This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center's AI Accountability Network. Hyderabad and New Delhi, India – Bismillah Bee can't conceive of owning a car. The 67-year-old widow and 12 members of her family live in a cramped three-room house in an urban slum in Hyderabad, the capital of the Indian state of Telangana. Since her rickshaw puller husband's death two years ago of mouth cancer, Bee makes a living by peeling garlic for a local business. But an algorithmic system, which the Telangana government deploys to digitally profile its more than 30 million residents, tagged Bee's husband as a car owner in 2021, when he was still alive.

More than 5 million children under five years die from largely preventable or treatable medical conditions every year, with an overwhelmingly large proportion of deaths occurring in underdeveloped countries with low vaccination uptake. One of the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDG 3) aims to end preventable deaths of newborns and children under five years of age. We focus on Nigeria, where the rate of infant mortality is appalling. In particular, low vaccination uptake in Nigeria is a major driver of more than 2,000 daily deaths of children under the age of five years. In this paper, we describe our collaboration with government partners in Nigeria to deploy ADVISER: AI-Driven Vaccination Intervention Optimiser. The framework, based on an integer linear program that seeks to maximize the cumulative probability of successful vaccination, is the first successful deployment of an AI-enabled toolchain for optimizing the allocation of health interventions in Nigeria. In this paper, we provide a background of the ADVISER framework and present results, lessons, and success stories of deploying ADVISER to more than 13,000 families in the state of Oyo, Nigeria.

Artificial intelligence that can generate text, images and other content could help improve state programs but also poses risks, according to a report released by the governor's office on Tuesday. Generative AI could help quickly translate government materials into multiple languages, analyze tax claims to detect fraud, summarize public comments and answer questions about state services. Still, deploying the technology, the analysis warned, also comes with concerns around data privacy, misinformation, equity and bias. "When used ethically and transparently, GenAI has the potential to dramatically improve service delivery outcomes and increase access to and utilization of government programs," the report stated. The 34-page report, ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom, provides a glimpse into how California could apply the technology to state programs even as lawmakers grapple with how to protect people without hindering innovation.

The NSW government will be taking a "deliberate but cautious" approach when implementing new artificial intelligence technology in line with citizen trust around data and AI usage. NSW government chief data scientist and industry professor at UTS Dr Ian Oppermann told an Infosys and Trans-Tasman Business Circle event that trust is a "very big issue", with his work on the NSW AI assurance framework and a multitude of other government policies. "Ultimately, there are a whole lot of other elements around trust and demonstration of trustworthiness," Oppermann said. "We need to explore what happens when things go wrong. "We need to be very clear about what we will not do with data in order to help build confidence, that we're behaving appropriately and demonstrating trustworthiness.

The New South Wales government has named the 11 individuals who will form the NSW Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee and play a role in how AI is used in the state. He will be joined by Microsoft Australia national technology officer Lee Hickin; Services Australia chief data officer Maria Milosavljevic; Australian Human Rights Commission human rights commissioner Edward Santow; Women in Data Science Network Sydney ambassador and School of Illinois data and AI research fellow Theresa Anderson; University of Technology Sydney data science executive director Fang Chen; Innovations Accelerated chief legal and data ethics officer Aurelie Jacquet; Australian Computer Society AI and ethics technical committee chair Peter Leonard; Gradient Institute co-founder William (Bill) Simpson Young; Quantium Health and Government CEO Neil Soderlund; and Public Purpose principal Martin Stewart-Weeks. Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello said the committee would advise the state government on the use of AI for decision-making and service delivery, and what ethical AI policies should look like. "AI is becoming more prevalent in our day-to-day life and the NSW Government is determined to lead the way in its use and to drive improvements wherever possible, while ensuring it's done in an ethical way." Establishing the committee is part of the state government's AI strategy in which it has pledged that transparency will be the focus and vowed to make the state the digital capital of the southern hemisphere in the next three years.

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will establish centres for transformational artificial intelligence in partnership with academia and industry to develop AI-based solutions, said a senior officer from MeitY. While announcing the establishment of a fund of funds to provide financial support to startups at all stages of growth, Abhishek Singh, head of Digital India Corporation and the National e-Governance Division said that India has a large number of AI-skilled soldiers. Speaking at an industry event in Delhi, he said: "While significant AI research is being conducted at all of our academic institutions, we continue to fall far behind China and the United States in terms of AI research. Certain measures have been taken, but we must continue." Singh also said that the Department of Science and Technology, as part of the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems, has established Technology Innovation Hubs (NM-ICPS).

Artificial Intelligence is the process of making use of computers and machines to mimic human perception, decision-making, and other processes to complete a task. Put in other words, AI is

On a mission to move forward key technology milestones in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, ARTPARK is closely working with various stakeholders to make the most of the technologies in education, healthcare, mobility, infrastructure, agriculture and various other sectors. Express Computer speaks to Umakant Soni, Founder and CEO, AI & Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK).

Apartment building defects are not uncommon these days, but the NSW government has been developing new solutions using AI and blockchain to crackdown on this. Speaking at the 2021 digital.NSW event, Office of the NSW Building Commissioner digital director Yin Man explained how the state government has worked with KPMG, Microsoft, Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), Western Sydney University, and Mirvac to build what is being referred to as a trustworthy index, within the state government's building assurance solution. The solution, based on ASX's blockchain technology, has been designed to track a building's provenance -- from the materials that are used, the drawings of the building, and people involved in the construction -- to enable the building industry, current and prospective owners, regulators, and insurers to compare and assess the trustworthiness of different buildings. "You, as a consumer, can now see one building differentiated from another and that helps the insurance companies and the financiers as well, because at the moment, they do not want to be in the market because all the buildings look the same to them, everybody has an occupation certificate, but why are some buildings still defective as we find in our audits, and some are not," Man said. According to Man, the trustworthy index will be piloted for the next six months with a brand new Mirvac building, along with over 200 buildings where combustible cladding is being replaced.

In new research being undertaken by Flinders University in partnership with conservation charity Koala Life and the State Government, non-invasive koala monitoring techniques are being developed using drones and facial recognition technology to count, identify and re-identify koalas. Minister for Environment and Water David Speirs said this cutting-edge technology will be used as part of a study on koalas at Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Mount Lofty Ranges to get a better understanding of both their numbers and their movements. "Traditionally, monitoring koala populations has involved capturing and individually marking koalas, a process that is both labour-intensive and poses potential welfare issues," Minister Speirs said. "It is very important for us to develop non-invasive techniques to help monitor animals in a safe way, and facial recognition through drone monitoring is utilising the latest technology to achieve this. "The ability to recognise individual members of a species in the wild will help to grow an understanding of individual movements as well as population estimates, and this understanding will allow the development of meaningful management strategies.