Beyond Metros, This Organisation is Building AI Skills for India's Rural Graduates

India produces some of the world's largest numbers of engineering graduates each year, yet a growing body of evidence suggests the country is falling behind in the race to build a workforce equipped with artificial intelligence skills. A 2024 report by the Nasscom Foundation found that fewer than 10% of Indian students at the school level had any structured exposure to AI concepts. Meanwhile, industry hiring surveys consistently point to a widening gap between what companies need and what fresh talent can deliver.

The problem is not confined to technical depth. It’s also about the absence of basic familiarity in classrooms where AI remains a term without context, and in communities where technology has historically arrived late, if at all.

Manav Subodh, Founder and CEO of 1M1B (One Million for One Billion), an organisation focused on AI skills, sees the problem as structural. 

"The challenge begins with unequal starting points," he tells AIM. "Across India, young people carry very different levels of access to devices, institutions, language support, mentorship, and exposure. Alongside that, there is often a psychological gap. AI can feel distant, elite, urban, or threatening, especially for first-generation learners and communities that have historically been excluded from frontier technologies."

1M1B was founded in 2014 on the premise that scale in India requires working through public systems and local relevance, not around them. The Bengaluru-headquartered organisation looks to utilise AI tools for solving problems that communities already care about—crop prediction, access to health services, climate-linked livelihoods, etc.

"We begin with the problems people care about in their own communities, then introduce AI as a tool for insight, efficiency, creativity, and action," Subodh says. "That is why our learners do not experience AI as an abstract layer sitting outside life. They encounter it through use cases they can relate to."

Student Outreach

One of 1M1B's more visible interventions has been at the school level. In partnership with IBM SkillsBuild, the organisation developed an AI elective curriculum now offered to Class 11 and 12 students in CBSE schools, aligned with the National Education Policy 2020. The intent was to bring structured AI learning into the formal school system, rather than leaving it to isolated initiatives or private institutions.

At the state level, the organisation is one of the partners of a programme called AI Pragya run by the government of Uttar Pradesh, working within government school systems to reach students who fall outside the first wave of technology access. 

For post-school learners, 1M1B launched YuvAI in November 2024, a programme that introduces students to open-source models and practical AI workflows. Since its launch, the initiative has trained 15,000 students and 300 faculty members, supported the creation of 200 AI innovation use cases, and helped five AI startups with growth targets. The target for 2027 is to reach 100,000 students, train 1,500 faculty members, create 1,000 use cases, and support 10 startups.

Democratising AI Access

The organisation has also contributed to India's open AI ecosystem through the GenAI Resource Hub, developed in partnership with Meta and integrated with the national AI platform AIKosh. The hub is intended to help learners move from understanding concepts to building with them. 1M1B currently ranks 11th among the top contributing organisations on the AIKosh leaderboard.

Separately, in partnership with Microsoft and the MeitY Startup Hub, the organisation is running Green Skills and Applied AI Centre of Excellence—an attempt to link AI capability to climate-connected work and rural livelihoods.

None of this has been without friction. Subodh is candid about the limits of what technology alone can achieve. "Adoption depends heavily on whether educators, families, and institutions understand the relevance of AI in everyday life. When that context is missing, AI is seen as a buzzword. When the context is present, it becomes a pathway," he says.

The organisation has found that the speed of adoption in a community tracks closely with how local the use case is. 

"The fastest way to democratise AI is to localise it," Subodh explains. "When young people see AI connected to farming, health access, climate resilience, jobs, or entrepreneurship, curiosity rises quickly. Once they see usefulness, confidence follows."

The question of corporate partnerships is one that Subodh returns to repeatedly. Companies across sectors are struggling to hire people who can work with AI tools in applied settings. But the talent they need is not coming through existing pipelines in sufficient numbers.

"India's AI talent challenge will require much deeper collaboration between industry and organisations that work close to the ground," Subodh says. "The future lies in co-creating pathways much earlier. Capstone projects, even at the school level, need industry definition and participation so young people begin solving relevant problems early. We need intervention at the school stage, not only at the college or university level."

For the millions of young people in tier-2 and beyond cities, as well as in rural districts, the risk of being left further behind is real. Subodh's message to young people is direct. 

"Begin before you feel fully ready. Begin before you understand everything. Begin before fear convinces you to postpone." 

He is also clear that the goal is not to turn every student into a machine learning engineer. "Most people do not need to become creators of AI. The demand will be enormous for people who know how to apply AI meaningfully in their own domain. That means familiarity, adaptability, judgment, and the confidence to use these tools well," he adds.

Whether India closes its AI skills gap will depend on whether it is taken seriously by the systems and institutions that shape what young people learn, and when.