AI solutions should be harnessed to address challenges in farm, health, education: NITI Aayog's Roy
By Kaushal Verma, New Delhi, June 3
Artificial Intelligence solutions should be developed to address challenges in sectors such as agriculture, healthcare and education, as enterprises solving real-world problems will find a market for their products, Anna Roy, Principal Economic Advisor at NITI Aayog, toldtoday.
"AI is just a route. AI is a new technology. We should not get weighed in by just AI. AI needs to be linked to the ground challenges. What are the use cases? In agri, in health, in education, we face several access barriers, we face several challenges. So if your solutions are aimed at leveraging AI to address those challenges, then your enterprise will get a market," Roy said while speaking to ANI in an exclusive interview.
Roy, who is also the Mission Director of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), was speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the launch of the Women in Tech Accelerator Program.
Highlighting efforts to promote women-led innovation in artificial intelligence, Roy said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) organised the India AI Impact Summit, under which three challenges were launched to showcase leading founders in the AI ecosystem.
She said one of the challenges, titled "AI by Her", focused on women entrepreneurs developing AI-based solutions and was conducted by WEP under a whole-of-government approach.
MeitY and the IndiaAI Mission have approved an initiative under which WEP will create an accelerator programme for leading women AI entrepreneurs identified through the summit challenges.
"For the top 150 AI by Her and the women founders of AI for All challenge, WEP will create an accelerator programme under its awards-to-rewards programme, and we will be closely working with MeitY for this," she said.
Speaking about the broader landscape of women entrepreneurship in India, Roy said the growth of women-led enterprises is promising but remains below its full potential, adding that several government initiatives are helping accelerate progress.
She said access to knowledge remains a bigger challenge for women entrepreneurs than access to finance, noting that enterprises with strong business models, market access and the right networks are generally able to attract funding.
"Everybody says it's access to finance. But I feel if your enterprise has a good business model, if you have the right connects, and if you have things sorted like access to market, then these enterprises will be able to raise funding," Roy said.
She added that government initiatives such as the Mudra scheme, startup support programmes and state-level interventions are already promoting access to finance and supporting entrepreneurship.
Roy encouraged women entrepreneurs to register on WEP, which provides access to more than 800 government schemes from the Centre and state governments, along with mentorship opportunities and peer-learning platforms.
Emphasising the importance of women's participation in economic growth, Roy said studies have consistently shown that expanding women's participation in the labour force and the broader economy can substantially boost GDP growth.
She added that achieving the country's ambitious Viksit Bharat goals would require greater participation of women across economic sectors and stronger support for women-led enterprises.
— ANI
Reader Comments
As a teacher in a rural school in Tamil Nadu, I can tell you that AI could really help bridge the gap in education. Many of my students don't have access to good teachers for subjects like science and math. But we need to make sure the AI tools are available in regional languages, not just English. Also, proper training for teachers is a must – we can't just dump technology on them and expect miracles. Hope the "AI by Her" initiative includes women educators too.
Interesting perspective from Anna Roy. I work in health tech in Bangalore and we've been trying to develop AI tools for early diagnosis of diseases like diabetic retinopathy. The potential is huge, especially for rural areas where specialists are scarce. But the infrastructure – internet connectivity, electricity, data storage – is still a major bottleneck. The government needs to invest in backbone infrastructure alongside these AI initiatives. Otherwise it's like having a Ferrari with no road.
Good to see the focus on women entrepreneurs, but I'm a bit skeptical about the "access to knowledge" point. Yes, networks matter, but let's be honest – funding is still the biggest hurdle for most startups. My sister started a women-focused agri-tech company in Gujarat and despite having a solid business model and market connections, she struggled for two years to get seed funding. More incubators and easier loan processes would help. Also, the 800 government schemes she mentioned – most entrepreneurs don't even know how to navigate them.
AI in agriculture sounds great on paper, but let's not forget that Indian farming is still largely about small landholdings and manual labor. I come from a farming family in UP, and my father is wary of technology because of past experiences with "smart" solutions that didn't work. The key is to involve actual farmers in the design process, not just techies in air-conditioned offices. And please, no more "app-based solutions" that require 4G internet – rural connectivity is still patchy at best
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