Convener News Desk
Kanpur, Jan 25: Policy leaders, technology innovators and healthcare experts deliberated on the future of responsible and privacy-preserving artificial intelligence in healthcare as the Federated Intelligence Hackathon concluded at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur on Friday.
Organised by the National Health Authority (NHA) in collaboration with the ICMR–National Institute for Research in Digital Health and Data Science (NIRDHDS) and IIT Kanpur, the six-day national hackathon was held from January 19 to 24 as a pre-event to the India AI Impact Summit 2026.
According to spokesperson, the initiative aimed to promote the development of Digital Public Goods (DPGs) for Health AI that are secure, scalable and respectful of data privacy.
Addressing participants during the closing sessions, Dr Sunil Kumar Barnwal, Chief Executive Officer, NHA, underscored the need to move beyond experimental AI applications towards trusted and benchmarked models for healthcare.
He said that AI systems must be tested on diverse, population-scale datasets before deployment, and highlighted federated, consent-driven architectures as key to scaling innovation without centralising sensitive health data.
Referring to flagship initiatives such as Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), Dr Barnwal stressed that India’s Health AI solutions must be inclusive, context-ready and reflective of the country’s demographic and regional diversity.
The inaugural session featured addresses by Prof Sandeep Verma, Head, Gangwal School of Medical Sciences and Technology; Prof Manindra Agrawal, Director, IIT Kanpur; and Ritu Maheshwari, Secretary, Medical Health and Family Welfare and State Mission Director, ABDM–Uttar Pradesh.
Speakers highlighted the growing convergence of technology, medicine and public policy in strengthening India’s digital health ecosystem.
Dr R S Sharma, Distinguished Visiting Professor at IIT Kanpur and former CEO of NHA, emphasised the role of digital public infrastructure and interoperable digital public goods in enabling secure, citizen-centric health data management at scale.
He said such systems are crucial for building trust and ensuring responsible innovation in health AI.
Speaking on AI sovereignty, Vivek Raghavan, CEO and Co-founder of SarvamAI, highlighted the importance of indigenous and open-source AI models. He noted that data quality, privacy and security are foundational to effective AI adoption, and called for reducing external dependencies to maximise public-sector impact.
ICMR–NIRDHDS also led a dedicated session outlining its initiatives in artificial intelligence for healthcare research and implementation.
A key outcome of the hackathon was the development of a benchmarking platform, being built jointly by IIT Kanpur and NHA, to evaluate the performance and efficacy of AI models while ensuring institutional control, privacy and trust. All models developed during the hackathon were assessed using this platform.
The hackathon received 374 registrations, including 208 individual participants and 166 teams comprising two or more members. About 54 per cent of participants identified as AI researchers or innovators, while others included health-tech startups, healthcare professionals, graduate students and data scientists.
Winners were announced across three categories—bone age prediction, cataract detection, and diabetic retinopathy screening. The winning teams presented their methodologies to an expert jury and were awarded certificates and cash prizes amounting to ₹12 lakh.
Officials said the initiative marks a significant step towards strengthening secure, interoperable and citizen-centric Health AI solutions under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, positioning India as a leader in responsible and federated AI for healthcare. (PIB)
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