Meet the Innovators Shaping AI to Serve Those Often Left Behind
AI is everywhere, but how we use it is what truly brings about change. Across India, far removed from urban innovation labs and big-tech campuses, in regions where access often trumps ambition, grassroots innovators are using data and AI not to replace people but to empower them. In conversation with AIM, Kartik Sawhney, Avinabha Datta, Ashim Tuli and  P Vivekanandan, who are part of the CDSSI Fellowship by the Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), shared how they’re using technology to change lives. What Does Grassroots AI Look Like? Imagine if you couldn’t read 96% of the internet. That’s a sad reality for millions of visually impaired individuals. As someone who is blind himself, Kartik Sawhney is all too aware of this. As a teenager, he had to manually transcribe his textbooks into accessible formats just to keep up in school. Years later, that personal challenge evolved into Nclude, a powerful voice-based AI platform built by I-Stem. It is designed to convert inaccessible content into usable formats for people with print disabilities. But it’s more than just an accessibility tool. “People with disabilities aren’t just looking for access, they’re looking for opportunities,” Sawhney said. Nclude also offers a career discovery assistant, a digital library, and updates on government benefits, all accessible via IVR calls or WhatsApp, even on basic feature phones. The project also generates livelihoods for women in tier 2 and 3 cities, helping them proofread and refine AI-generated content. So far, Nclude has reached over 30,000 users and is expanding into Kenya and Tanzania with support from UNICEF. But it hasn’t been a smooth ride. “Expectation mismatch was a real issue,” Sawhney admitted. “Some people expected AI to do everything, while others distrusted it entirely.” Now, the team is building multimodal AI agents to help users navigate the internet using only their voice. ‘You’re a Transgender Person, and None of Your Documents Match’ One has a different name, and another has an outdated gender marker. This is the systemic reality that Avinaba Dutta and their team at TRANSParent are tackling through their project, QtBharat. “Livelihood isn’t just about a job offer,” they say. “It’s about safety, identity, shelter, community and all of it.” TRANSParent began as a digital resource recommendation app for transgender and queer individuals. However, most of the intended users had limited digital literacy and virtually no access to smartphones or stable internet.Instead of focusing solely on individuals, they began onboarding community leaders, those already working at the grassroots level as intermediaries. These leaders now act as both interpreters and advocates, helping individuals access jobs, upskilling, healthcare, and even safe spaces. With data gathered from over 2,000 individuals in West Bengal alone, expansion is underway in states like Maharashtra and Jharkhand. “ISDM didn’t just fund us, they believed in us when we had no data, no direction, just a dream,” Dutta added. What Happens When Work Gets Fragmented? That’s what Ashim Tuli from the Sambhav Foundation set out to answer. With gig work booming in India post-pandemic, many workers remain confused about earnings, lacking benchmarks, and unsure which skills are actually marketable. They have a dual-interface platform: one for job seekers and another for job providers. There’s even a portal for counsellors who can guide the job seekers. Aspirants enter basic details: age, background, and education. In return, the system uses AI to suggest income ranges, recommend upskilling, and highlight real-time opportunities. Tuli’s team used their access to over 1 lakh profiles within Sambhav’s ecosystem to build a robust dataset. “Earlier, we just had data for donor reports,” he said. “Through the CDSSI Fellowship, we learned how to clean it, secure it, and use it.” Today, they’re expanding the platform to tier 2 and 3 cities and even co-developing tools with fellows, like Yashwin Iddaya, to build combined models for income prediction and vulnerability mapping. Treating Goats Using Age-old Herbal Remedies, Guided by AI That’s the vision of  P Vivekanandan, founder of SEVA, a Tamil Nadu-based NGO with over 30 years of grassroots experience. His team built the SEVA Chatbot, a sustainable livestock production app. The platform is voice-enabled, which shares traditional livestock treatment methods once orally passed down, now preserved and scalable. “People in villages used to know what to do. But today, that knowledge is fading,” he explained. So they digitised it by documenting originally collected inputs from tribal, nomadic, and pastoral communities, validating them with botanical research, and then building an AI chatbot that responds to farmer queries in Tamil, Kannada and English. Trained on Google Cloud’s Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), the chatbot is now expanding into Hindi and Telugu. But maintaining it isn’t cheap. “Every message costs us money,” said Nallagacchu Naga Ganesh, one of the developers. “Scaling means finding support from the National Innovation Foundation, donors, and even cross-border partnerships from Nepal,” he explained. What began as a simple data collation effort has now become an AI-powered one-stop platform for livestock knowledge revival. What Ties These Projects Together? A shared belief that technology must serve the marginalised and that AI must be shaped by lived realities, not just trained on datasets. CDSSI’s impact has gone far beyond financial support. It enables organic collaboration. Sawhney’s accessibility tools may one day integrate with Vivekanandan’s veterinary chatbot. Tuli and Dutta are already working on shared models for employment support and social inclusion. “Fellows haven’t just built projects, they’ve built a community,” said Swetha Prakash, associate director at ISDM and CDSSI’s Centre Lead. This 12-month fellowship supports teams working on Digital Open Solutions (DOS) developed with and for communities. These solutions are accessible to the public, especially to individuals, organisations, and stakeholders in the development sector. The aim is to build practical, shareable resources that can address real-world challenges. Similarly, the Responsible AI Fellowship from Digital Futures Lab supports social impact organisations in developing responsible AI frameworks and tools. The AI for Impact Fellowship provides a platform for individuals to create and implement AI-powered solutions for societal problems.
The 12-month fellowship supports teams co-creating Digital Open Solutions (DOS) with communities to drive inclusive, tech-enabled change.
The 12-month fellowship supports teams co-creating Digital Open Solutions (DOS) with communities to drive inclusive, tech-enabled change.
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Merin Susan John is a journalist at Analytics India Magazine, reporting on the intersection of AI and human capital. She can be reached  at merin.john@aimmediahouse.com