India AI Impact Summit 2026: ODET Side Events
India AI Impact Summit 2026: ODET Side Events
Context
The India AI Impact Summit 2026, anchored in the principles of People, Planet, and Progress, will focus on how artificial intelligence can advance humanity, support inclusive growth, and safeguard the shared global commons.
In this context, the United Nations Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (ODET) is hosting high-level side events in the margins of the Summit. These sessions will bring together senior leaders and experts to examine the role of scientific evidence in international AI governance, approaches to strengthening safeguards for children’s safety and wellbeing, and how AI can reshape global development beyond the SDGs.
To register for India AI Impact Summit 2026, including ODET Side Events, visit the Summit’s official website.
The Role of Science in International AI Governance
This session examines how scientific evidence and independent expertise can strengthen global approaches to safe and trusted artificial intelligence governance. It explores the role of evaluation, benchmarking, and research in informing policy, regulation, and international cooperation. The discussion also considers how advances in AI are reshaping scientific discovery and the governance challenges this creates, highlighting practical pathways to embed science-based insight into transparent, trusted, and coordinated AI governance frameworks.
Welcoming Remarks
- António Guterres — Secretary-General, United Nations
Keynote
- Brad Smith — Vice Chair and President, Microsoft
Firestarter
- Anil Ananthaswamy — Science Journalist and Author
- Yoshua Bengio — Mila, Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute
Panel
- Amandeep Singh Gill — Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies, United Nations (Moderator)
- Ajay Kumar Sood — Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India
- Anne Bouverot — Special Envoy for Artificial Intelligence, Government of France
- Balaraman Ravindran — Professor, Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI, IIT Madras
- Soumya Swaminathan — Former Chief Scientist, World Health Organization
Closing Remarks
- Josephine Teo — Minister for Digital Development and Information, Singapore
AI and Children’s Safety and Wellbeing
Children are increasingly interacting with AI systems that shape learning, play, information, and social connection. This session examines how children’s rights, safety, and wellbeing can be protected as AI scales across digital environments. The discussion focuses on practical governance, design, and accountability approaches that translate global norms into real protections. Emphasis is placed on child-centric design, transparency, safeguards against harm, and policy choices that support long-term social empowerment.
Opening
- Amandeep Singh Gill — Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies, United Nations
Featured Address
- Raul John Aju — “AI Kid of India”
Panel
- Chris Lehane — Chief Global Affairs Officer, OpenAI
- Baroness Joanna Shields — Responsible AI Future Foundation
- Maria Bielikova — Director, Kempelen Institute of Intelligent Technologies
- Megan L. Garcia — Activist Against Chatbot Harm
- Thomas Davin — Director, Office of Innovation, UNICEF
- Tom Hall — Vice President and General Manager, LEGO Education
- Urvashi Aneja — Director, Digital Futures Lab
High-Level Townhall: How AI Will Reshape Global Development Beyond the SDGs
From a deadline mindset to long-term development transformation
As the 2030 deadline approaches amid mounting economic, social, and geopolitical pressures, this session reframes global development not as a race to meet targets, but as a structural transformation already underway. This session brings together leaders from global finance, philanthropy, technology, and government, examining how AI can expand productivity, strengthen state capacity, and unlock long-term development pathways, while addressing risks of exclusion, fragmentation, and inequality.
Video Opening Remarks
- Amina Mohammed — Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations
Speakers
- Amandeep Singh Gill — Under-Secretary-General, United Nations Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies
- Anne Neuberger — Special Advisor to a16z, Andreessen Horowitz
- Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink — Director, AI & Social Impact, Google
- Claire Melamed — Vice President, United Nations Foundation
- Doreen Bogdan-Martin — Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union
- Flavia Alves — Director, Head of International Institutions, Meta
- Kamal Kishore — Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction
- Komal Sharma Talwar — Founder, XLSCOUT
- Osama Manzar — Founder and Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation
- Paula Bogantes Zamora — Minister of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications, Costa Rica
- Robert Opp — Chief Digital Officer, Digital, AI & Innovation Hub, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
- Samir Saran — President, Observer Research Foundation
- Sangbu Kim — Vice President, Digital Development, World Bank
- Shankar Maruwada — CEO and Co-founder, EkStep
- Surya Ganguli — Associate Professor of Applied Physics, Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI
- Vilas Dhar — President, McGovern Foundation
- Volker Türk — High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations
Disclaimer
Registrations are closed. Additional participants are unable to be accommodated at this stage.
Shaping the Next Steps on Global AI Governance Together: Discussion with the Global Dialogue on AI Governance Co-Chairs
Convened by the Co-Chairs of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, H.E. Ms. Egriselda López, Permanent Representative of El Salvador to the United Nations, and H.E. Mr. Rein Tammsaar, Permanent Representative of Estonia to the United Nations
Focus of the Multi-stakeholder Consultation
The consultation will focus on how the Global Dialogue can serve as a convergence point for existing global and regional AI governance efforts, enabling structured exchange across initiatives and greater interoperability of approaches.
In particular, participants will be invited to reflect on how the Dialogue can help link political commitments and technical work emerging from government-led AI summits and other expert-driven processes with global AI governance mechanisms under the auspices of the UN.
Registration
Please register by 14 Feb. Registration may close without prior notice once capacity is reached.
Taking the Floor
Participants wanting to take the floor will be requested to fill out a short form during the session.
Co-hosting
The event will take place in the margins of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 and will be co-hosted by the Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in India, in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies.
Multilateralism and the Future of AI
Convened by India International Centre (IIC)
Keynote
- Amandeep Singh Gill — United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies