New Delhi [India], July 19 (ANI): Gates Foundation India released a video on July 1, spotlighting the Aaroogya AI Foundation and its work in AI-driven wellness for underserved women. Part of the Women Changemakers series, the video has garnered over 8 million views, sparking widespread public engagement with more than 40,000 likes and over 1,000 shares across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, according to a release.
The name Aaroogya comes from the Sanskrit word Arogya, which means holistic health – a state of complete well-being, free from illness in body, mind, and spirit. True to its name, Aaroogya’s model blends grassroots healthcare delivery with advanced AI, making preventive, personalised care accessible to women in low-resource settings.
The five-minute video captures the foundation’s impact since its inception in 2017: training over 4,000 community health workers, screening more than 135,000 women across India and Africa, and detecting 1,759+ early-stage cases of breast cancer, PCOS, diabetes, and anemia.
The Aaroogya AI Foundation was co-founded by Dr. Priyanjali Datta, a former medical student turned tech entrepreneur and product growth leader, and Dr. Dhruv Kacker, a former medical practitioner and Johns Hopkins alumnus. As the initiative grew, Shyanjali Datta, Priyanjali’s sister, joined the leadership and now serves as Co-founder and CEO. The timing of the video’s release also carried deep personal meaning: it premiered on July 1st, the birthday of co-founders Priyanjali and Shyanjali Datta’s father, Sanjit Datta, Aaroogya’s first believer and donor. The video also honours their mother Jhuma Datta’s ongoing journey with Essential Thrombocytosis, a rare blood disorder that revealed systemic gaps in early detection and access to care.
As Aaroogya’s Founding Partner and first CEO, Priyanjali led the creation of its AI-powered women’s health platform and helped scale the initiative across India and Africa. She now serves as an advisor to Aaroogya and is currently the Chief Growth Officer at Omnivations (formerly Virtual Sonics Inc.), an immersive media company, where she leads product marketing and strategic partnerships. With over nine years of experience across healthcare, technology, and media, her work has been recognized and funded by institutions including the Millennium Alliance (USAID, UK-DFID, Meta, FICCI, and India’s Department of Science & Technology), Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, HDFC SmartUp, The/Nudge Institute, Cisco, PepsiCo India, One Young World with Novartis, and the Mulago Foundation, according to the release.
“Our journey with Aaroogya has always been personal,” Priyanjali shares. “My sister Shyanjali was born with a rare condition and went through some of the most complex surgeries. That experience shaped our urgency to build better systems – more compassionate, more connected. AI today isn’t just a tool, it’s a new form of intelligence. And we’re only beginning to grasp what that shift could mean for care.”
As CEO, Shyanjali Datta has led the development and rollout of MyHealthline, an AI-powered platform that enables community health workers to deliver proactive care and has demonstrated a 3X social return in cost-effective health outcomes. With a background in UX research, AI system design, and product strategy, she has held roles at Spinny and served as a senior product advisor at Travlo. Her work focuses on building emotionally aware systems that are simple, accessible, and grounded in real-world needs.
“Aaroogya was born from the urgency we felt during our mother’s battle with Essential Thrombocytosis – a glaring gap in research, diagnostics, and integrated care for women,” says Shyanjali Datta. “It wasn’t just about building technology, but about creating proactive, connected systems of care. In this next chapter, we’re designing AI that doesn’t just process data – it truly understands people, with ethics, empathy, privacy, and respect at its core.”
As Aaroogya enters its next chapter, it stands as both a tribute and a challenge: a tribute to the families, frontline workers, and women who shaped its journey and a challenge to the systems that have long failed them. From door-to-door screenings to designing scalable AI systems, Aaroogya continues to show that when empathy meets engineering, real impact follows.
The foundation is now led by the Datta sisters, with Dr. Dhruv Kacker continuing to serve as an advisor. They’ve joined forces with a cross-continental team of Indian-origin professionals based in California and India – all united by a shared mission to reimagine healthcare for women at scale. Together, they are bridging Silicon Valley innovation with India’s public health system, building solutions grounded in lived experience and reshaping how social infrastructure can serve the next billion:
Anirban Ghosh, who leads product and technology at Aaroogya, is a multidisciplinary technologist working at the intersection of design, engineering, and healthcare. He has developed impactful solutions ranging from self-serve clinics at Forward to infant care devices at GE Healthcare, all focused on expanding access to quality care. His ventures – including a chronic care platform launched at Harvard – reflect a strong commitment to health equity and last-mile innovation.
Medha Jaishankar, President of Omnivations (formerly Virtual Sonics Inc.), joins Aaroogya’s advisory board with a deep commitment to human-centered innovation, storytelling, and global impact. A former BBC camera operator and producer, she is an award-winning filmmaker and media technologist who has led large-scale partnerships with companies including Sony and Safran. A member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, Medha also brings personal insight as someone navigating endometriosis, PCOS, and Hashimoto’s.
Neha Goel, a former Senior AI Engineer at Microsoft, brings over 17 years of experience in responsible AI, enterprise healthcare systems, and global deployment. She has led OpenAI and LLM strategy for Fortune 500 clients, served on healthtech startup boards, and currently mentors early-stage ventures as an Expert Mentor for Microsoft for Startups.
Purva Pruthi Ghosh, a machine learning researcher and AI resident at Google Labs, holds a PhD from UMass Amherst. Her work in compositional reasoning, causal AI, and modular architectures adds deep research rigor and long-term vision to Aaroogya’s AI development roadmap. (ANI)
Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed of ANI; only the image & headline may have been reworked by News Services Division of World News Network Inc Ltd and Palghar News and Pune News and World News
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