Digital
Eight-year-old coder steals the show at India AI Impact Summit 2026
Ranvir Sachdeva meets Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman, links ancient philosophy to modern AI
DELHI: Amid a sea of global tech chiefs and policy heavyweights, the loudest buzz at Bharat Mandapam this week came from a boy barely tall enough to see over the lectern.
Ranvir Sachdeva, eight, became the youngest keynote speaker at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, elbowing his way into a line-up dominated by chief executives, founders and ministers. Calm, bespectacled and fiercely articulate, he declared himself a technologist — and spoke like one.
“I’m here as the youngest keynote speaker at the India AI Impact Summit. I’m talking about how I’m linking ancient Indian philosophies to modern-day technologies. I’m also covering the different approaches which the rest of the nations are building AI,” he told news agency ANI.
He added: “I’m talking about how India is building AI with. I’m sharing my own use case of an Indian AI model just released and how I’m contributing to India’s GDP and driving AI literacy with it.”
The summit, held from February 16 to 21 in New Delhi, has drawn global names. Ranvir met Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman on the sidelines, sharing photographs of the encounters. He has previously met Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff and Doreen Bogdan-Martin, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.
In 2024, he met António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general.
His most high-profile brush with corporate royalty came earlier. In 2023, during the opening of Apple’s Delhi store, Ranvir demonstrated his Swift coding skills to Apple chief executive Tim Cook in a one-on-one session. Cook later posted: “What an incredible reception, Delhi, thank you! We’re delighted to welcome our customers to our newest store—Apple Saket!”
What an incredible reception, Delhi, thank you! We’re delighted to welcome our customers to our newest store—Apple Saket! pic.twitter.com/5Jmi79ixzl— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 20, 2023
Ranvir replied publicly: “Thank you so much, @tim_cook! It was great meeting you today and showcasing my Apple Swift coding skills! You are an inspiration and I so want to meet you at #WWDC2023!”
Thank you so much, Tim! You are an inspiration and I so want to meet you at #WWDC2023 ! 🙂 https://t.co/BVthznLjD8— Ranvir Singh Sachdeva (@ranvirsachdeva) April 20, 2023
The invitation followed. Cook extended a personal call for Ranvir to attend the Worldwide Developers Conference 2023 at Apple Park in Cupertino.
This is not Ranvir’s first turn on the global stage. In 2025, aged seven, he addressed the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva as its youngest keynote speaker. He spoke for 20 minutes on “Agents of Change: A 7-Year-Old’s Lens on Generation AI for Good”, in front of more than 10,000 attendees from over 180 countries and 53 UN partner organisations.
He shared the broader stage with Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel laureate and Turing Award winner, alongside senior figures from Amazon, Meta and Salesforce. According to a LinkedIn post by the Ardee School, Ranvir argued that “Generation AI are the true changemakers”, highlighting healthcare breakthroughs from bionic solutions and exoskeletons to assistive devices for ALS patients. He called for the democratisation of such tools to bridge the digital divide.
The precocity runs deep. At six, he became the world’s youngest TEDx speaker, speaking on technology and innovation. At five, he won a gold medal as a “Super Presenter” in the 2022 Global Reading Challenge. Media reports say that in 2021 he built a prototype rocket aimed at supporting NASA’s Mars exploration, earning recognition from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In 2023, he became the youngest recipient of a robotics and AI certification from IIT Delhi after a summer workshop at the I-HUB Foundation for Robotics.
He began coding at three.
At an event otherwise obsessed with trillion-dollar valuations, sovereign AI stacks and regulatory guardrails, it was a small voice that cut through. Linking Sanskrit thought to silicon chips, GDP to generative models, Ranvir Sachdeva did more than make history. He made the grown-ups listen.
#WATCH | Delhi: At #IndiaAIImpactSummit2026, Ranvir Sachdeva, Child Prodigy, Technologist, Global Author says, "I'm here as the youngest keynote speaker at the India AI Impact Summit. I'm talking about how I'm linking ancient Indian philosophies to modern-day technologies. I'm… pic.twitter.com/e3OGgtxyDK— ANI (@ANI) February 19, 2026
Digital
Ethical AI must benefit society, not dominate it, says WFEB chief Sanjay Pradhan at IAA event
At Mumbai event, ethics expert urges businesses and governments to shape AI responsibly
MUMBAI: Artificial intelligence may be racing ahead at lightning speed, but its direction must still be guided by human conscience. That was the central message delivered by Sanjay Pradhan, president of the World Forum for Ethics in Business (WFEB), during the latest edition of IAA Conversations held in Mumbai.
The session was organised by the International Advertising Association (IAA) and the Artificial Intelligence Association of India (AIAI) in association with The Free Press Journal at the Free Press House on 7 March. Addressing a packed audience, Pradhan called for stronger ethical leadership to ensure AI remains a tool that benefits humanity rather than one that governs it.
“Artificial intelligence has rapidly become one of the most powerful technologies humanity has created,” Pradhan said. “It is unlocking breakthroughs in medicine, science and creativity at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago.”
But he warned that the same technology carries serious risks. AI, he noted, can amplify disinformation faster than facts can travel, compromise privacy, deepen discrimination and disrupt millions of livelihoods. Referencing concerns raised by AI pioneers such as Geoffrey Hinton, often called the godfather of AI, Pradhan stressed that the real challenge is not whether AI will shape the world, but whether humans will shape it with ethics and wisdom.
Structuring his talk around four guiding questions, why, what, how and who, Pradhan introduced the audience to WFEB’s emerging AI Ethics Partnership, a global platform aimed at advancing responsible artificial intelligence. He outlined four priority concerns that demand urgent attention: disinformation, bias and discrimination, data privacy and job security.
To make the idea of ethical AI easier to grasp, Pradhan offered a simple metaphor. Ethical AI, he said, is like a three layered cake. The outer layer represents the visible value ethical AI creates for businesses and society. The middle layer is organisational culture that moves ethics from written codes to everyday practice. The innermost layer, however, is the most crucial, the conscience of individual leaders.
Drawing from Indian philosophical thought through WFEB co-founder Ravi Shankar, Pradhan noted that while artificial intelligence can reproduce stored knowledge, true intelligence is boundless and rooted in conscience, creativity and compassion. Practices such as breathwork and meditation, he suggested, can help leaders develop the calm clarity needed for ethical decision making.
The event also featured a discussion with Maninder Adityaraj Singh, chief of staff and head of innovation at Rediffusion Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd, and Yash Johri, lawyer, Supreme Court of India.
Opening the session, IAA India chapter president Abhishek Karnani, highlighted the need for industries to understand and engage with AI responsibly.
“AI has to be befriended and understood,” added Rediffusion managing director and AIAI national convenor Sandeep Goyal. “Its ethical use will determine whether it becomes a friend or a foe.”
As AI continues to reshape industries and societies, Pradhan ended with a simple but powerful call to action. Businesses, governments and individuals must work together to ensure that the algorithms shaping the future reflect human values rather than just cold logic.
