​AI Diffusion for Population-Scale Impact

​📅 Session Details

​Date: Friday, February 20, 2026
Time: 1:30 PM - 2:25 PM IST
Venue: Room 16, Bharat Mandapam

​🎯 What This Session Is About

​Why do most AI pilots never scale? It's not the technology, it's the absence of diffusion infrastructure.

​Successful pilots demonstrate capability. Population-scale systems require something else entirely: adoption pathways that reduce risk for thousands of institutions, governance frameworks that enable trust without centralized control, and reusable rails that turn deployment from a special project into routine operations.

​This session examines what diffusion infrastructure looks like in practice. We'll explore how different contexts are building the connective tissue between AI capability and durable deployment. This is a practitioner's conversation about what it actually takes to move AI from pilots to populations.

​⭐️ Speakers

​Moderator: Shalini Kapoor, Chief Strategist, Data and AI, EkStep Foundation

​Speakers:

• ​Shankar Maruwada, CEO, EkStep Foundation (keynote)

• ​Keyzom N. Massally, Director, G7 AI Hub for Sustainable Development

• ​Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, GOI

• ​Courtney O'Donnell, Global Impact Lead, Anthropic

• ​Beatriz Vasconcellos, Deputy Sec of Digital Transformation, Brazil

• ​Janet Zhou, Director, Data and Technology Adoption, Gates Foundation

​This session is part of the AI Impact Summit 2026, exploring how artificial intelligence can drive meaningful social change across sectors.