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Talk Intermediate

Passion, Python and Proprietary: Stories from Sarkar

Approved
Session Description

I was called by a bureaucrat who wanted to set up a data and innovation team at a large Ministry. They had called a bunch of government stakeholders, consultants etc to understand what is needed to set up such a team. There was this emphasis that certain tools need to be procured, tools that would magically do the analysis as the sit and watch. Each consultant suggested certain tools that are pre-requisite. When my turn came, I thought and said you simply need some python and public-spirited engineers. That’s all. In this talk, I’ll cover various ‘projects’ I’ve overseen both at the Ministry of Rural Development and NHAI and break-down the role open-source (data, tooling) played in each.


  1. PMGSY Network Planning (PyQGIS and QGIS)
  2. PMGSY Finding Unmapped Habitations across India (GeoPandas, Facebook Open Population data, GHSL)
  3. EMARG Flagging Road Maintenance: FastAI (Pytorch) and FastAPI
  4. NREGA Risky Assets (RabbitMQ, FastAPI, PostGre + GIS)
  5. NRLM Resource Allocation (Custom Matplotlib ‘pokeball’ plots + Pandas)
  6. NHAI Drone (WebODM etc)
  7. NREGA Move towards Open Source DBs


Then I’ll talk about why the public sector gravitates towards proprietary, myths around open-source in the sector, recent attempts towards open-washing and what can we do to improve the system.


Session Categories

FOSS

Speakers

harsh nisar
Advisor ( IT ) National Highways Authority Of India
harsh nisar

Harsh has been working as a technologist within the Indian Government for more than 8 years now. He has worked as a Data Scientist across domains such as rural skills and roads before starting and leading the Ministry's first interdisciplinary Data & Insights Unit. He has led multiple deployed use cases of AI/ML within the life-cycle of public service delivery – from resource-allocation across 8 million women self-help groups, writing the algorithm for selecting rural road investments worth USD 10 B, using satellite imagery to find 300,000 unmapped habitations, and applying AI on to score risky NREGA works to prioritise inspections. Currently, Advisor (IT) at NHAI, his work focuses on weaving emerging technologies within the lifecycle of highways – from construction to traffic management.

Reviews

This can be a great talk! The idea and the impact is very novel!
Reviewer #1 Approved
Reviewer #2 Approved