How India is Reimagining ‘Tech for Good’

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Today, 11 May, is National Technology Day, which marks the anniversary of India’s 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests. Since 1999, India has observed this day to honor scientific achievement, across information technology, space, biotech, and defense, and drive innovation.

As technology advances and artificial intelligence (AI) becomes mainstream, a new narrative is taking shape, moving beyond the earlier focus on speed and scale toward empathy-driven solutions with real, human impact.

Across industries, Indian companies are seeking to demonstrate that the true power of technology lies not in disruption but in enabling human potential.

In an exclusive conversation with MIT SMR India, Amit Chadha, chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director of L&T Technology Services Ltd (LTTS), said, “The real myth is that AI will replace us. In reality, it’s here to amplify us.”

Designing technology around people, not processes

That philosophy is echoed by innovators in enterprise software and inclusive finance alike, as India moves toward a future defined not just by its engineering prowess but by purpose-driven innovation.

Vara Kumar Namburu, co-founder and head of research and development at digital adoption platform (DAP) Whatfix, told MIT SMR India, “The true purpose of technology has always been to expand human potential. But in today’s enterprise landscape, tools meant to boost productivity often create digital friction instead, slowing progress and frustrating users.”

To solve this, Whatfix developed “userization”, a tool that adapts to people, and not the other way around. Its AI engine, ScreenSense™, offers real-time, contextual guidance across digital workflows, helping users navigate complex software without feeling overwhelmed.

Whether it’s guiding employees through enterprise systems or onboarding users to AI-powered tools, the goal is the same: make technology intuitive and accessible. “As AI becomes mainstream, the human factor often becomes the biggest hurdle, resistance to change, skill gaps, or just a lack of confidence. Our tools are designed to make AI less intimidating and more empowering,” Kumar noted. 

AI on the ground

At LTTS, that empowerment takes the form of large-scale, high-impact solutions. The company is building everything from portable AI-powered diagnostic tools for early detection of diabetic retinopathy,  now deployed across remote areas of Southeast Asia and Africa, to AI-driven crowd and safety management systems for Mahakumbh 2025, one of the world’s largest public gatherings.

“We are engineering solutions that not only solve technical challenges but also uplift lives. That’s the essence of ‘tech for good’—driving impact at the intersection of purpose and performance,” said Chadha. 

Inclusivity is also becoming a central pillar of India’s tech narrative. For Kiran Nambiar, co-founder and CEO of AI-powered personal finance assistant MyFi, the challenge is financial exclusion.

“In a country where over 70% of adults lack basic financial knowledge, using AI to bridge this gap is not just innovative, it’s necessary,” he told MIT SMR India.

MyFi’s multilingual conversational assistant, built in Hindi and English, is enabling millions to access personalized financial advice, understand mutual funds, and build investment portfolios with confidence. “We’re helping users learn and act at their own pace,” he said.

So far, users have linked over ₹600 crore ($70 million) in assets, with conversations becoming longer and more engaged, signs of growing trust.

AI + DPI

India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI)—Aadhaar, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), government-backed e-commerce platform Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), and account aggregators—is powering a new wave of innovation by enabling secure identity, payments, commerce, and data sharing. When paired with AI, it becomes a powerful engine for inclusive scale and rapid experimentation.

“Layer AI atop this infrastructure, and you unlock innovation at population scale. This isn’t just India’s decade. It’s India’s opportunity to redefine how inclusive innovation looks,” said Nambiar.

That opportunity also extends to how technology is developed and deployed. MyFi has shifted to open-source, self-hosted AI models that can run efficiently on single graphics processing units (GPUs), rather than relying on costly and proprietary large language models (LLMs).

This transition has led to significant improvements in cost-effectiveness, data privacy, and system reliability.

“We’re the first TIFIN subsidiary to go fully open-source, and now that model is influencing global strategy,” said Nambiar.

Need for AI-literate workforce

LTTS is building the foundation for future-ready roles. Through its Global Engineering Academy, the company is training ethical AI engineers and multimodal AI specialists—job categories that didn’t exist just a few years ago.

“Every new tech sparks fears of job loss—but history shows us it creates more opportunity than it destroys. At MyFi, fluency in AI tools is now a must across functions, from design to HR,” Nambiar said.

That proactive upskilling mindset is shared across the board.

Whatfix launched its own learning platform, Whatfix University, to build a certified talent pipeline in digital adoption, a space now core to enterprise tech strategies.

But as capabilities grow, so does the need for guardrails and ethical design. Whatfix emphasizes context-aware, user-first guidance to reduce confusion and ease adoption. MyFi has built-in mechanisms to flag uncertainty and mitigate hallucinations in its financial advice tools.

“If we’re not sure, we say we don’t know. That actually builds trust. And we train our models on localized datasets so the advice reflects how Indians really behave with money, not some generic global norm,” Nambiar said.

For Chadha, responsible AI begins with data governance and bias-free systems. He said, “We’ve seen firsthand that when AI is engineered with responsibility, it doesn’t replace people, it enhances them. India stands at a unique crossroads. With the right harnessing of AI and SDx (software-defined everything), we’re poised to lead the global innovation landscape.”

From tech adoption to tech transformation

In many ways, this is no longer about tech adoption, it’s about tech transformation. And increasingly, that transformation is being led not just from India, but by India.

Kumar said, “True digital transformation isn’t just about adopting new tools. It’s about making those tools work for people, making tech more intuitive, more contextual, and more empowering.”

As India marks another National Technology Day, the shift is clear. The country’s innovators are no longer just writing code, they’re rewriting the rules of global innovation, with empathy, ethics, and inclusion at the core.