

AI Diffusion for Population-Scale Impact
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.