Join us for an engaging curtain raiser to the India AI Impact Summit, where we'll explore how AI is reshaping global cooperation and development. This preparatory session will set the stage for critical conversations around South-South cooperation in the AI era, examining how emerging economies can collaborate to ensure AI truly works for people, not just profit.
We'll tackle pressing questions that will define the digital future: What does it really mean to invest in AI's future in a way that benefits all of humanity? How can we ensure AI diffusion reaches underserved communities and drives inclusive growth? And perhaps most critically, do we need to fundamentally rethink how countries and transnational organisations approach data governance, sharing, and sovereignty?
This curtain raiser will bring together policymakers, technologists, and development experts to frame the key debates ahead of the main summit, ensuring we're asking the right questions about AI's role in shaping a more equitable global future.
Register now to express your interest in joining the conversation. Kindly note: Due to limited seating, only selected attendees will be notified with an email confirmation.
16:30 - 17:00 (IN)
17:00 - 17:05 (IN)
Samir Saran, President, Observer Research Foundation, India
Ankur Vora, Chief Strategy Officer and President, Africa & India Offices, Gates Foundation
Aparna Ray, Joint Secretary, Policy Planning and Research Division, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India
17:05 - 17:20 (IN)
The United Arab Emirates has built its AI innovation ecosystem by strategically aligning talent, capital, and national priorities, while orienting its economy competitively within a rapidly evolving technological landscape. Positioning itself as a leading laboratory for AI implementation at a national scale, it has created dedicated governmental infrastructure for AI deployment. As shown by the UAE’s example harnessing the full potential of AI requires governments to be entrepreneurial and agile. Innovation, in this framing, is not merely technological advancement but a driver of structural, economic transformation and international cooperation. What lessons does the UAE offer in designing innovation ecosystems that sustain long-term technological leadership rather than episodic breakthroughs?
Speakers
Saeed Bin Mubarak Al Hajeri, Minister of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, United Arab Emirates
Samir Saran, President, Observer Research Foundation, India
17:20 - 17:35 (IN)
As AI moves from invention to deployment, the conversation is shifting, from what we can build to what actually reaches people. How do we bridge the gap between what's developed in the western world and what's deployed at scale across Africa, Asia, and Latin America? Why does AI scepticism remain high in the Global North even as the Global South demonstrates tangible impact? And as the focus moves from existential risk to real-world outcomes, what does safety mean for mass adoption, and what should it deliver? This conversation explores the infrastructure, partnerships, and policy choices needed to turn the promise of AI into productivity gains across sectors.
Speakers
Rishi Sunak, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Rudra Chaudhuri, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation, India
17:35 - 18:20 (IN)
AI promises to transform economies, governance, and societies, but its benefits are far from evenly shared. Access to computational power, quality data, advanced models, and skilled talent remains concentrated, shaping which countries can harness AI and which are left behind. Yet AI also holds real potential to tackle pressing development challenges: improving healthcare delivery, strengthening climate resilience, expanding financial inclusion, and supporting smallholder agriculture. Turning that potential into reality requires more than deploying technology. It demands thoughtful governance, reliable infrastructure, global cooperation, and frameworks that ensure AI serves inclusive and sustainable development, not just profit. Can AI genuinely address the needs of the majority, or will it continue to optimize wealthy markets? This panel will explore what it takes to make AI work in resource-constrained settings, from predicting crop yields to delivering primary healthcare, while grappling with deeper questions about human dignity, moral responsibility, and whose values shape these systems.
Speakers
Ernest Mwebaze, Executive Director, Sunbird AI, Uganda
Shikoh Gitau, Chief Executive Officer, Qhala, Kenya
Shalini Kapoor, Chief Strategist, EkStep Foundation, India
Amitabh Kant, Former G20 Sherpa, India
Paolo Benanti, Faculty, Department of Moral Theology, Pontifical Gregorian University, Italy
Pushmeet Kohli, Vice President-Science, Google DeepMind, United Kingdom
Moderator
Nidhi Singh, Senior Research Analyst and Program Manager, Carnegie India
18:20 - 18:45 (IN)
Converting ambitious digital strategies into real, tangible outcomes is all about execution: how governments organise talent, deploy capital, and build institutions agile enough to keep pace with technological change. Drawing on experiences from Togo's digital transformation, insights from American innovation dynamics, and an analysis of global technology governance, this panel will discuss what the architecture of an effective AI ecosystem should look like. It will explore the balance between experimentation and accountability, global collaboration and national priorities and the need to enable innovation while mitigating risks and harms.
Speakers
Cina Lawson, Minister of Public Sector Efficiency & Digital Transformation, Government of Togo
Dean Ball, Senior Fellow, Foundation for American Innovation, United States of America
Mariano-Florentino Cuēllar, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, United States of America
Moderator
Rahul Matthan, Partner, Trilegal, India
18:45 - 19:15 (IN)
The promise of AI is one thing. Delivering real-world impact is another. The gap between what AI can theoretically do and what it actually achieves often comes down to three things: whether people trust it, whether the economics work, and whether institutions have the capacity to deploy it responsibly. This panel examines the mechanics of turning AI research into systems that deliver measurable results. How do governments, foundations, and private investors decide which AI applications are worth funding? What makes communities embrace or reject AI-driven solutions? And what does it take to move from pilot projects to sustainable, scalable deployment?
Speakers
Eli Sugarman, Director, Special Projects, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, United States of America
Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, Chief Executive Officer, Anusandhan National Research Foundation, India
Vyjayanti T Desai, Regional Practice Manager for Digital and AI, South Asia, World Bank
Moderator
Brad Tytel, Deputy Director, Program Advocacy and Communications, Global Health Innovations, Gates Foundation
19:15 - 19:50 (IN)
AI is entering a decisive phase where the central challenge is no longer invention, but diffusion. How AI spreads across sectors, regions, and economies will determine who benefits and who gets left behind, yet that spread is profoundly uneven, shaped by infrastructure gaps, uneven access to capital and talent, and disparities in institutional capacity. As AI capabilities grow more powerful and accessible, hard questions emerge: Should access be open or controlled? How do export controls work when code crosses borders instantly? Can telecommunications infrastructure, often uneven and politically contested, enable or constrain how AI reaches communities? And how do we incentivize responsible deployment without stifling innovation?
Speakers
Seth Center, Former Acting Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology, Department of State, United States of America
Natalie Black, Group Director, Infrastructure and Connectivity, Ofcom, United Kingdom
Elizabeth Kelly, Head, Beneficial Deployment, Anthropic, United States of America
Faheem Ahamed, Group Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, G42, United Arab Emirates
Moderator
Shankar Maruwada, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, EkStep Foundation, India
19:50 - 19:55 (IN)
AI for the Global South (AI4GS), presents 12 critical research questions developed by 40+ international experts to guide a decade-long agenda for making AI more equitable and beneficial for Global South communities. It tackles challenges like data sovereignty, multilingual access, labor market impacts, and how the Global South can build its own sovereign AI rather than simply importing technology designed elsewhere.
Speakers
Monojit Choudhury, Professor of Natural Language Processing, MBZUAI, UAE
Moderator
Shruti Mittal, Research Analyst, Carnegie India
19:55 - 20:00 (IN)
