OpenAI Academy expands to India, commits $150,000 to nonprofits

BENGALURU: OpenAI has expanded its AI for Impact Accelerator initiative in India, providing a total of $150,000 in technical grants to 11 nonprofit organisations that are building artificial intelligence (AI) tools aimed at addressing challenges in healthcare, education, agriculture, and other underserved sectors. The grants are largely being issued as API credits.The latest phase of the programme falls under the newly formed OpenAI Academy and marks a year of engagement with Indian nonprofits using AI for public benefit. Several of the participating organisations have already integrated OpenAI’s technology to improve operational scale, user experience and measurable impact.Rocket Learning, for instance, is using generative AI over WhatsApp to deliver early childhood learning content to parents and daycare workers. The organisation is currently reaching four million children across 11 states. Noora Health, which supports families of patients in low-resource settings, has automated parts of its caregiver engagement workflows, reducing message review volume for nurses while increasing the number of families served.Educate Girls is applying AI to identify and bring back out-of-school girls in rural India. I-Stem has converted over 1.5 million web pages into accessible formats to assist visually impaired users. Pinky Promise, a reproductive health platform, said its AI-powered chatbot enables a team of three doctors to manage care for 10,000 patients, with a reported medication adherence rate of 92%.Other organisations in the cohort include those focused on agriculture, digital inclusion, public policy delivery, and skilling through AI-based personalisation. The programme is supported by philanthropic partners including The Agency Fund, Tech4Dev, and Turn.io. OpenAI also recently conducted a workshop to help these organisations explore the capabilities of its latest models in designing population-scale solutions.OpenAI said the initiative is closely aligned with the objectives of the IndiaAI Mission, which focuses on democratising AI access and building technology that responds to India’s specific socio-economic contexts.Pragya Misra, who leads policy and partnerships for OpenAI in India, said the accelerator is part of the company’s effort to ground its technology in real-world use cases. She added that the organisations involved are advancing inclusive innovation by applying AI to complex problems across the country.OpenAI said that it plans to onboard more India-based nonprofits into the programme later this year and added that additional initiatives focused on the region are currently in development.