New Delhi [India] December 11 (ANI): Stakeholders from the Global South discussed the future of Artificial Intelligence, its societal impact and the collaborative opportunities emerging across continents. At the Carnegie Global Technology Summit Innovation Dialogue 2025, voices from Africa and India highlighted shared challenges, unique advantages and the urgent need to build inclusive, scalable AI ecosystems. Shikoh Gitau, CEO of Qhala, highlighted the growing momentum around South-South cooperation and pointed out that the Global South, home to 80% of the world’s population, has untapped collective influence. “We have a bargaining chip from our data sets, from our population, from our rare minerals. We have a lot to offer this AI economy,” Gitau said. She highlighted parallels in the challenges facing countries in Africa and Asia, and expressed optimism that shared lessons could accelerate progress for both regions. Gitau called India a “big brother” in AI talent and cited findings from talentindex.ai, which show that Indian expertise is driving innovation hubs from Silicon Valley to Europe. She noted that Africa also offers critical experience in learning and digitization, from early ID system digitization to legal infrastructure reforms, which can contribute significantly to global AI development. Shelly Sethi, founder of Mahila Prashikshan Sansthan, emphasized the importance of expanding AI literacy for women and the youth, stressing that India’s next phase of progress depends on democratizing access to new technologies. She highlighted government schemes aimed at equipping young people, especially women, with the skills needed to participate in the AI-powered economy. “Testing, understanding and learning the new technology is essential,” she said, calling for broader implementation of AI tools for grassroots empowerment. SimPPL co-founder Dvara Mungra described how AI can close information gaps that contribute to high maternal mortality rates in India. Delays in accessing accurate medical information remain a major risk factor for expectant mothers. “SimPPL addresses this through Sakhi, an AI-enabled tool that delivers medically verified information vetted by gynecologists in local languages over WhatsApp. The evolving role of AI in maternal health reduces the delay in seeking the right information,” said Mungra. She also highlighted broader AI use cases in healthcare, including disease detection and improving access to government health information. Still, she cautioned that India still has “a long way to go” in R&D, especially in developing foundational models tailored to India’s linguistic and cultural diversity. Shalini Kapoor, chief strategist at EkStep Foundation, described India as a unique proving ground for large-scale AI deployment. Quoting Nandan Nilekani, she said India could become “the test bed for AI adoption”, where systems validated at scale could be replicated globally. “Real impact depends on building concrete use cases in sectors such as agriculture, education and healthcare, supported by key horizontal enablers such as language technology, security frameworks and AI-ready data infrastructure,” she said. She also highlighted India’s efforts to democratize AI development — such as the IndiaAI Mission’s efforts to make GPUs accessible to startups — and praised initiatives like AI4Bharat’s open models for 22 Indian languages, drawn from cultural and linguistic heritage. “AI is for everyone. No one should be left behind,” Kapoor affirmed, adding that India’s approach could become a model for the entire Global South. Carnegie India hosted the Global Technology Summit Innovation Dialogue in New Delhi on December 11 as an official pre-summit event for the upcoming AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled to be held from February 15 to 20, 2026 in New Delhi. (ANI)
