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The All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), New Delhi, celebrated the sixth Foundation Day of its incubation centre, AIIA-iCAINE, with the launch of a national innovation challenge in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Ayurveda, the signing of two strategic Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), the launch of an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Facility for Ayurveda and a capacity-building workshop on entrepreneurship and design thinking.
On the occasion, Prof. Vd. P. K. Prajapati, Director, AIIA, highlighted the incubator’s efforts to promote innovation, strengthen industry–academia collaboration and translate Ayurvedic knowledge and research into practical solutions, products and enterprises.
“Over the past six years, AIIA-iCAINE has undertaken several initiatives to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in Ayurveda. The incubator has supported 52 problem statements and mentored more than 100 startup ideas. Furthermore, nine startups have received seed support of ₹3 lakh each, helping them advance their entrepreneurial journeys,” he said.
The celebration featured the launch of AyushTech Innovate: National Open Ayurveda AI Challenge, organised by Techfest, IIT Bombay, in collaboration with the Ministry of Ayush and AIIA.
Leveraging AyurParam, IIT Bombay’s open-source Ayurveda Large Language Model, the challenge aims to encourage the development of trustworthy, transparent, safe and practical AI solutions for Ayurveda. It will address challenges in Ayurvedic clinical practice, classical text retrieval, research, treatment planning and public health awareness. The national grand finale is scheduled to take place at IIT Bombay from December 15 to 18, 2026.
AIIA-iCAINE also signed two MoUs to strengthen research, innovation and commercialisation in Ayurveda.
The MoU with the World Ayurveda Foundation (WAF) will facilitate the establishment of “AI in Ay – Secretariat for Artificial Intelligence in Ayurveda”, a collaborative platform to advance AI-driven research, innovation and entrepreneurship. The collaboration will support joint research, funding and CSR proposals, capacity-building programmes, hackathons and startup incubation. It will also leverage WAF’s national and international networks to promote responsible AI applications in Ayurveda.
The MoU with Reliance Retail Limited (Pahadi Local) will facilitate the translation of classical Ayurvedic knowledge into commercially viable skincare products through formulation advisory. Reliance Retail will undertake product development, testing, manufacturing and marketing, creating a pathway for the commercialisation of Ayurveda-based innovations and strengthening industry–academia collaboration.
Another development was the launch of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Facility for Ayurveda. The facility aims to promote awareness of intellectual property protection and help Ayurveda innovators and entrepreneurs understand the importance of safeguarding their innovations as they progress towards product development and commercialisation.
The Foundation Day activities also included a capacity-building workshop on branding, pricing strategies and design thinking for Ayurveda ventures. Jessica of Reliance Retail Limited conducted the masterclass on branding, while Sujith Eranezhath, CEO, AIIA-iCAINE, led the session on pricing strategies and the design-thinking masterclass. The sessions covered user needs assessment, problem identification, ideation, prototyping, testing and the development of practical, user-centred solutions for the Ayurveda sector.
Other activities included a briefing on the Smart India Hackathon (SIH), the launch of the Techfest Hackathon, the release of Ayupreneur: A Beginner’s Glossary and the release of grants to the SIH 2025 winners.
The official programme began with a welcome address by Dr Arun Kumar Mahaptra, Head of Incubation. It also featured an address by Prof. (Dr.) Sreenivasa Prasad Buduru, Chief Guest, and the presidential address by Prof. Vd. P. K. Prajapati, Director, AIIA.
The celebration concluded with a vote of thanks by Sujith Eranezhath, CEO, AIIA-iCAINE, followed by networking.
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