WEF Expert Urges India to Integrate AI Literacy into Curriculum and Incentivise Child-Safe AI

Cathy Li, Head of the Centre for AI Excellence at the World Economic Forum, told PTI in an October 2026 interview that India should integrate AI literacy into its education curriculum and use procurement, funding and independent assurance to incentivise companies to invest in child safety. She said AI systems in India need testing across languages, cultural contexts, connectivity levels and digital literacy, with children, educators and caregivers involved. She also referenced a WEF whitepaper titled Children's Safety and Well-Being in the Age of AI: Best Practices and Incentives.

If Indian education or AI governance bodies adopt these recommendations, they would change the preconditions for AI education products entering schools, including multilingual testing, child-rights impact assessments and strong protections on by default. For education product teams, this means AI learning tools for the Indian market would need to be designed by language, connectivity level and age, with children, parents and educators involved in testing. These are currently expert recommendations and whitepaper positions, with no evidence that the Indian government has adopted or implemented them. Compliance and testing requirements for AI education products in India could add multilingual, age-tiered and child-participation steps. If companies respond to the incentives, child-safe design could shift from voluntary practice to a precondition for procurement and funding.