Wadhwani Foundation to help create new jobs, upgrade skills, and strengthen entrepreneurs in 15 Indian cities
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US-based Wadhwani Foundation will realign and spread its operations in India to maximise the impact of its work towards creating new jobs, supporting local entrepreneurship, and skilling human resources.
The not-for-profit organisation founded by Indian-American billionaire Romesh Wadhwani will now have direct presence in 15 cities across five states to support its national platforms -- the National Skills Platform, the National Entrepreneur Platform, and the National Placement Platform -- to create more local jobs and more local people placed into jobs, says Dr. Ajay Kela, CEO and Board member, Wadhwani Foundation.
The 15 priority city ecosystems are in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu.
“Our mission is to create jobs and improve livelihoods at scale. Building on strong momentum in 2025, we are increasing investment and expanding our India team in 2026 to strengthen execution across states and cities. This will accelerate outcomes, creating more jobs locally and placing more job-ready people into them, as we progress toward our 2030 goals”, Kela says.
Focus of the foundation
The foundation’s focus is on scaling outcomes through stronger execution, ensuring that national platforms translate into local impact. This approach is expected to enable faster execution, clearer accountability, and closer alignment between local employers, skilling institutions, and job outcomes.
According to Kela, in 2025, the foundation invested ₹300 crore in India, supported 7,000 businesses, engaged 1.2 lakh entrepreneurship students, and made 2.5 lakh youth job-ready through employability-linked skilling. In addition to this, it also launched an AI-enabled My Career Advisor platform with the Ministry of Education, offering free, personalised career guidance to youth across 1,500+ career options.
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Under innovation, the foundation strengthened the Wadhwani Innovation Network, enabling 10 Innovation Translation Centres, including two Super Hubs at IIT Kanpur (Wadhwani AI and Intelligent Systems Hub) and IIT Bombay (Wadhwani Health and Bio Hub). Together, these hubs support over 50 translation centres each across the innovation ecosystem. Overall, 100 research projects were advanced toward product and startup pathways.
AI projects
AI projects were delivered for six central ministries; ASHA (Anna Sahayata Holistic AI Solution) was launched to enable feedback from Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries; and 30+ AI solutions were deployed across healthcare, agriculture, and education, the foundation says.
Kela says the foundation will increase India investment by 25% in 2026 and grow its India team by 10%, to expand state- and city-level execution teams and deepen partnerships with governments, institutions, employers, and local ecosystems. The Foundation's national platforms will continue to provide scale and consistency, while state and city teams will drive delivery, coordination, and accountability on the ground.