Overcoming Challenges in Crisis Times

National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been instrumental for over four decades in steering diverse ICT applications at various levels in the government. These applications today form the key components of the Digital India framework that has set the path to transform India into a digital nation.

Since the entry of COVID19 in the country, NIC has fabricated several systems for monitoring and management of various facets of pandemic right from the dispersal of data, Corona sample monitoring information system, observation, COVID patient & facility management system, COVID Containment Zone Information System, COVID care mobile app, senior citizen support software, telemedicine, tele-training, and so forth.

To keep the NIC technocrats, IT managers of the Ministries/Departments abreast with latest technologies, NIC conducts TechConclave annually. This unique initiative of NIC has prepared the technocrats of the government ecosystem to design and develop IT solutions using emerging technologies in a very limited time frame.  Regular training and exposure to eGovernance Standards, GuDApps, Application Security, Software Quality and other similar best practices   have also ensured that the applications developed are of industry standards.

In the last few years, NIC has been promoting innovative thinking in its employees by throwing Innovation Challenges on regular basis. This initiative has enabled the NIC officers to come up with innovative ideas and workable solutions to cater to the requirement of the user departments involved into management of COVID 19 situation.

The ongoing Data Quality Challenge is helping the project teams to optimally utilize the lockdown period for reviewing the quality and management of data of all major applications in a competitive spirit.

The AI:Ideathon  Challenge is promoting teams to envisage the design and development of tools/products using emerging technologies like AI and ML.

During the lockdown period, NIC came up with TechQuizes to further ignite the minds of the officers and keep them on their toes. The officers found this biweekly exercise very stimulating and participated in huge numbers.

NIC’s solutions like eOffice, Video Conferencing etc have facilitated government system to work virtually from home during COVID-19 pandemic. Other several essential products & platforms like e-Hospital, e-Courts, e-Transport, e-Counseling, GePNIC ServicePlus, S3WaaS and so on are being utilized to fulfil an enormous number of government activities even during lockdown.