A final-year MS by Research student at IIIT Hyderabad has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2026 list for co-founding an artificial intelligence-driven startup that seeks to address gaps in India’s special education ecosystem.
Souvik Ghosh, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Cognitii, was recognised in the Social Impact category for developing what the startup describes as an AI and human-support infrastructure aimed at helping institutions identify, support and track children with developmental and learning challenges.
The recognition marks the latest milestone in an unconventional journey that began far from the world of AI research. Growing up in Kolkata, Ghosh became involved in social initiatives addressing issues such as child trafficking and women’s safety while pursuing his engineering degree. These experiences eventually led him to develop AI-based safety solutions and launch his first startup.
“We developed AI-based systems that could detect harassment through CCTV footage. We also built Helpby, a mobile application designed to connect people in distress with nearby verified civilians who could provide immediate assistance,” he recalled.
His interest in artificial intelligence deepened after encountering research from IIIT Hyderabad’s Centre for Visual Information Technology (CVIT), particularly the institute’s widely recognised Wav2Lip project. Unable to enter the institute through conventional routes, Ghosh joined as a research assistant before transitioning into the MS by Research programme.
“I came here and realized how little I knew about AI,” he said. “It burst my bubble in the nicest possible way.”
At IIIT Hyderabad, Ghosh specialised in multimodal AI, an emerging field that combines information from text, images, audio and video. His research includes projects on generating speech from silent lip movements and aligning subtitles with speech when audio is unavailable. Over three years, he has contributed to multiple research papers submitted to leading international conferences.
Alongside research, Ghosh co-founded Cognitii in 2024 with Jhillika Trisal and Falguni Shrivastava. The startup focuses on supporting neurodivergent children, including those with autism, ADHD, dyslexia and intellectual disabilities.
India’s special education ecosystem remains fragmented, with many schools lacking standardised systems for screening, documentation and support. Cognitii aims to address these challenges by helping educators, healthcare professionals and government agencies collaborate through technology-enabled interventions.
According to the founders, the platform creates personalised support plans, tracks developmental progress and provides educators with AI-assisted recommendations while keeping human decision-making at the centre of the process.
“We aim to build a digital data infrastructure layer for these children to have a unique identity, like Aadhaar did for India,” Ghosh said. “Without this data, these children will remain invisible in policy discussions.”
The startup currently works with more than 20 schools and child development centres and is engaging with state governments on potential collaborations.
Reflecting on balancing entrepreneurship and research, Ghosh acknowledged the challenges of managing coursework, publications, product development and stakeholder engagement simultaneously.
“Honestly, I don’t know how I managed it,” he said.
For Ghosh, the work is also deeply personal. He revealed that speech-related difficulties during childhood often left him feeling excluded.
“Maybe that’s one reason this work matters so much to me, because I understand how not being included in a system feels like,” he said.
With his thesis nearing completion, Ghosh plans to continue scaling Cognitii while pursuing AI research focused on real-world impact.
