{"slug": "the-janai-pitch-don-t-strip-down-tech-for-bharat-design-it-for-bharat", "title": "The JanAI pitch: Don't strip down tech for Bharat, design it for Bharat", "summary": "JanAI Technology Private Limited launched its first platform version across nine JanAI Cafes, with seven cafes in Mysuru district and Prayagraj district, aiming to bring AI-driven services to 100 million rural Indian households within three years, co-founder and chief evangelist Madan Padaki said. The Bengaluru venture, led by CEO Vishwesh Pai, runs open-source and Indic speech models rather than training foundation models, and targets onboarding 100,000 citizens by March 2027 through a network of 10,000 cafes. Padaki estimated 10 million households could generate an additional Rs 10,000 of value each, adding $100 billion in economic value.", "body_md": "Bengaluru: If AI is indeed the superpower everyone is talking about, how can its supersonic tsunami be leveraged to develop India's villages? That is the question Madan Padaki, Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist of JanAI, is asking, noting that over the last 75 years, villages have largely remained the same and apart from mobile phones and a few other things, not much has changed on the ground..That became the overriding thought behind his venture — now a year and a couple of months old — which he calls JanAI. \"It has to be JanAI, not GenAI. That's how the name clicked in my head. Because it always happens first in Koramangala. Diffusion of technology, you try it out here and then it goes to Koppal. And when technology diffusion happens, you just say, if it works in Koramangala, take out a few bells and whistles, strip it down, lower the cost — for any product — and that's why it fails. I think both are fallacies,\" he said..Padaki wants to take the power of AI to 100 million households in rural India over the next three years. Recently, JanAI Technology Private Limited was launched, with Vishwesh Pai, a product leader and investor with over two decades of experience building cloud, enterprise and AI products at Atlassian, ServiceNow, Amazon and Samsung, taking charge as Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, supported by Padaki..The Head Held High Foundation will serve as the Community Capability and Resilience Partner. According to Padaki, frontier technology cannot remain an urban privilege. It must reach the front door of Bharat, and it must arrive in a form designed with the people it intends to serve, not merely delivered to them..JanAI does not train foundation models. The enterprise runs open-source and Indic speech models and builds what does not yet exist, he said..\"What the reports are showing us is that people are already using AI in rural areas,\" he said. They know ChatGPT and both WhatsApp and Google are there everywhere. The economic math, he argued, is massive. \"10 million households can generate an additional Rs 10,000 of value. It's $100 billion worth of economic value that we can add,\" he said..On AI replacing jobs, he argued that rural is a different world altogether and there are no jobs to be lost. \"This whole job loss doesn't work,\" he added..Talking about JanAI Cafes, he said it is a new model for community-centred AI adoption. It helps citizens learn, build and use AI to solve local challenges and create new livelihood opportunities..Recently, the first version of the platform went live across nine JanAI Cafes, with seven cafes launched in Mysuru district and Prayagraj district. The platform will begin delivering a range of AI-driven services to rural households. These include social security benefits, jobs discovery through the Bluedots model in partnership with EkStep Foundation, and access to finance through integration with solutions such as WhatsLoan..The enterprise targets onboarding 100,000 citizens by March 2027 and a cafe network across every taluk, carrying AI-driven services to 100 million households through a network of 10,000 cafes within three years, built as a sustainable, profitable model..\"If AI brings a new way of doing things, it will throw up massive opportunities,\" he said.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-janai-pitch-don-t-strip-down-tech-for-bharat-design-it-for-bharat", "canonical_source": "https://www.deccanherald.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/the-janai-pitch-dont-strip-down-tech-for-bharat-design-it-for-bharat-4148622", "published_at": "2026-09-16 18:00:32+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-16 18:11:52.207174+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-startups", "natural-language-processing"], "entities": ["JanAI Technology Private Limited", "Madan Padaki", "Vishwesh Pai", "Head Held High Foundation", "EkStep Foundation", "Bluedots", "WhatsLoan", "Mysuru district"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-janai-pitch-don-t-strip-down-tech-for-bharat-design-it-for-bharat", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-janai-pitch-don-t-strip-down-tech-for-bharat-design-it-for-bharat.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-janai-pitch-don-t-strip-down-tech-for-bharat-design-it-for-bharat.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-janai-pitch-don-t-strip-down-tech-for-bharat-design-it-for-bharat.jsonld"}}