The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), under the Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in collaboration with Current AI and Kalpa Impact, has launched the VYOMA Innovation Challenge, an innovation initiative to promote the development of open-source, multilingual, voice-first AI solutions that can operate in offline and low-connectivity environments.

The challenge builds on Sunno Sutra, a multilingual, voice-first, open-source handheld AI reference device jointly developed by BHASHINI and Current AI and unveiled at the IndiaAI Impact Summit 2026. Designed as a reference platform, Sunno Sutra combines multilingual language technologies with on-device AI capabilities, enabling conversational AI experiences across Indian languages without dependence on cloud infrastructure.

Amitabh Nag, Chief Executive Officer, Digital India BHASHINI Division said:

“Multilingual AI is not just a technological shift but a public-impact infrastructure for India, enabling inclusive access to services across languages at population scale. BHASHINI is powering this transformation by strengthening the Indian language AI ecosystem and enabling solutions like Suno Sutra that work in low-resource, offline, handheld environments - bringing voice-first, intelligent services to the last mile citizen across regions and languages.”

The VYOMA Innovation Challenge brings together BHASHINI's multilingual AI infrastructure and Current AI's expertise in open-source technologies to encourage the development of practical AI solutions that address challenges related to language accessibility, digital literacy and connectivity.

The challenge invites startups, researchers, students, academic institutions, MSMEs, industry partners and independent innovators to build on and reimagine the Sunno Sutra platform through new use cases, hardware improvements, model optimisation and deployment-ready applications. Participants are also encouraged to explore approaches that make the device smaller, more efficient and better suited for use in diverse field conditions.

Potential applications span sectors such as education, agriculture, healthcare, governance and public service delivery, with a focus on expanding access to AI technologies across India's linguistic and geographic diversity.

The challenge will be conducted in multiple stages beginning with an open application process. Twenty shortlisted teams will receive developer kits and access to the Sunno Sutra platform to build and test their solutions. Participants will also receive technical mentorship from experts associated with BHASHINI and Current AI.

Finalists will showcase their prototypes before an expert jury, with winning teams eligible for prizes worth up to ₹80 lakh and opportunities for deployment with central and state government departments.

The initiative also encourages collaborative participation across the innovation ecosystem, particularly teams bringing together startups, MSMEs, engineers, researchers and academic institutions.

Applications for the VYOMA Innovation Challenge are now open: https://bhashini.gov.in/sahyogi/hackathon/open-handheld-ai

About Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD):

The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), under Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), is India's national initiative for AI-driven multilingual digital inclusion and language technology. Through the National Hub for Language Technology (NHLT), BHASHINI enables scalable speech and text-based AI services across Indian languages for governance, public platforms, and institutions. The platform powers over 800 government websites, processes more than 15 million inferences daily, and supports 36 Indian text languages, 23 Indian voice languages, and 35 international languages. DIBD also drives open-source innovation, multilingual AI research, dataset creation, startup enablement, and academic collaboration, strengthening India's digital public infrastructure ecosystem.

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MSZ