Episodes

  • Episode 08 - Innovating Responsibly
    Jun 23 2022

    The world of AI is replete with innovation. But perhaps it is time to talk about that innovation. How can we innovate and be responsible at the same time? How can industry leaders in AI empower others through their innovations? How can we employ AI for public good and welfare?

    Credits:

    Narration: Harsha Bhogle
    Executive Producer: Gaurav Vaz
    Producer: Archana Nathan
    Research, Interviews and Script: Vinay Aravind
    Narrative overview: Charu Sharma and Shriram Parthasarathy
    Title track, sound design and background score: Nikhil Rao, Avyay Gujral and Abhijit Nath.

    All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators

    We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode

    • Jean Philippe Courtois - Executive Vice President and President, National Transformation Partnerships at Microsoft
    • Sriram Rajamani - Distinguished Scientist and Managing Director at Microsoft Research India
    • Girish Nayak - Chief, Customer Service, Operations and Technology at ICICI Lombard
    • Ganesh Shankar -  Founder and CEO, FluxGen

    Links to clips used in the episode and citations:

    1. History of the Electric Power Industry - History of the Electric Power Industry (archive.org)
    2. History of the World Wide Web - History of the Web – World Wide Web Foundation
    3. Share of IT in India’s GDP - India: IT-BPM industry share in GDP 2021 | Statista
    4. Microsoft’s Responsible AI Principles - Our approach to responsible AI at Microsoft
    5. About ICICI Lombard’s use of AI - ICICI Lombard bets big on AI to improve customer experience - Express Computer
    6. About HAMS by Microsoft - HAMS: Harnessing AutoMobiles for Safety - Microsoft Research
    7. About FluxGen’s AI based water monitoring system - Solution – FluxGen

    To learn how Microsoft is working to empower every developer to innovate, every organization to transform industries and every individual to transform society through its differentiated Microsoft AI & Innovation vision, please visit microsoft.com/ai

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    29 mins
  • Episode 07 - Through the Time Machine
    Jun 16 2022

    With its vastly rich history and culture, India is a heritage-lover’s paradise. But there’s a problem. A large number of monuments, museums and art is either badly maintained or looks unsalvageable. Solutions from the world of AI, however, argue that things need not be the way they are right now. AI can be used to travel in time to see how the object was originally and attempt to restore it to a large extent.

    Credits:

    Narration: Harsha Bhogle

    Executive Producer: Gaurav Vaz

    Producer: Archana Nathan

    Research, Interviews and Scripts: Prthvir Solanki

    Narrative overview: Charu Sharma and Shriram Parthasarathy

    Title track, sound design and background score: Nikhil Rao, Avyay Gujral and Abhijit Nath.

    All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators

    We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode

    • Benoy K. Behl, art historian, filmmaker and photographer
    • Ashwin Srivastava, CEO of Sapio Analytics
    • Professor Ronojoy Adhikari, Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics at University of Cambridge
    • Fabin Rasheed, Creator of Auria Kathi
    • Sahej Rahal, Digital Artist

    Links to clips used in the episode and citations:

    • The Arctic World Archives website: https://arcticworldarchive.org/
    • Mann Ki Baat Episode where Narendra Modi mentions the Sapio Analytics Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7gEx18Zw98
    • Explore the ancient city of Olympia through Microsoft’s project: https://inculture.microsoft.com/arts/ancient-olympia-common-grounds/
    • A short article about the AI painting sold at Christie’s: https://www.christies.com/features/a-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx
    • Auria Kathi’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6vR2kaFXSd/

    To learn how Microsoft is working to empower every developer to innovate, every organization to transform industries and every individual to transform society through its differentiated Microsoft AI & Innovation vision, please visit microsoft.com/ai

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    32 mins
  • Episode 06 - Life Saving Algorithms
    Jun 9 2022

    AI may not be able to cure diseases, well, at least not yet. But it could help identify a problem well in advance and much before it becomes too late. How? By helping doctors, hospitals, trawl through massive data and images and thereby efficiently screening patients that need immediate care. In other words, AI can make diagnosis faster and in healthcare, time is hope and hope is everything.

    Credits:

    Narration: Harsha Bhogle
    Executive Producer: Gaurav Vaz
    Producer: Archana Nathan
    Research, Interviews and Script: Vinay Aravind
    Narrative overview: Charu Sharma and Shriram Parthasarathy
    Title track, sound design and background score: Nikhil Rao, Avyay Gujral & Abhijit Nath.

    All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators

    We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode

    • Gabriel Vaz, a retired journalist based in Bangalore
    • Prashant Gupta, program director for Microsoft Cloud
    • Dr. Sujoy Kar, the Chief Medical Information Officer of the Apollo Hospitals group
    • K Chandrasekhar, Founder and CEO of Forus Health
    • Subadra Kalyanaraman, Manager with a consulting firm based in Chennai

    Links to clips used in the episode and citations:

    1. Cardiovascular disease in India: A 360 degree overview - PMC (nih.gov)
    2. General cardiovascular risk profile for use in primary care: the Framingham Heart Study
    3. Apollo Hospitals has launched an Artificial Intelligence tool to predict the risk of cardiovascular disease
    4. 3nethra classic | Forus Health
    5. e-Eye Kendram | Tele-Ophthalmology centres | Apollo Tele Health
    6. Microsoft uses AI to diagnose cervical cancer faster in India
    7. Quest Global Enhances its Lung Nodule Detection Solution Using Microsoft Azure IoT Central, Azure IoT Edge and Azure Machine Learning

    To learn how Microsoft is working to empower every developer to innovate, every organization to transform industries and every individual to transform society through its differentiated Microsoft AI & Innovation vision, please visit microsoft.com/ai

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    34 mins
  • Episode 05 - Scanning the Skies
    Jun 2 2022

    Over the years, the protection of India’s biodiversity and the conservation of nature has been hit by a severe lack of funding and personnel, not to mention the sheer scale of the challenges they have to encounter - from man-made threats to climate change. There is a promise that artificial intelligence and machine learning offers though and this includes scanning our surroundings to identify the species that need to be protected and setting up social networks but for birds.

    Credits:

    Narration: Harsha Bhogle
    Executive Producer: Gaurav Vaz
    Producer: Archana Nathan
    Research, Interviews and Script: Vinay Aravind
    Narrative overview: Charu Sharma and Shriram Parthasarathy
    Title track, sound design and background score: Nikhil Rao, Avyay Gujral and Abhijit Nath.

    All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators

    We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode

    • Ashwin Viswanathan, a research associate at the Nature Conservation Foundation
    • Tom Auer, a GIS Developer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
    • Drew Weber, the Merlin Project Co-ordinator at the Cornell Lab
    • Jason Holmberg, the founder of WildMe

    Links to clips used in the episode and citations:

    1. India’s species diversity - India Biodiversity Awards, 2018 | UNDP in India
    2. India’s threatened species - India has lost 90 per cent of the area under its biodiversity hotspots, says CSE’s new statistical analysis (cseindia.org)
    3. The ebird project - About eBird - eBird
    4. Merlin - The Story – Merlin Bird ID – Free, instant bird identification help and guide for thousands of birds (allaboutbirds.org)
    5. WildMe - What we do | Wild Me
    6. Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Machines - Virtual Machines (VMs) for Linux and Windows | Microsoft Azure
    7. ATREE’s biodiversity Atlas project - ATREE_India_Bio_AI4E Grantee Profile.pdf (windows.net)

    To learn how Microsoft is working to empower every developer to innovate, every organization to transform industries and every individual to transform society through its differentiated Microsoft AI & Innovation vision, please visit microsoft.com/ai

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    28 mins
  • Episode 04 - Green Revolution 2.0
    May 26 2022

    Agriculture is complicated. The landscape is changing, there’s climate change and there are a million other factors that affect the farmer’s yield. But it’s what our entire population’s hunger and health depends on. Recent initiatives in AI are finding ways to get the crop to talk to the farmer about what it needs.

    Credits:

    Narration: Harsha Bhogle

    Executive Producer: Gaurav Vaz

    Producer: Archana Nathan

    Research, Interviews and Scripts: Prthvir Solanki

    Narrative overview: Charu Sharma & Shriram Parthasarathy

    Title track, sound design and background score: Nikhil Rao, Abhijit Nath & Avyay Gujral

    All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators

    We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode

    • Ananda Verma, Co-founder at Fasal
    • Ranveer Chandra, Managing Director, Research for Industry and CTO, Agri-Food at Microsoft Research
    • Vikram Kumar, Associate Director at Wadhwani AI
    • Jibu Elias, AI Ethicist, Senior Researcher and Lead at INDIAai
    • Ram Dhulipala, Senior Scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute and Former Scientist at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

    Links to clips used in the episode and citations:

    • Fasal Website and information about their IoT device
    • FarmBeats
    • News Reports on Locust Attacks in India
    • Brittanica Entry on the Pink Bollworm
    • Punjab Records 34% Cotton Crop Loss After Pink Bollworm Attack

    To learn how Microsoft is working to empower every developer to innovate, every organization to transform industries and every individual to transform society through its differentiated Microsoft AI & Innovation vision, please visit https://microsoft.com/ai

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    36 mins
  • Episode 03 - Pitches and Pawns
    May 19 2022

    In competitive sport, today, players don’t have the luxury of time to fix a problem in their technique or a strategic flaw in their approach. Time is of the essence here and AI is trying its best to conserve time. Both with its innate technology to predict and identify the problem and by becoming a tool that can help improve a player’s game.

    Credits:

    Narration: Harsha Bhogle
    Executive Producer: Gaurav Vaz
    Producer: Archana Nathan
    Research, Interviews and Scripts: Prthvir Solanki
    Narrative overview: Charu Sharma and Shriram Parthasarathy
    Title track, sound design and background score: Nikhil Rao and Abhijit Nath.

    All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators

    We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode

    • Abhishek Binaykia, the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer at SpektaCom
    • Dr. Siddhartha Sen, a Principal Researcher in the Microsoft Research New York City lab
    • Kruttika Nadig, a Woman GrandMaster in the game of chess
    • Ashok Karanth is the Co-Founder and CEO of Edisn
    • Siddhartha Sen, Principal Researcher in the Microsoft Research New York City lab.

    Links to clips used in the episode and citations:

    • Highlights of the Tendulkar inning
    • Interview with Tendulkar about the inning
    • Deep Blue vs Garry Kasparov
    • Cricket and AI (use in DRS and ball-tracking tech) 
    • Project Maia
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    35 mins
  • Episode 02 - (Not so) Lost in Translation
    May 12 2022

    Imagine a construction worker from Odisha going to Bangalore to find work. Or a citizen from interior Nagaland trying to interact with the state government. Language is a barrier to both these people and it can make livelihoods rather challenging. But current research in AI – from deep neural networks to massive multi-lingual models – are already trying to solve this problem. 

    Credits: 
    Narration: Harsha Bhogle
    Executive Producer: Gaurav Vaz
    Producer: Archana Nathan
    Research, Interviews and Scripts: Vinay Aravind
    Narrative overview: Charu Sharma and Shriram Parthasarathy
    Title track, sound design and background score: Nikhil Rao and Abhijit Nath. 

    All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode 

    • Dr. Shobha Satyanath, a professor of linguistics at Delhi University 
    • Kalika Bali, Principal Researcher, Microsoft India 
    • Dr. Monojit Chowdhury, Principal Data and Applied Scientist with Turing 
    • Dr. Vivek Seshadri, a researcher at Microsoft India. 

    Links to clips used in the episode and citations: 

    • The Language Barrier Plaguing India's Stock Market | Mint (livemint.com) 
    • Jawaharlal Nehru’s Tryst with Destiny speech
    • 780 Indian languages surveyed and documented by PLSI, next aim to document 6000 world languages | India News The Indian Express 
    • List of the 122 census recognised languages of India, including Scheduled and Non-Scheduled Languages 
    • Prof. G.N. Devy: 'All our languages are losing linguistic prowess' - Frontline (thehindu.com) 
    • Deep Learning Neural Networks Explained in Plain English (freecodecamp.org) 
    • Artificial Intelligence wrote this entire video. Are you scared yet, human? 
    • Project Karya - Microsoft Research 
    • ELLORA: Enabling Low Resource Languages - Microsoft Research 
    • Microsoft Turing Universal Language Representation model, T-ULRv5, tops XTREME leaderboard and trains 100x faster - Microsoft Research 
    • CGNet Swara’s website
    • Cognitive Services—APIs for AI Solutions | Microsoft Azure
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    34 mins
  • Episode 01 - After the storm
    May 5 2022

    Weather forecasting is a tough business. There are many variables, and the margin for error is slim. And errors in prediction here can have dire, life-altering consequences. How can artificial intelligence help us gauge the weather better and thereby save lives? Perhaps, an AI model that can predict a flood 15 days before it strikes? Or, a model that uses AI to figure out in advance which properties are potentially at risk in a disaster? 

    Credits

    Narration: Harsha Bhogle
    Executive Producer: Gaurav Vaz
    Producer: Archana Nathan
    Research, Interviews and Scripts: Prthvir Solanki
    Narrative overview: Charu Sharma & Shriram Parthasarathy
    Executive leadership: Rohini Srivathsa & Somanna Palacanda
    Title track, sound design & background score: Nikhil Rao and Abhijit Nath

    All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode 

    Prof. Shafiqul Islam
    Manmeet Singh
    Anshu Sharma 
     

    Sources:

    • The Wire - News report about the FIR filed by farmers in Beed
    • Business Standard - News report about the FIR filed by farmers in Beed
    • Relief Web - Details about the Paradip Cyclone in 1999
    • Hindustan Times - Details about the Paradip Cyclone in 1999
    • New Indian Express - Damage and aftermath of Cyclone Amphan
    • The Hindu - Death toll and aftermath of Cyclone Amphan
    • OpenAI’s work on Dactyl
    • Details on OpenAI’s Rubik’s Cube Solving AI arm
    • History of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology
    • Details on the 2015 heatwave in India
    • Scroll - Viral video of a woman cooking eggs on the floor of her home in Telangana
    • NIE - Viral video of a man cooking eggs on the road in Odisha
    • WMO - Climate Predictions
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    28 mins