The TOI Social Impact Summit 2026 examined how technology, AI, education, healthcare and community-led action can help create more equitable and resilient development.Technology can help bridge India’s education divide, artificial intelligence must serve as an enabler, and inclusion must go beyond numerical targets, speakers said at the TOI Social Impact Summit 2026.The two-day summit brought together experts from education, healthcare, technology, civil society and business to explore how social-impact initiatives can become more accessible, locally relevant and sustainable.Technology can help bridge the education divideAt the session on making education accessible, equitable and inclusive, panellists challenged the idea that technology is inherently elitist or exclusionary.Pranav Kothari, CEO of Educational Initiatives, said technology should not be seen as a replacement for teachers. Educators remain essential for inspiration, values, debates, experiments and project-based learning.However, technology can help address the continuity gap in education. While Indian schools operate for about few days a year and students attend school for roughly 140 days, digital tools can help learning continue throughout the year.B V R Mohan Reddy, Founder Chairman and Board Member of Cyient, said adaptive learning platforms could allow children to learn at their own pace instead of following classroom structures designed primarily for front-bench students.He cautioned against fear of artificial intelligence, saying the real divide in the future could be between those who understand and use AI and those who do not.Cyient adopted government schools, where the share of female students rose from 16-18% to 56%. Dropouts fell to about 2%, while the intervention also expanded to include AI labs, skilling and employment-linked training.Abdul Salam KP, Vice-Chairman of Malabar Gold & Diamonds, spoke about children from urban slums who remained out of school even after schools reopened following the Covid lockdowns.This led to the creation of slum micro-learning centres offering teachers, uniforms, books and meals. Children without documents were also assisted in entering the formal school system. The network has grown to around 2,500 centres serving approximately 1.2 lakh children every day.Gayatri Nair Lobo, CEO of Educate Girls, said enrolment was only the first step. Poverty, missing documents, domestic work, early marriage and the distance to secondary schools continue to push adolescent girls out of education.For every 100 primary schools in India, she said, there are only 20 senior secondary schools. Through open-schooling programmes, Educate Girls is helping young women return to education. One student who resumed her studies after a 10-year break went on to top the Class 10 examinations in Madhya Pradesh.
Healthcare access remains unequalThe session on ‘Health Equity and Access: Using Partnerships to Strengthen Primary Care’ examined the continuing rural-urban gap in healthcare delivery.Dr Aparna Hegde, Founder and Managing Trustee of ARMMAN; Rizwan Koita, Chairperson of the Board, National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare; Dr Shibu Vijayan, Chief Medical Officer – Global Health, Qure.ai; and Tushara Shankar, Head – CSR and Head of Lupin Foundation, Lupin Limited, participated in the discussion.Specialist care remains unevenly distributed, often forcing patients in underserved regions to travel long distances. The panellists highlighted the potential of partnerships, telemedicine, AI-led diagnostics and decentralised primary healthcare networks to improve access.Young people want a greater role in India’s futureThe session on youth inclusion brought together Ariana Agarwal, Co-Founder and Product Lead, Plas-Stick; Kayden Anthony, Wildlife Biologist; Shubh Mehta, Co-Founder, Change is Us; and Unnathi Surana, UNICEF India Youth Advocate.The discussion examined how young people can participate more meaningfully in shaping India’s corporate and social future.Surana articulated the expectations of young leaders:“Ten years from now, I don’t just want to see more young people at a table. I want to see tables that were built differently because we were there.”Inclusion must translate into ownershipPanellists at the session on scaling inclusion argued that inclusion must go beyond numerical targets and quotas. It must give communities genuine ownership and representation.Chetna Sinha, Founder of Mann Deshi Bank & Foundation, shared the story of a rural woman named ‘Nakusa’, meaning ‘Unwanted’, who overcame extreme marginalisation and succeeded in getting her name recorded on 7/12 land extracts.Liby T Johnson, Executive Director of Gram Vikas, Odisha, cautioned corporations against imposing urban measures of success on rural women.“Many women may prefer a modest but reliable income they can control rather than pursuing bigger enterprises,” he said.Rachana Iyer, Head – CSR, IDFC FIRST Bank, spoke about programmes for marginalised groups, including rural women, people with disabilities and neurodivergent individuals.Rekha Pillai, Head – CSR, Castrol India, highlighted corporate-NGO partnerships that have supported more than six lakh people working in the unorganised sector.Disaster management must move from response to resilience
India is gradually moving from an approach focused only on disaster relief and emergency response towards mitigation and resilience, said Sudarshan Suchi, Chief Development Officer at Reliance Foundation.Speaking at the session on rebooting development for disaster resilience, Suchi said risk-informed planning could help reduce the impact of disasters while strengthening communities’ ability to cope with and recover from natural hazards.Reliance Foundation’s disaster management programme works across several states and increasingly focuses on community-led initiatives.Samhita R, Founding CEO of Resilience360, explained how artificial intelligence and large language models could provide quick, hyperlocal climate-risk assessments.Such tools, she said, could help communities and administrators make better decisions and build “future-proof communities.”AI must be an enabler, not a replacementThe session on ‘Architecting Inclusive Futures: Navigating the Intersection of Tech, AI, and Social ESG Pillars’ examined how technology can be adapted to local needs.Aniket Doegar, Co-Founder and CEO of Haqdarshak, spoke about using technology to help people access more than 20,000 government schemes and cash transfers. AI, he said, could address information asymmetry and simplify access to welfare benefits.Gautam Khanna, CEO of Maker Bhavan Foundation, highlighted innovation laboratories in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, where young engineers use AI to create, prototype, patent and commercialise physical products.Jyoti Sharma, CEO of Nasscom Foundation, and Richa Gautam, Director – CSR and Sustainability, Schneider Electric’s Greater India Zone, emphasised that AI must supplement foundational technical skills and educators.S Senthilkumaran, Head – Platforms and Applications at Reliance Foundation, explained how AI was being used to convert Indian Meteorological Department weather updates into advisories in local languages and across formats including audio and video.AI can help teachers reach more students, panellists said, but should not make teachers irrelevant.Communities must lead climate and environmental actionThe summit also featured a discussion on how corporates can support community-led initiatives for climate, water and environmental conservation.The session brought together Alok Mehta, Group Chief Governance Officer, InterGlobe Enterprises; Dr Geetanjoy Sahu, Professor and Dean, School of Habitat Studies, and Chairperson, Centre for Climate Change & Sustainability Studies, TISS; Kiran Sarkar, Head Sustainability – M&M Automotive & Farm Equipment Sector, Mahindra & Mahindra; Sangeeta Mamgain, Senior Core Team Member and Lead, School of Climate and Sustainability, Piramal Foundation; and Smitha Gopalakrishnan, Asia Sustainability Leader and India CSR Leader, 3M.The discussion placed community participation at the centre of climate and environmental action, while examining the role of corporate partnerships, sustainability leadership and local institutions in addressing water and ecological challenges.Building a city sustainablyThe session on ‘Building a City Sustainably: Growth, Resilience and Liveability’ featured Ashwini Bhide, Municipal Commissioner, BMC.Bhide underlined the importance of public participation in urban development.“Participation does not mean that every citizen will decide whether a project will take place or how it should be executed. But it means making citizens feel that this is my city, this is my project,” she said.Her observation reflected a larger theme running through the summit, that development is more effective and sustainable when communities feel a sense of ownership over the places and initiatives that affect their lives.A more inclusive approach to developmentAcross the summit, speakers explored how innovation, partnerships and community-led action can come together to address some of India’s most pressing social challenges.From education and healthcare to climate resilience, youth participation, welfare access and urban development, the discussions underscored the importance of solutions that are inclusive, locally relevant and built to last.The summit highlighted a shift in how social impact must be approached, from delivering solutions for communities to creating solutions with them, with participation, ownership and accountability at the centre.Disclaimer: This article is part of a brand initiative by TOI in partnership with Malabar Gold & Diamonds and Reliance Foundation.