When the Government of India launched Yuva.ai - a mobile-first AI literacy platform developed in partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) - it was not just another digital initiative. Behind it was a curriculum years in the making, built by AI&Beyond, a company that has spent the better part of a decade trying to answer a deceptively simple question - does the average Indian understand what AI actually is?
Jaspreet Bindra, Co-Founder and CEO of AI&Beyond, sat down with Free Press Journal on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi - billed as the first major AI summit in the Global South - to talk about what it took to build Yuva.ai, why most AI literacy programmes get it wrong, and why he believes the future belongs to those who question, not those who simply consume.
'AI summit signals a shift'
For Bindra, the Summit itself was symbolic. "For decades technology conversations were defined in Silicon Valley and then interpreted for the rest of the world. Artificial intelligence changes that because its deepest impact will be in countries like India," he said.
The distinction he draws between how advanced economies and India approach AI is telling. While the West debates productivity gains, India's priorities lie elsewhere. "In India it is closer to inclusion. We are thinking about students learning in their own language, farmers receiving advisory, health workers making better decisions and small businesses becoming competitive."
He sees India transitioning from being a follower in global tech discourse to a co-author of it - and believes platforms like Yuva.ai are part of that shift.
Where Yuva.ai came from
The origin of Yuva.ai is rooted in a gap AI&Beyond kept encountering during its corporate and university literacy sessions. Young people were already using AI - just without understanding its limits. That observation eventually made its way into conversations with MeitY, and a shared vision took shape - India needed population-scale AI literacy, the same way digital literacy once drove internet adoption.
"The intention was not to launch a tool but to build a national learning ecosystem," Bindra said. Considerable time went into curriculum design, pedagogy, language accessibility and responsible use frameworks before the platform saw daylight.
The platform is mobile-first by design - because in India, the smartphone is the most democratic device available. It targets schools, colleges, and community ecosystems, though Bindra is careful to clarify that this doesn't mean three separate products. "We design one learning philosophy with multiple pathways." A school learner focuses on safe and aware use; a college student explores applications; a community learner - a farmer, a shopkeeper, a health worker - understands how AI improves their specific livelihood.
What AI literacy actually means
Here is where Bindra diverges from many in the space. When asked about the common criticism that AI literacy programmes essentially teach people to use ChatGPT, he is direct. "We focus on concepts rather than tools. Tools will change rapidly. If someone only learns a specific platform the knowledge becomes obsolete quickly."
The real goal, he argues, is judgment. "People should know what AI can do, where it fails and when to trust or question an output." Prompting, in Yuva.ai's framework, is taught as structured thinking - not as a trick to get better answers from a specific chatbot. Verification is taught as a habit. Ethics as a responsibility. "Coding is optional. Thinking is essential."
The Tier 2 and Tier 3 question
Bindra is deliberate about where Yuva.ai begins its scaling journey. "We deliberately start beyond the major metros. India's opportunity lies in broad adoption." English, he insists, cannot be the gatekeeper of AI literacy. Language accessibility is central to the platform's design.
Rather than expecting learners to discover the platform independently, Yuva.ai embeds itself within existing networks - educational institutions, community organisations, government ecosystems. And critically, it bets on teachers as its real multiplier. "When teachers experience AI as an assistant rather than a competitor their confidence increases," he said, adding that the platform's educator training is aimed at augmentation, not bypassing.
On job cutss, and why preparation matters more than optimism
On the contested question of whether AI creates or destroys jobs, Bindra lands somewhere nuanced. He broadly agrees with the optimism - "historically technology creates more jobs than it eliminates" - but is quick to add that transitions are disruptive and the burden falls on education and reskilling to move fast enough. "Technology alone does not create opportunity. People equipped to use technology do."
Yuva.ai, he says, is specifically built to serve non-tech careers - teachers, healthcare workers, entrepreneurs, service providers. Summarising information, communicating with customers, analysing simple data, creating local language content - these are the use cases the platform leads with, because these are the use cases that actually move livelihoods.
The one misunderstanding he wants to correct
Asked what young Indians most misunderstand about AI today, Bindra doesn't hesitate. "Many believe AI removes the need to learn. In reality it rewards deeper learning." AI produces fluent answers, he points out, but not guaranteed truth. Without curiosity and critical thinking, users become passive consumers rather than empowered ones.
"AI is best seen as a thinking partner. Those who question, explore and verify will benefit the most. The future belongs not to those who avoid learning but to those who learn continuously with AI as an assistant."
