IIT Madras Launches Fellowship In AI For Social Good

Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI (RBCDSAI) collaborated with Narayanan Family Foundation to launch a Fellowship in Artificial Intelligence for Social Good. The objective of this Fellowship is to attract early career AI researchers with exceptional promise to RBCDSAI, IIT Madras.

The Fellows will get a salary on par with an Assistant Professor at IITs and will be primarily drawn from recent PhD graduates or early career researchers in computer science, computational and data sciences, biomedical sciences, management, finance and other engineering branches. 

Funded by the Narayanan Family Foundation, the Fellows will get a salary of Rs. 15 lakh to Rs. 18 lakh (approx. US$ 20,000 - 24,000) per year depending on the experience (equivalent to Assistant Professor’s starting salary at any IIT) for a non-renewable term of three years. The Fellows are also eligible for a one-time research grant of up to Rs. 30 lakh (approx. US$ 40,000).

Highlighting the unique aspects of this Fellowship, Prof B. Ravindran, Head, RBCDSAI-IIT Madras, said, “This fellowship is designed to enable outstanding candidates to establish their independent research profile and to contribute in a significant way to socially relevant AI research.”

Speaking about their objectives in launching this Fellowship, Mr Srinivas Narayanan, Co-Founder, Narayanan Family Foundation, said, “We believe the program can bring significant benefits for society through the advancement of AI, and we are very excited to support it.”

The Fellows are expected to conduct their independent research under the mentorship of the Centre in the area of AI for Social Good and will have access to high-end compute infrastructure and datasets at RBCDSAI. 

Applications are now being accepted. Interested candidates can apply here.