OpenAI names Raghav Gupta to lead its education vertical in India

ChatGPT creator OpenAI has appointed former Coursera MD Raghav Gupta to lead its education vertical in India and the Asia Pacific. Gupta was with Coursera for eight years and in his role, he was heading the edutech firm’s India and Asia Pacific operations.

“There is huge potential to work closely with educators and institutions across India…,” Gupta said in a statement. “We (now) have an opportunity to truly transform education through AI, driving better learning outcomes, while supporting India’s ambitions to be a global leader in AI-enabled education.”

OpenAI also appointed Meta Platforms Inc.’s marketing lead Sheeladitya Mohanty as its marketing lead in India. In the new role, Mohanty would be “driving education, adoption, and responsible use of OpenAI’s products across key audiences to make AI accessible and impactful across India”.

The announcement of the appointments come on the heels of the ChatGPT creator disclosing its plans to set up an office in New Delhi, commencing local hiring in India, and listing three job openings for the same.

At present, OpenAI India has only one employee—Pragya Misra, who leads public policy and partnerships in the country.

OpenAI’s India centric plans in the education sector

·         The government has announced its collaboration with OpenAI for its India AI Mission to tap into the country’s tech talent and developer ecosystem.

·         The Sam Altman-led company has extended a grant of $500,000 to the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, to research how AI can improve learning outcomes and teaching methods.

·         OpenAI has announced the launch of OpenAI Learning Accelerator, an India-first initiative in association with the Union Ministry of Education and All India Council for Technical Education. The idea is to train teachers on using artificial intelligence for scholastic purposes.