The India AI Impact Summit, held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi from February 16 to 20, is the fourth in a series of landmark international gatherings on artificial intelligence, following summits in Bletchley Park, Seoul, and Paris. Touted as the biggest edition yet, over 250,000 visitors were expected, with more than 300 exhibitors spread across a 70,000-square-metre expo. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the five-day summit, which aims to declare a 'shared roadmap for global AI governance and collaboration.'
For Dhananjay Yadav, CEO of Bengaluru-based AI startup NeoSapien, the summit was a milestone moment - a chance to put India's first patented AI wearable on the world stage, at home. Instead, Day 1 became a nightmare he is now speaking out about.
Yadav arrived at Bharat Mandapam personally invested in the summit's symbolism. "I came genuinely excited," he wrote in a public account of the events. "It was the first time the summit was being hosted in India, and I wanted to show up personally to support the ecosystem and the government's push."
Yadav's harrowing account at the summit
At 12 noon on Day 1, security personnel arrived to sanitise and cordon off the exhibition area ahead of a scheduled 2 PM visit by PM Modi. Yadav says he explained his situation, that he was an exhibitor showcasing a patented Indian AI innovation, and requested to remain at his booth. One officer permitted him to stay. Then a second group of security personnel arrived and ordered everyone out immediately.
"I asked - 'Should we take our wearables?'" Yadav recounted. "They said others are leaving even laptops behind, security will take care."
Trusting the assurance, Yadav complied. He left the devices at the booth.
Six hours later, the wearables were gone
What was expected to be a brief security window stretched far longer than anticipated. The gates remained closed from 12 noon to 6pm - a full six hours. When Yadav and other exhibitors were finally allowed back in, his NeoSapien wearables had vanished.
"We paid for flights, accommodation, logistics and even the booth," Yadav said. "Only to see our wearables disappear inside a high-security zone."
The circumstances surrounding the disappearance raise troubling questions. If the area was under strict VIP-level security during that entire window - accessible only to security personnel and official entourages - the theft could only have occurred from within that controlled perimeter. Yadav posed the question directly, "If only security and official entourage had access, how did this happen?"
He also pointed to what appeared to be a breakdown of coordination between different security teams - the very lapse that led to him leaving his devices unattended in the first place.
What Is NeoSapien - and what was stolen?
NeoSapien is an AI hardware startup that recently secured a patent for the Neo 1 - India's first patented AI-native wearable. Founded in 2024 by Dhananjay Yadav and Aryan Yadav, the company is building what it calls the operating system layer for Personal AI Assistants, a new category of technology designed to integrate seamlessly into everyday life.
The Neo 1 resembles a sleek pendant and packs AI capabilities that set it apart from conventional wearables. It listens, transcribes speech, tags details, links them across sessions, learns the user's voice tone and mood, and organises threads by topic and person - functioning as a second brain, not just a recorder.
The patent protects NeoSapien's proprietary adaptive AI coaching system - a core innovation that transforms long-term user goals into real-time actionable micro-tasks. The startup has attracted significant investor backing, raising $2 million in a seed round led by Merak Ventures, with participation from Anupam Mittal of Shaadi.com, Sameer Mehta of boAt, and Namita Thapar of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, who also invested ₹80 lakhs on Shark Tank India Season 4.
