New Delhi, January 25 (IANS). Federated Intelligence Hackathon was organized at IIT Kanpur with the aim of promoting the safe and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Indian health sector.
This national level hackathon was organized by the National Health Authority (NHA) in collaboration with ICMR-National Institute for Research in Digital Health and Data Science (NIRDHDS) and IIT Kanpur.
The event ran from 19 to 24 January 2026 as a pre-event to the India AI Impact Summit 2026, aimed at developing health AI digital systems that are secure, privacy-preserving, and scalable.
The special thing was that without centralizing the data at one place, work was done on federated AI models, so that trust and privacy could be given priority.
During the program, Dr. Sunil Kumar Baranwal, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Authority (NHA) said that before implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) models used in health services, it is necessary to test them on data related to large and diverse populations, so that people’s trust is maintained, the results are accurate and no one is left out.
He said that India is now moving beyond just experimenting and working towards creating reliable and standardized AI models for health. The event was organized ahead of the India AI Impact Summit 2026.
Baranwal further said that federated and consensus-based AI systems can allow new technology to be adopted on a large scale, without having to collect sensitive health data in one place. This keeps people’s personal information safe and also strengthens public trust.
Referring to Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), he said AI solutions should be such that they can work according to the different populations, regions and needs of India.
374 registrations were received for the hackathon, which included 208 individual participants and 166 teams of two or more participants.
The winners were given certificates and cash prizes of Rs 12 lakh.
In the inaugural session of the program, Professor Sandeep Verma, Director of IIT Kanpur Maninder Aggarwal and Secretary of Medical and Health Department of Uttar Pradesh Ritu Maheshwari also expressed their views.
All the speakers emphasized that technology, research institutions and governments together are strengthening India’s digital health system.
Special guest professor of IIT Kanpur and former CEO of NHA, Dr. R. S. Sharma said that digital public infrastructure and interconnected digital public platforms play an important role in creating a secure and useful health data system for people. He said that such a system maintains accountability along with innovation.
Vivek Raghavan, co-founder and CEO of SarvMAI, said India’s digital health architecture helps in bringing AI-based healthcare to the masses.
He said that good data, strong privacy rules and security are very important to make AI successful. He also stressed the need for open-source AI models made in the country, so that India does not have to depend too much on outside technologies.
–IANS
DBP/AS
