Transforming data from static folders into active bites of insights

We live in an era where data is pervasive, ubiquitous and growing at an unfathomable rate. In 2020, humans were producing 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day and by 2022, the world was expected to produce and consume 94 zettabytes. Within this deluge, businesses seek to convert data into meaningful information that can facilitate informed business decisions.

Today’s enterprise leaders are investing time and resources in technologies that allow for the search of data from multiple sources to increase productivity, reduce cyber-security risks and save money. To explore how they can leverage data to gain faster insights, detect anomalies in infrastructure and protect mission-critical systems, CNBC TV18 and Elastic hosted ‘Lead with Data, solve with Search’. This special event highlighted how government organisations use data to accelerate outcomes that are important to citizens, in terms of delivering efficient services and ushering in democratization of access to information.   

While delivering the welcome address, Ashutosh Kulkarni, Elastic’s CEO, explained how the company provided a suite of solutions that help businesses overcome problems with unstructured and semi-structured data. “Being able to correlate and analyze data, to get value quickly, in real time, is the difference between success and serious issues for a business,” he said, adding, “We have a large community of Elasticsearch users in India and continue to expand our presence here. We have grown very rapidly, both in terms of technical employees based out of Bengaluru and other parts of India, as well as teams that work with customers to help their security, observability and data insight initiatives are successful.”

As technology has been a great enabler for governance and service delivery to citizens and businesses in India, the sessions that followed showcased experts narrating how India is leveraging its data to materialize pioneering achievements.

The maiden session for the evening, themed ‘Driving the Success of Digital India and e-governance with Data’, put a spotlight on how this decade is going to enhance India’s capabilities in digital technology, which in turn can bridge the distance between the government and citizens and ensure better delivery of services to them. In a fireside chat, Paromita Chatterjee, the moderator for the interactions of the evening, initiated an engaging discussion with Abhishek Singh (IAS), MD & CEO, Digital India Corporation, Additional Charge, President & CEO, NeGD & CEO, MyGov, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.

Abishek elaborated on how the Digital India mission seeks to leverage technology to bridge the gap between the government and citizens, to ensure that the needs of the latter are better met. With initiatives like Aadhaar and the digital payments system, India has not just paved the way for economic empowerment of its citizens, it has also become the envy of the world, with other mammoth digital initiatives, like the vaccination drive.
Some of the challenges that continue to persist, in his view, are how to ensure more rapid and effective digital inclusion, ensure voice enablement of e-services and their availability in a broader bouquet of Indian languages, etc.

Offering numerous examples from healthcare, agriculture, education, etc., Abhishek Singh explained how data facilitates better relations between the government and citizens and acs as a crucial tool in decision-making. It can become an input for predictive analysis and sharing of data can become the basis of proactive action.

Essentially, the government has been leveraging the services of private sector tech providers to achieve a host of benefits. “We work very closely with the private sector, with complete trust. Our partnerships with academic institutions have also been strengthened, with the advent of emerging technologies,” he shared, going on to express how the government leverages the research that goes on in academics and the start-up ecosystem and provides them with an enabling environment with regard to data sharing frameworks and data, to plug citizen-centric gaps.

Next up was a panel discussion on “The Future of Unstructured Data – Breaking Down Data Silos in the Cloud”. To discuss the advances and challenges in various domains that are leveraging data, Ashutosh Kulkarni was joined by Golok Kumar Simli, Principal Advisor & CTO, Passport Seva Programme, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India; Pawan Kumar, CGM and HOD, Digital Education Services, Edcil; Balasubramaniam Gauthaman, Director of Business Development & Government Affairs, India Urban Data Exchange (IUDX) and Amit Sharma, Director and Advisor (Cyber), Ministry of Defence, Government of India.

They recounted how data and informization is becoming a primality, not just from the point of view of functionality but as a game changer in various domains, from defence to creation of citizen digital footprints and smart city facilities to digital education facilitation. They pointed out some key drivers of data, including the demand for data and optimal levels of democratization, in terms of making it accessible to everyone without compromising on safety. On the supply side, factors that drive data are how responsive, reactive and innovative users of data are. . The panel also touched on the need to define the right kind of data models and APIs for an effective exchange of data, better targeting and building in scalability.

As consumerization gains ground globally, it has led to an increase in citizen expectations. Ashutosh remarked, “India has done amazing things with data in the citizen services domain, which other countries are only dreaming of doing. As a data fabric, Elastic is focused on helping the public sector ensure citizens get the most out of their data.”
He concluded that for public and private businesses to deliver services that are exceptional,they must have the platforms to keep their mission-critical, customer-engaging applications running smoothly–at scale–while providing the decision-makers with the critical insights needed to make smarter, more impactful decisions.

The pages slugged ‘Brand Connect’ are equivalent to advertisements and are not written and produced by Forbes India journalists.