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ByNN Desk
ImpactAI Foundry Opens Applications for Nonprofit AI Program in Bangalore
The Bangalore-based initiative aims to address the gap between AI awareness and adoption among Indian civil society organizations, as ImpactAI Foundry prepares to launch a pilot cohort in June 2026.
Founded by Columbia University students Arjun Balaji and Jyothika Raju, ImpactAI Foundry aims to make AI adoption more accessible for India’s resource-constrained nonprofit sector.
ImpactAI Foundry, a Bangalore-based initiative focused on AI adoption in the social sector, on Thursday launched a structured program to help Indian nonprofits integrate artificial intelligence into their operations, with applications now open for its June 2026 pilot cohort.
The program runs for two months and pairs participating organizations with volunteer tech mentors drawn from Bangalore’s technology sector. Each cohort will include six to eight nonprofits, with the founding team citing a persistent gap between sector-wide interest in AI and the practical capacity to adopt it.
The initiative is led by Arjun Balaji and Jyothika Raju, both of whom are completing Master’s degrees in Public Administration at Columbia University. The two co-founders said in a statement published on the initiative’s website that their decision to build ImpactAI Foundry was shaped by direct experience with Bangalore’s civil society.
We grew up in Bangalore and have seen firsthand how much the social sector here does with very little. AI shouldn’t be something that only well-resourced organisations can access. We are here to make sure that the nonprofits doing the most important work are not the ones left behind.
Arjun Balaji and Jyothika Raju, Co-Founders, ImpactAI Foundry
ImpactAI Foundry is part of the Decoded Futures Network, a Tech: NYC Foundation initiative, focused on AI adoption in the social sector. The program is platform-agnostic; it does not advocate for any specific software and instead focuses on identifying use cases and developing tools within each organization’s existing workflows.
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Nonprofits working across education, healthcare, livelihoods, and women’s empowerment are eligible to apply. The pilot is limited to Bangalore-based organizations. The founding team has said it plans to extend the model to other Indian cities after validating the pilot. It is unclear on what timeline that expansion would proceed or how cohort size would scale.
The move comes as AI adoption in India’s development sector has remained uneven. Large intermediaries and well-funded NGOs have begun piloting AI tools for program monitoring and beneficiary outreach, but smaller organizations working at the district and community level have largely lacked access to structured technical support.
Mentor participation is structured to require a limited time commitment, a design choice the founders say is intended to lower the barrier for technology professionals who want to contribute to Bangalore’s social sector without taking on sustained advisory roles.
Applications for the June 2026 cohort are open at impactaifoundry.com for both nonprofits and prospective mentors.
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