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What is people+ai?

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People+ai⁠

is an initiative housed under the

EkStep Foundation⁠

, supported by Nandan & Rohini Nilekani. With innovations like Aadhaar and UPI, we've showcased what's achievable at a population scale. We're now leveraging this expertise to create equally impactful AI solutions.

Our aim is to create solutions that make a difference in people's lives, focusing on building AI for India through community collaboration. We believe in collaborative AI innovation for India.

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People+ai Intro Video

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What does people+ai do?

Building DPIs/DPGs for AI: Develop digital public infrastructure that scales AI use cases to the masses.

Discover, Demonstrate, Disseminate Use Cases: Identify and share population-scale AI use cases.

Community Growth: Build a collaborative community that innovates for AI together.

Championing AI in India Base: Leverage media and content to highlight AI innovations.

People+ai is a small team dedicated to helping you unlock your AI journey. We focus on discovering, demonstrating, and disseminating impactful AI use cases across India.

What are our core values?

Purpose Driven: We believe AI can drive significant change in India. Our vision is shaped by the Adbhut India initiative.

Ecological Mindset: Achieving our goals requires collaboration across government, society, and market sectors.

Bias to Action: We prioritize action over perfection, valuing adoption and tangible progress.

For the Public, in Public: We build openly, inspired by the open-source culture, making our work accessible to everyone.

Why do we work with volunteers?

We believe in building AI for the public, and with the public. People+ai views its community of volunteers and partners as the driving force behind its work. Our community power project teams and play a crucial role in launching new initiatives. Our ability to scale will be determined by the strength of our community in launching and leading project groups.

What else happens within the People+ai Community?

It's not all work — there's plenty of fun too!

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WhatsApp Community

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Events Calendar

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VOLUNTEERING

How do I sign up to volunteer?

CLICK HERE →

Volunteer with People+ai

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What roles can I volunteer in?

CLICK HERE →

Visit Open Roles

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People+ai values purpose-driven individuals with a bias for action. We’re looking for creative thinkers who aren't afraid to innovate and collaborate. You can contribute in various roles!

Project Roles (+generalists)

Project Anchor: Leads the project.

Product: Strategy and use case development.

Business: Market use case and go-to-market strategy.

Development: AI/ML engineers and software developers.

Technical PMs: Write PRDs, process flows, user journeys.

Researchers: User, policy, and market research.

Experts: Provide domain insights and guidance.

Designers: UI/UX design.

Communications: Create videos, blogs, demo features, and conference materials

What is expected of me as a volunteer? (time commitments, work outcomes)

Volunteers join a project with a clear role and help move projects towards a set goal and outcome.

All projects are led by a project anchor and run by a project working group of 5-10 members.

On average, most volunteers engage with us 3–5 hours a week over a 3-6 month project sprint.

Project groups usually meet weekly on an online sync and work towards achieving a project milestone.

People can join or drop off at any point, but do let your project anchor know so that it does not disrupt the progress of the group.

Why should I volunteer with people+ai?

People volunteer for many reasons. Some want to try new jobs or learn about different fields. Others hope to help solve big problems and make a real difference.

Have Fun: Engage in interesting activities outside your daily work.

Make Friends: Connect with a community working on AI in India.

Do Something Meaningful: Contribute to meaningful projects outside your day job.

Impact: Develop AI solutions that could impact millions of people.

Growth: Personal and professional growth is a key success metric for us.

Our volunteers resonate with the people+ai mission and focus areas. Volunteering lets people make friends, learn new things, and meet others in their field. It's a way to grow personally and in their careers.

How can I help people+ai amplify its reach?

Help us grow our community by sharing our content and engaging with our social media presence. Here's how you can contribute:

Follow and interact with our accounts:

LinkedIn⁠

Youtube⁠

Instagram⁠

X/Twitter⁠

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Like, share, and comment on our posts to increase visibility

Tag relevant individuals or organizations in your shares

PROJECTS

Which projects can I volunteer in?

CLICK HERE →

Project Board

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Connect with our team to learn about ongoing projects. While you can volunteer in multiple groups at a time, we encourage volunteers starting out to join one group and get into the flow of projects before onboarding into other projects.

What are the project phases? What does success look like?

A project goes from idea to seedling to working group.

0 to 1 phase — come up with a project idea, validate its feasibility and then build a prototype.

1 to 10 phase — champion a prototype solution, validate it in the market and find early adopters to take it to scale.

In the Idea/Seed stage, ideas are generated and evaluated. Successful ideas move to the Seedling stage, where they are developed into a charter and presented to a council. If approved, they become Working Groups, where ideas are implemented and partnerships are formed.

Success is measured at each stage by criteria such as alignment with the "

Adbhut India⁠

" vision, project scope, team formation, and tangible outcomes. Overall success is determined by real-world impact and how well the project empowers people.

What is the typical project life cycle?

Most groups are innovating and slowly moving from ambiguity to clarity.

Innovation has no fixed formula. We’re all figuring it out and trying to outside the box :)

But here are things to do:

Find a mega problem worth solving — dig and get to the root of it.

Find ways to solve it — does your product really solve the problem?

Crystal-clear objective — can you explain the idea to your grandma?

Build an A team — you didn’t you forget to collaborate, did you?

Write about your ideas — how else with others find out?

Demo your solution to many people — show, don’t tell.

Think Population-Scale — Go-To-Market plan to go big (or go home).

How do project groups work?

All project groups are led by a project anchor and project team. Each member of the team has a role and scope of work. Each project works in a 3-6 month project phase, with a team championing that phase and working towards a plan to achieve the milestone.

Shared Drive: Projects usually have a shared drive for the team to collaborate on. Avoid saving team files on personal drives as this can lead to loss of team knowledge databases.

Google Chat: Most teams work together on a Google chat space as it is easy to share files, maintain conversation history and assign tasks

Google Meet: Weekly team meetings typically happen over google meet. Please accept or reject the invite in advance so that the project anchor can plan accordingly.

Project Updates: All project Anchors will get a fortnightly email to fill out a project update form.

Volunteer Updates: Every month, volunteers will get an email on projects showcases, community highlights, and opportunities to connect

Publish Your Project: We encourage all teams to publish their project in the form of blogs and hosted prototypes on our website once it is ready to go live.

If I have a project idea, what should I do?

A project lifecycle goes from idea to seedling to working group. Fill out this

seedling charter⁠

to move forward from an idea to a seedling.

All seedling charters are reviewed by a group called the “seedling council” that meets and works with a project anchor to refine their idea and evaluate the project plan.

Email your seedling charter to

david@peopleplus.ai⁠

once you have it ready and get a slot booked for the seedling council to review it

COMMUNITY

I found an interesting article/video, how do I share it?

We encourage all volunteers to actively participate in our community's knowledge sharing efforts. Your unique perspectives and discoveries are valuable to the entire People+AI network. Here's how you can contribute:

Share interesting articles: Found a thought-provoking piece on AI ethics, a breakthrough in human-AI collaboration, or an innovative AI application? Share it on our WhatsApp group.

Contribute to ongoing discussions: Engage with posts from other members, offer your thoughts, and ask questions to deepen our collective understanding.

To facilitate this knowledge exchange, join our WhatsApp community:

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Join the People+ai Community

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Your active participation enriches our shared learning experience and helps us stay at the forefront of AI developments

How do I subscribe to people+ai Newsletter?

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Subscribe To Our Newsletter

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