The All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), New Delhi, celebrated the sixth Foundation Day of its incubation centre AIIA-iCAINE with several significant announcements aimed at promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in Ayurveda. The center launched AyushTech Innovate: National Open Ayurveda AI Challenge in collaboration with Techfest, IIT Bombay and the Ministry of Ayush. This challenge will leverage IIT Bombay's open-source Ayurveda Large Language Model, AyurParam, to develop trustworthy, transparent, safe, and practical AI solutions addressing challenges in Ayurvedic clinical practice, classical text retrieval, research, treatment planning, and public health awareness. The national grand finale is scheduled for December 15-18, 2026, at IIT Bombay.
AIIA-iCAINE signed two strategic Memoranda of Understanding to strengthen research and commercialization. The MoU with World Ayurveda Foundation establishes "AI in Ay – Secretariat for Artificial Intelligence in Ayurveda" to advance AI-driven research, innovation, and entrepreneurship through joint research, funding proposals, capacity-building programs, hackathons, and startup incubation. The MoU with Reliance Retail Limited (Pahadi Local) focuses on translating classical Ayurvedic knowledge into commercially viable skincare products through formulation advisory, with Reliance handling product development, testing, manufacturing, and marketing.
The institute launched an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Facility for Ayurveda to promote awareness of intellectual property protection and help innovators safeguard their innovations during product development and commercialization. Director Prof. Vd. P. K. Prajapati highlighted the incubator's achievements, noting it has supported 52 problem statements, mentored over 100 startup ideas, and provided seed support of ₹3 lakh each to nine startups. The foundation day also included capacity-building workshops on branding, pricing strategies, and design thinking for Ayurveda ventures, conducted by Reliance Retail's Ms Jessica and AIIA-iCAINE CEO Sujith Eranezhath.
Additional events included a briefing on the Smart India Hackathon (SIH), launch of the Techfest Hackathon, release of Ayupreneur: A Beginner's Glossary, and distribution of grants to SIH 2025 winners. Established on October 29, 2021, under the Ministry of Ayush mandate, AIIA-iCAINE is recognized as India's first public-sector Ayurveda business incubator, supporting Ayurveda-based products, services, and enterprises through mentorship, capacity building, and industry engagement.