NASSCOM CoE on adoption of AI, IoT to address industry challenges

The NASSCOM Centre of Excellence (CoE) hosted the third edition of Fusion 4.0, that brought together industry leaders, entrepreneurs, startups, and policymakers to discuss collaborative development to drive innovation, strategies for adoption, and integration of Industry 4.0.

“NASSCOM CoE is focusing on building an ecosystem where manufacturers, startups, and researchers can co-create solutions using AI and IoT-based digital technologies. We now have four labs across the country and are working with more than 1,500 startups to nurture innovation and find solutions to the challenges faced by the industry by leveraging the startup ecosystem,” said Sanjeev Malhotra, CEO, NASSCOM CoE, in his opening remarks.

Industry 4.0 offers a myriad of benefits, and NASSCOM CoE, with the support of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Government of Gujarat has been pushing for its greater adoption by manufacturing enterprises, especially by MSMEs.

“Industry 4.0 is a must to compete globally, and collaborative development is the way forward to drive innovation. We don’t have an option but to look for collaborative approaches. Co-creation is a win-win strategy for manufacturing enterprises and solution providers as it can bring greater agility. Startups are a critical element of this approach and need to be leveraged extensively for Proof of Concepts that can validate new ideas and reduce upfront investments,” said Amit Saluja - Senior Director and Head, NASSCOM CoE, Gandhinagar.

The chief guest at Fusion 4.0 was Shri Hareet Shukla, Secretary, Science & Technology Department, Government of Gujarat, who spoke on the Covid-19 pandemic accelerating technology adoption.

“The pandemic has pushed us to change our approach. In every field, there has been a quantum jump in the adoption of technology. Being a manufacturing hub, Gujarat has witnessed a sea change in how factories operate. The challenges presented by the pandemic are being solved by new-age technologies like IoT and AI. We have an evolving environment where companies are partnering with technology companies to find solutions, improve efficiency and co-create,” he said.

Delivering the keynote address on the “Roadmap to Advance Digital Technologies in Manufacturing”, Jayanta Banerjee, Group CIO, Tata Steel, said manufacturing as a whole has a great scope for adoption of digital technologies under Industry 4.0. He also identified Mindset, Reference Architecture, Data Framework, Integration, Adoption, Benchmarking, and Returns as the seven dimensions of the transformational roadmap.

The winners of the third edition of Manufacturing Innovation Challenge (MIC), which saw deep-tech startups competing to find a solution for four very complex use cases from Tata Steel, Titan, Mondelez, and NBC Bearings, were also announced at Fusion 4.0. The winners were Stability Robotics, SiSoC Semiconductor Technologies, BnG Spray Solutions, ATAI LABS

A panel discussion on “Paradigm Shift for Manufacturers Through Industry 4.0” saw senior executives from an array of industries discuss the challenges and apprehensions in embracing Industry 4.0.

A second-panel discussion on “Co-creation - Evolving business model for Digitalization” saw the panelists discussing the challenges faced by manufacturing industries, areas that need to be prioritized for digitization, and how the startup ecosystem can be leveraged for co-creation.