Building links between the Indian and South African technology sectors: talent, research, adoption and the responsible use of AI.
India runs one of the largest technology workforces in the world. South Africa has the most developed technology sector on its continent, and a shortage of the skills to grow it. The two should be in constant contact, and largely are not.
The Technology and AI Initiative is INDSAF's answer to that. It works on the flow of talent, research and adoption between the two sectors, and on the harder question underneath: how two developing democracies with real inequality should govern artificial intelligence in their own interest rather than importing someone else's settlement.
What it does
The work
Talent and skills
Links between Indian and South African technology talent: exchanges, training partnerships and routes for South African developers into Indian engineering practice, and the reverse.
Research collaboration
Bringing universities and research groups in both countries together on shared problems, from health systems to agriculture to public service delivery.
AI adoption
Helping organisations in both countries adopt AI usefully, with an honest account of what it does not do, aimed at firms without a research budget.
Policy and governance
A forum on how India and South Africa approach AI governance, data protection and digital public infrastructure, and where a common position serves both.
Both directions
It runs each way
Every INDSAF programme is bilateral by design. Neither country is the default origin.
India to South Africa
Indian technology capacity, engineering depth and digital public infrastructure experience applied to South African problems.
South Africa to India
South African research, market access and its own hard-won lessons in building technology for an unequal society, brought into Indian practice.
Who it is for
Come to this if you are
- Technology companies in either country
- Founders building AI and software products
- Universities and research groups
- Engineers and developers seeking exchange
- Policymakers working on AI and data governance
Working in technology across the two countries?
The initiative is being shaped now. Tell us what you build and where you would like it to reach.