Microsoft's AI4A backs IWill for developing AI based CBT Mental Health models in local languages

Devisha Batra, Senior Manager and Counselling Psychologist, IWill

In order to accelerate the development of an inclusive and successful Hindi-based AI Mental Health conversation program for the more than 615 million Hindi-speaking users worldwide, IWill has been awarded a new grant from Microsoft's "AI for Accessibility" global program.

WHO estimates that almost 1 billion people worldwide suffer from mental health concerns, still there is a severe lack of effective, affordable, and local language-based mental health help. Given that Hindi is the third-most spoken language in the world, the grant provided to IWill will aid the company in its efforts to close this growing gap between India and overseas, particularly for Hindi language users.

Iwill as an organization is excited to have Microsoft’s support, speaks CEO iWill, Shipra Dawar. Since its inception, the company has worked to develop programs and give solutions that can benefit those experiencing emotional or mental health conditions both in India and overseas.

She mentions “During the pandemic, we started working on Hindi-AI-based mental health CBT solutions that are empathic, effective, and accessible”.

In addition, Microsoft's grant and access to AI expertise and technology will help us advance our research into Hindi-based, tech-enabled mental health solutions to facilitate patient recovery, well-being, and growth.

As a firm, we are delighted to receive the grant and will continue working towards bridging the gap with more language models to reduce the last-mile linguistic gap.

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