Operationalizing India’s New AI Governance Guidelines
Value-based Engineering (VBE) is a structured method for compliant, and value-driven AI systems – used already today in government and enterprise contexts.
VBE leverages the international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-7000, aka IEEE 7000.
Introducing vbe
WHAT IS VALUE-BASED ENGINEERING?
VBE is a process added to existing engineering practices.
It provides needed structure to understand and address chances and hazards – without slowing innovation.
1
Clarify Values & Risks
Identify critical impacts on users, citizens, organizations, and society.
2
Translate into Requirements
Turn ethical expectations into actionable, testable system requirements.
3
Ensure Documentation & Compliance
Full traceability for audits, standards, and emerging AI governance frameworks.
Why VBE aligns with India’s Responsible AI approach
India’s new AI governance guidelines emphasize a people first approach encouraging transparency, accountability, and other important values in order to build trust.
VBE supports these goals with a method that integrates ethical reasoning, risk identification, and multi-stakeholder impact analysis directly into system design.
Strengthens responsible AI and accountability processes
VBE is a simple, yet effective set of process steps and artifacts which allows for analysis of opportunities and hazards in system design (see, e.g. Indian AI Governance Principle 4–6)
Supports innovation while balancing out risks
VBE allows for the analysis of risks, but also of opportunities to describe a holistic picture. This allows balancing out of different concerns in a transparent, auditable manner (see, e.g. Indian AI Governance Principle 3)
Follows a People First approach through stakeholder involvement
VBE allows for the inclusion of stakeholders in the analysis. This ensures a holistic view, allowing for local solutions. By doing so, it provides a true ‘people first’ approach. (see e.g. Indian AI Governance Principle 2).
Environmental concerns can be addressed using the same mechanism (see e.g. Indian AI Governance Principle 7)
Builds trust throughout the lifecycle
Trust is earned through actions. VBE allows to address critical concerns from the start of a project on minimizing efforts in the long run.
VBE qualifications are certifiable today, with product and process certifications planned.
This allows goverments to ensure implementation of policy, gain transparency and ensure public trust in a structured, reliable approach. (see e.g. Indian AI Governance Principle 1)
Real world use cases
VBE is designed for practical implementation in real organisations.
We supported the city of Vienna, a major European city and federal state, in evaluating public digital services with VBE.
The method ensured fairness, transparency, and citizen-centered impact assessment – while improving audit readiness and cross-department collaboration. It is part of Vienna’s Digital Agenda 2030 (p. 48, autotranslated version).
There are already ISO-based certification schemas available.
About the VBE academy
The VBE Academy brings responsibility practices, from research direcly into life.
We are providing the latest and most significant results from research in responsible technology design to industries and governments.
Our goal is to build an ecosystem of training, implementation and certification that allows for innovation and public trust.
Mario Tokarz
Mario Tokarz is the founder of the VBE Academy and a former automotive manager with a background in safety-critical development. Today he supports governments and enterprises in building responsible, compliant, and value-driven AI systems through the Value-based Engineering method.
