Meghalaya inspired voice-tech wins top prize at Harvard AI

Shillong, April 29: A pathbreaking voice-tech solution inspired by the challenges of rural Meghalaya has won the first prize at the prestigious AI for Good Hackathon hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School. The project, MEGHA (Meghalaya E-Governance Human-centered Assistance), was designed to bridge the gap between government services and citizens living in remote, underserved regions—starting with the Northeast.

MEGHA is a toll-free, AI-powered platform that works on any basic mobile phone. It allows people to access government schemes and information using simple voice commands in their local language—no smartphones or internet required.

The MEGHA team is made up of distinguished Indian public leaders and technologists currently at Harvard:

Manish Maheshwari, former Head of Twitter India, co-founder of an AI startup, and a Harvard Fellow focused on using AI for public impact.
Dr. Aarushi Jain, Policy Director at Bharti Institute of Public Policy.
Mohammed Y Safirulla K, IAS officer with expertise in digital governance.
Manudev Jain, IRS officer and Harvard student.
Ashish Tiwari, IPS officer and Fulbright Scholar.
In a post after the win, Maheshwari reflected: “MEGHA is not about building something flashy—it’s about solving something real. The true power of AI is in unlocking dignity and opportunity for the people who are most often left behind.”

Dr. Aarushi Jain added: “We grounded MEGHA in the voices of rural citizens from places like Meghalaya, where geography and digital divides create barriers to access. Every response MEGHA gives is rooted in verified official documents, delivered in simple, spoken language.”

The Harvard-hosted hackathon, centered on advancing AI for Digital Inclusion, recognized MEGHA for demonstrating how technology can be shaped around people—not the other way around. It aligns with India’s larger vision of Digital India and Minimum Government, Maximum Governance, offering a model that could be replicated in other underserved regions.

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