GS1 India, a global supply chain standards organisation, and Midas Research Lab of Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, a leading research-oriented academic institute, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) today to create the DataKart Centre of Excellence (DCoE). The aim is to apply Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and other futuristic technologies to develop tools for image compression, attribute extraction, and for improving quality of product data in the National Product Data Repository (DataKart). 
Mr. S. Swaminathan, CEO, GS1 India, said, “This collaboration will give us the opportunity to leverage the expertise of IIIT-Delhi researchers to develop advanced tools for improving data accuracy and quality, and enable small and medium businesses share their product data with retailers and online marketplaces.”
The collaboration will bring together research professionals and academic scholars to develop cutting-edge technologies for making the National Product Data Repository more robust and dependable. The DCoE will ensure that data being published in the repository is of highest standards and is available for businesses and consumers for validation.
“Associating with GS1 India for the DataKart Centre of Excellence and working on the Data Quality project will provide industry exposure to our researchers on a topic that is relevant for multiple stakeholders ranging from manufacturers to end consumers. This partnership will enable IIIT-Delhi to solve real-world industry problems, which is great,” said Professor Mukesh Mohania, Dean IRD, IIIT-Delhi.
Businesses (retailers, online marketplaces, point-of-sale providers and aggregators) and end consumers will benefit through the access to quality product data. They can use this data to validate and get more information about products. Businesses are expected to get global visibility as their product information, stored in DataKart, is also shared with global product data repositories.
About GS1 India
GS1 India is a global supply chain standards organization, set up by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, along with CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, FIEO, IMC, BIS, Spices Board, APEDA, and IIP. GS1 standards provide unique and universal identification to a product with the use of barcodes and help in capturing and sharing information from point-of-origin to point-of-sale. GS1 India’s DataKart is the National Product Data Repository. It provides foundational data for several B2B, B2G, B2C requirements, which include faster product listing, optimised planogramming, efficient trucking and warehouse management, product recall alert, compliance with statutory labelling/marking guidelines, license/certificate validation, and additional product information to enable consumers (through Smart Consumer mobile app) make informed purchase decision.
About IIIT-Delhi and MIDAS
IIIT-Delhi is a State University, established by an act of Delhi Government empowering it to do research and development, and grant degrees. In a relatively short time, it has earned an excellent reputation in India and abroad for being a center of quality education and research in IT and interdisciplinary areas.
MIDAS is a group of researchers at IIIT-Delhi who study, analyze, and build different multimedia systems for society leveraging multimodal information. MIDAS stands for Multimodal Digital Media Analysis Lab and it is founded by Dr. Rajiv Ratn Shah. Dr. Shah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (jointly appointed with the Department of Human-Centered Design) at IIIT-Delhi. The research work at MIDAS includes Machine Learning, Multimedia Content Processing, Natural Language Processing, Image Processing, Multimodal Computing, Data Science, and Social Media Computing towards AI for Social Good. Dr. Shah and his team believe in multidisciplinary collaborative research and work closely with eminent researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS), Georgia Institute of Technology, The University of Texas at Austin, National Institute of Informatics (NII), Bloomberg, SLTI, among others.
