AI Foundry

CEO
aifoundry.ai

Umakant Soni is one of the pioneering AI shapers from India, focused on incubating, investing and co-creating AI for the human centric AI world with more than 16 years of experience in Artificial Intelligence(AI). He is a passionate proponent of “Humanity Centric AI” and its role in transforming human society with AI in a safe way.

He co-founded ARTPARK (AI & Robotics Technology park), a not for profit research park, one of the first ones in India, with an aim to democratize access to AI & Robotics for everyone, and was the founding CEO of ARTPARK.

He is also the chairman of AI foundry, an investment company, focused on “building leapfrog AI ventures for next 6bn users” investing in leading AI companies (KarmaLife.ai, applying AI to financial services for Gig workers, Stempedia, building AI & Robotics innovators out of kids).

Before this, Umakant co-founded pi Ventures (India’s only Artificial Intelligence focused $32 m early-stage venture fund) along with Manish Singhal. He was general partner and part of the investment committee at pi that has backed some of the leading AI companies (Pyxis.ai, applying gen AI to marketing, Wysa (Chatbots for mental wellness), Sigtuple, Applying AI to pathology (www.sigtuple.com), Niramai, Applying AI to early breast cancer detection(www.niramai.com), Locus.sh, and others.

He was also nominated as an expert from India’s side on GPAI (Global Partnership on AI) for innovation and Commercialization group. He also advises Fortune 500 companies in the area of AI strategy, investing and disruption as well. He is a noted keynote speaker on developing impact via AI & deep tech innovations in emerging markets. He has also contributed to Nationa AI strategy for India and in shaping two large mission(NM-ICPS, $0.5bn & IndiaAI Mission $1.25bn) for creating AI innovation ecosystem in India.

He started one of the earliest AI Chatbot company, out of India, called Vimagino, focused on providing emotionally intelligent chatbots to help solve sales and support issues on web and mobile for companies in 2009-10.

He spent the early part of his career as part of Wipro’s Innovation arm conceptualizing BASE, an autonomic process platform, and creating strategies for investment and growth in advanced technologies (focusing on web services and SOA). He is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and enjoys painting abstracts in his spare time.