target audience of GAAD is the design, development, usability, and related communities who build, shape, fund and influence technology and its use. While people may be interested in the topic of making technology accessible and usable by persons with disabilities, the reality is that they often do not know how or where to start. Awareness comes first.

This will be an opportunity for you to understand the importance of accessibility and how accessibility impacts several users and increase your customer base. This event will consist of presentations by Accessibility professionals in the industry, hands on demonstrations of how people with disabilities use technology and an opportunity to meet peers in the industry.

Agenda

16.00 16.20	Opening remarks by Nirmita Narasimhan, Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society
16.20 17.00	Accessibility - What, Why and How? by Vivek Gaikwad, Lead Accessibility Expert, Informatica
17.00 17.40	Test for Accessibility by Lavanya Lakshman, Yahoo!
17.40 18.00	Demonstrations of assistive technologies
18.00 18.20	Q & A with panelists
18.20 19.00	Wrap up, networking and refreshments

There will be panel discussions with the following speakers:

Vivek Gaikwad, Lead Accessibility Expert, Informatica
Lavanya Lakshman, Yahoo!
Rama Chari, Director, DEOC
Anasuya Das, Mitra Jyothi
Srividya Vaidyanathan - Multimedia

About the Speakers

Vivek Gaikwad	Vivek is an individual, passionate about accessibility, who digs out all the possible ways to make an application accessible to persons with disabilities. For past 7 years, he is consistently doing R&D on how to make applications, games, e-learning and mobile apps which are built in various technologies/platforms such as Flash, HTML, iOS and Android, PDF, etc., accessible. His emphasis is on providing feasible accessibility solutions by understanding the scenario and the compliance required. His various roles so far in his career such as a developer, tester, trainer and consultant apprehends in finding the exact fit solution for any accessibility related issue. This also helps in understanding and filling the gap between management and the delivery team for accessibility projects. He doesn't work only for compliance of any product, but tries to make it 100 per cent accessible for all the users. Vivek also loves trekking and getting involved in creative things.
Srividya Vaidyanathan	Srividya has a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from NIT Warangal and is currently working as a Consultant for the Centre for Internet & Society. She more than 13 years of experience in the software industry with TCS, Oracle etc with her latest stint being a co-founder of PixelMat Software a company that makes development of pure native mobile apps easier. A very hands-on mom who loves to play ball with her son in her free time.
Lavanya Lakshman	Lavanya has done BE in Electronics Engineering and MS in Networking from Symbiosis, Pune. She has close to 10 years of experience with over 5 and a half years with Yahoo alone. She is working as principal engineer on font end development and works mainly on platform products varying from user profile experience to application development network. She is currently working on Geo Platform for serving location based experience across Yahoo. She has submitted papers in various forums which includes: White paper titled “Strategic Choice of Test Automation Framework”. This was selected for plenary presentation at SteP-IN Summit 2009. White paper titled “A New Era of Accessibility Testing”. This was selected for publication at the USID Conference 2009. White paper titled “Accessibility: An Emerging field of Usability” for Step-IN Summit 2010.
Rama Chari	Rama Chari has about two decades of work experience in the field of disability. She started her career as an Educator for children with disabilities in the rural community based project of Action for Ability Development & inclusion (AADI) (Formerly, Spastics Society of Northern India (SSNI), She prepared children with disabilities for integrating them into regular schools in the villages of Haryana. She then joined National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), a leading national level advocacy organisation. At NCPEDP, she headed the Legislation, Networking and Communication Units. As part of the core management team of NCPEDP, she played an important role in bringing about several policy changes vis-à-vis disability in the country. In November 2005, she took up a consultancy with Infosys BPO, for setting up their Equal Opportunity Programme. In July 2007, she along with four other professionals set up DEOC. She is serving as an Honorary Board Member of ARUNIM, a marketing initiative for promoting products and services made by disability groups and NGOs. She is also part of the NCPEDP’s National Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disability, which focuses on advocacy for appropriate policies in the country. She is also a Core Group Member of the Disability Forum of Confederation of Indian Industry – Karnataka Chapter. She has travelled widely and has made several presentations on the subject, in national and international conferences / seminars.
Anusuya Das	Anusuya graduated in Computer Engineering from Mumbai University in 2004, and worked as a Software Engineer for 2½ years. Later, she changed her field and completed Masters Degree in Social Work from Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work, Mumbai University. During the 2 years, she gained valuable experience and insight while working for various causes such as Child labour, Disaster Management and Disability. Since 2010, she is working as Chief Coordinator at Mitra Jyothi, Bangalore. It is an NGO working towards the education, training and empowerment of the visually impaired. She is mainly handling the DAISY production unit, Braille Transcription Centre and Digital Talking Book Library at Mitra Jyothi, and is a certified trainer in DAISY content creation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/events/global-accessibility-awareness-day-2013

Or-bits.com — A Talk by Marialaura Ghidini

praskrishna — 2013-04-16T14:34:36Z

On Friday, April 19, 2013, at the Centre for Internet and Society, Marialaura Ghidini will give a talk about the creation and activities of or-bits.com, a web-based curatorial platform that she founded in 2009.

Or-bits.com is devoted to supporting and developing practices, critical dialogues and audience engagement around artistic production, display and distribution online. Through presenting online group exhibitions and critical writing on its blog, the development of offsite gallery projects, print publishing and workshops, or-bits.com aims to instigate an exploration of the phenomena related to the spread and simplification of web-based technology across disciplines. It aims to propagate a model of artistic work that uses and reflects on the web as a language and a medium of production, display and distribution of contemporary art, both online and offline.

Marialaura's talk will then open up to present some issues related to curatorial/artistic work online and its relationship with offline activities of production, display and distribution in order to trigger further discussion in the form of a Q&A session.

Marialaura Ghidni

Marialaura Ghidini is a curator, writer and researcher based in the UK. She is founder director of or-bits.com and an AHRC-funded PhD researcher with CRUMB at the University of Sunderland, where she explores the field of online curation with a specific interest in the theory and practice of artists and curators operating through web-based platforms and in-between online and offline dimensions.

She has been in India since January as an International Research Fellow at SARAI/CSDS in Delhi and now as a curatorial resident with T.A.J. Residency & SKE Projects in Bangalore.

Also see http://marialaura-ghidini.hotglue.me

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/a-talk-by-marialaura-ghidni

Roundtable on Enhancing Indian Cyber Security through Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation

Admin — 2018-02-01T14:04:36Z

A closed door round-table on enhancing Indian cyber security is being organized on 4 November 2017 at Indian Islamic Centre, Lodhi Road in New Delhi.

With the proliferation of digital technologies and the central role they play in national infrastructure and governance, security of systems and services is fundamental to the economic, political, and social development and success of a nation. Digital India, the National Payments Corporation of India, IndiaStack, and the Aadhaar ecosystem are just a few examples of such digital infrastructure. Yet the digital realm is increasingly becoming more complex and difficult to secure and monitor for vulnerabilities, threats, breaches, and attacks. The responsibility of identifying and monitoring such vulnerabilities can be spearheaded by designated governmental bodies like CERT-IN and NCIIPC, but for effective identification of threats and vulnerabilities, collaboration is needed across stakeholder groups including security researchers, industry, and government bodies. Transparency about breaches and attacks is also key in enabling consumer awareness and building trust with the public. Examples of such mechanisms include bug bounty programs and breach notification frameworks.

This closed door roundtable will seek to bring together government, industry, civil society, academia, and security researchers to identify different areas and tools of collaboration between stakeholders towards enhancing Indian cyber security. It will broadly focus on vulnerability identification and reporting and vulnerability/breach notification. This will include a reflection on:

Existing frameworks, forms of collaborations, policies and practices in India.
Practices, standards, certifications, and programmes adopted in other jurisdictions.
The way forward for India addressing issues like establishing trust, harmonization and communication across stakeholders and sectors, and ensuring quality and response.

RSVP: pranav@cis-india.org

Download the Invite

See the Report

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/roundtable-on-enhancing-indian-cyber-security-through-multi-stakeholder-cooperation

Open House on Security Practices in FinTech

Admin — 2017-11-12T10:18:09Z

CIS in collaboration with Has Geek is organizing an Open House on security practices in FinTech.

The prevalence of fintech companies operating in India is growing with new actors entering the sector and traditional actors such as banks beginning to offer digital financial services. The push to digital payments has been particularly strong after the demonetization policy, the development and implementation of Aadhaar and India Stack. Services offered by Fintech firms can range from offering a loan or credit to a digital wallet and digital banking and payment services.

Presently, there is a regulatory gap for many of the fintech services and business models. The Reserve Bank of India has published consultation papers on Peer-to-Peer lending platforms as well as Account Aggregators, but comprehensive regulations, especially those surrounding minimum security practices, have yet to emerge – presenting a critical policy and research window. Furthermore, under Section 43A of the IT Act and its associated Rules, ‘body corporates’ are required to implement reasonably security procedures compliant with ISO27001 or a sectoral standard approved by the Central Government. However, currently such a sectoral standard is absent for the FinTech and Digital Payments space.

The growing prevalence of these fintech technologies and the criticality of security of the same to engender citizen trust, protect rights, and comprehensive national security posture demands debate and discussion.

On November 17th, the HasGeek in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society will be holding an Open House from 6pm - 8pm to discuss security practices in the fintech industry.

Pressing questions for discussion include: How secure are these services? What security standards are they adhering to? Who is holding them accountable for adherence to security standards? What can individuals do if there financial data is compromised?

Please join us for a robust discussion on these issues @HasGeek House, 2699, 19th Main Rd, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar, 19th Main Rd, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560008 from 6PM - 8 PM on November 17th.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/open-house-on-security-practices-in-fintech

Cross Border Sharing of Data: Challenges and Solutions

Admin — 2017-11-20T15:20:18Z

Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) has been following the debates around MLAT process taking place globally and researching potential areas of tension in the tools that India uses to access data across borders. As part of this research, CIS is hosting a workshop on cross border sharing of data on December 8, 2017 at India Islamic Centre from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/cross-border-sharing-of-data-challenges-and-solutions

National Privacy Workshop

Admin — 2017-12-05T14:24:16Z

Centre for Internet & Society is organizing a round-table to discuss the potential impact of numerous policy developments with wide ranging implications for recognition and governance of privacy in India. The round-table will be held on December 9, 2017 at India International Centre in New Delhi, 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

Background

The recent past in India has seen numerous policy developments with wide ranging implications for recognition and governance of privacy in India. The emphatic and unanimous avowal of the right to privacy by the Supreme Court, the government’s stated commitment to a data protection law and the formation of the Sri Krishna Committee are developments which will continue to inform policymaking around privacy in India for a long time to come. The Supreme Court’s conception of a robust right to privacy encompassing different element - spatial, decisional and informational, and its guidance on strict limiting tests may have a wide impact on a range of issues. The impact of this judgment and a data protection law on informational privacy in India will be immense and it is important to delve in challenges and issues that it may throw up. In last year, we have also seen instances of purported conflict between the transparency instruments such as the right to information and the right to informational privacy. How these conflicts are resolved in law and practice will be key to these two essential human rights in the modern information society. Further, while these general consensus on privacy principles, the appropriate ways to govern and enforce privacy remains an open issue, and the success of any data protection framework will depend as much on what kind of privacy governance models are adopted.This roundtable will look to discuss the potential impact of these policy decisions, what theories should guide the data protection law in India, what models of privacy governance are workable and how privacy can co-exist with transparency principle and robust RTI regime.

Agenda

10.30 - 11.00	Tea
11.00 - 11.30	Welcome and setting the scene
11.30 - 12.30	Session 1: Policy Developments around Informational Privacy in India What do different policy developments indicate about privacy in India? What are the (potential) impacts of these developments? What questions are being asked and are these the right questions to ask? How do we expect the ‘state of privacy’ to change in India in response to these policy developments?
12.30 - 13.30	Session 2: Approaches to Privacy and Data Protection for India What are different approaches to privacy and government the Indian government can take? What cultural/political etc. aspects should be taken into consideration when thinking through this question? What are the pros and cons to different approaches? What are the pros and cons to the below approaches: - Privacy as control - Data as property - Utilitarian approaches - Technological Solutions
13.30 - 14.30	Lunch
14.30 - 15.30	Session 3: Transparency and Privacy How can transparency from the private sector enable the right to privacy? What are key principles that can guide this relationship? Where is transparency from the private sector most needed with respect to privacy? What are incentives that governments can adopt to encourage privacy?
15.30 - 16.30	Governance Models for Data Protection What kind of institutional framework is required for governance of privacy in India? How do we address questions of liability, penalties and enforcement? What role do sectoral players have in a data governance framework? What is best way for other stakeholders like industry, civil society and academia in collaborative governance of privacy?
16.30 - 17.00	Tea and snacks

Speakers

Usha Ramanathan
Rahul Sharma
Apar Gupta
Malavika Raghavan
Shankar Narayanan
Ujwala Uppaluri
Rebecca MacKinnon
Nikhil Pahwa
Kamlesh Bajaj
Manasa Venkatraman
Smitha K Prasad

Download the Agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/national-privacy-workshop-at-india-international-centre

Elements of a Decentralized Web

Admin — 2017-11-23T14:16:26Z

Gene Kogan will deliver a talk on the elements of a decentralized web at the Centre for Internet (CIS) office in Bengaluru on December 11, 5.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The internet is broken. Straying far from the original vision of democratizing access to knowledge, large tech companies now resemble the industrial barons of the 19th century, presiding over what many scholars regard as a public utility but nevertheless unregulated. As machine learning has entered the picture, the usual suspects like Facebook, Reddit, and Quora, have begun training sophisticated algorithms on personal data to route traffic in order to maximize attention, leading to a web which is more atomized, addictive, and anxiety-inducing.

In response to this, some have begun writing about, conceptualizing, and implementing the open-source protocols of what they consider the future web 3.0. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have expanded their focus to more generalized blockchains which enable trust in decentralized platforms, while initiatives like IPDB and IPFS ambitiously promise to make hosting, storage, database querying, and even computation itself possible inside of peer-to-peer networks. But all is not well in this techno-utopia -- as the speculative bubble around this "internet of money" grows, so too does interest from the very institutions these new initiatives seek to overcome. The landscape is beginning to look like Silicon Valley of the 1990s and the threat of a crash looms. It's up to us to determine which way this one will play out.

Gene Kogan

Gene Kogan is an artist and a programmer who is interested in generative systems, computer science, and software for creativity and self-expression. He is a collaborator within numerous open-source software projects, and gives workshops and lectures on topics at the intersection of code and art. Gene initiated ml4a, a free book about machine learning for artists, activists, and citizen scientists, and regularly publishes video lectures, writings, and tutorials to facilitate a greater public understanding of the subject.

Links:

genekogan.com

twitter.com/genekogan

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/elements-of-a-decentralized-web-talk-by-gene-kogan

Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence & Healthcare

Admin — 2018-01-02T13:49:14Z

Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is organizing a roundtable on artificial intelligence (AI) and healthcare at 'The Energy and Resources Institute' (TERI) in Bengaluru on November 30, 2017 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. The roundtable seeks to discuss the various issues and challenges surrounding the implementation of AI and related technologies in the Indian healthcare sector.

The Indian healthcare industry, powered by Artificial Intelligence, is moving into a new era of increased innovation and independence. With multiple new healthcare start-ups and large ICT companies such as Microsoft, IBM, and Google offering AI solutions to healthcare challenges in the country, it is evident that AI is attempting to enhance the accessibility, affordability, quality and awareness of healthcare in India. Major target areas sought to be enhanced by use of AI in healthcare include addressing the uneven ratio of skilled doctors to patients and making doctors more efficient at their jobs, delivery of personalized and high-quality healthcare to rural areas, and training doctors and nurses in complex procedures.

Through the application of machine learning, data mining, natural language processing (NLP), and advanced analytics, AI can help doctors in speedy diagnosis of diseases. AI is also mobilised as ‘smart advisors’ or virtual humans who are capable of making informed decisions by better comprehending data and information through sensing interfaces and analytics, in various forms.

Some of these forms include ‘customer service agents’ that can expedite simple tasks like appointment scheduling, or more complex decisions like selecting health plan benefits, ‘clinicians’ that can help with primary screening in understaffed rural areas possibly substituting for human labour, and ‘cognitive agents’ that can efficiently manage existing clinical knowledge alongside physicians, nurses and researchers, thereby reducing the cognitive load on humans. AI based Indian healthcare start-ups such as SigTuple, Aindra, Ten3T, Touchkin and many others are offering a range of solutions including automation of medical diagnosis, automated analysis of medical tests, detection and screening of diseases, wearable sensor based medical devices and monitoring equipment, patient management systems, predictive healthcare diagnosis and disease prevention.

However, AI in healthcare raises many potential concerns, a common one being the lack of comprehensive, representative, interoperable, and clean data - a challenge that is beginning to be addressed through the Electronic Health Records Standards developed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2016 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Other major challenges include patient adoption and the need for personal interaction with doctors, concerns over mass-scale job losses, distrust in technology, and ethical concerns.

It is imperative to note that implementing AI in healthcare, which is bound to disrupt it, does not imply replacing doctors but augmenting their efforts to create a more efficient healthcare landscape in the country. A harmonious collaboration of man and machine is expected to bring about a meaningful and long-lasting impact and stakeholders should be prepared to adapt to this change and the challenges that come with it.

Roundtable Agenda

Thursday, November 30, 2017, 2:00pm - 5:00pm

2:00 - 2:30: Introduction and setting the scene

2:30 - 3:30: Discussion on the AI landscape in health in India:

Manner and extent of integration of AI into products/services of healthcare companies.
Relevant stakeholders and their roles in implementing AI into products/services of healthcare companies.
Future of AI and related technologies in the healthcare sector

3:30 - 4:30: Discussion on challenges and solutions towards regulating AI in India:

Challenges faced in the conception and implementation of the AI product/service, and reasons for such challenges.
Regulatory provisions for implementation of AI in healthcare products/services under the existing laws, and need for reforms.
Challenges posed by AI to existing policy and regulatory frameworks in the Indian as well as the global context, and possible solutions.

Click to download the invite

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/roundtable-on-artificial-intelligence-and-healthcare

Geographical Indications in India Edit-a-thon

praskrishna — 2016-01-26T15:19:56Z

Between 25 January and 31 January 2016, CIS-A2K is organizing an edit-a-thon to celebrate India's republic day. The goal of this edit-a-thon is to create and improve Geographical Indications articles.

Expectations

We expect that if you participate in this edit-a-thon, you'll create or expand at least 3 articles. However you may work on as many as articles you want.

Rules

For an article to be considered as part of this Geographical Indications in India Edit-a-thon, it must adhere to the following rules

The new article must be created between 0:00 UTC on 25 January 2016 and 23:59 UTC on 31 January 2016.
Creation/Expansion rule: If you are creating a new article the new article must have a size of at least 3,500 bytes and a minimum length of roughly 300 words (the word count excludes templates, infoboxes, references, etc.), If you are expanding an existing article, you need to expand this article by at least 3000 bytes, (the word count excludes templates, infoboxes, references, etc.)
The articles should not copyvio content and should follow verifiability and other important policies of Wikipedia.
The articles should have decent references;
The article must not be purely machine translated.
There should not be any maintenance tags in the articles
The article must have a direct relation to Geographical Indications in India (see Proposed articles).

Participants

Please add your username below. If you can not find your community name, please add a section using level 3 header (eg. === Ukrainian Wikipedia ===). We also encourage you to start an event page on your Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/geographical-indications-in-india-edit-a-thon

Public Debate on 'Differential Pricing': Series 1

vidushi — 2016-01-27T13:51:06Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, in association with ICRIER and the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, is pleased to announce “A Series of Public Debates on Differential Pricing” in the cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. The first public debate will be held at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bangalore on February 1, 2016.

In light of the recent consultation paper released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the objective of these debates will be to deconstruct the issue of differential pricing through a discussion on the variety of views this subject has attracted. Speakers will also discuss possible implications of differential pricing policy on questions of access, diversity, competition and entrepreneurship.

Each debate will comprise three rounds. In the first round, speakers will present the body of their arguments over 10 minutes each. The second round will be a rebuttal round, with each speaker being given 5 minutes. The third and final round will see the floor being opened to the audience who will engage the speakers with comments and questions.

Download the Invite

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/a-series-of-public-debates-on-differential-pricing-series-1