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ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2025

United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. This year, 60,000+ young leaders applied to join the Class of 2025 on 7,000+ campuses across 170 nations. 290+ campuses worldwide (less than 5%) were selected to host the 4,500+ Millennium Fellows.

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UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT RAJSHEKHAR SATISH UPADHYAY, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW AND CAMPUS DIRECTOR FOR THE CLASS OF 2025.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur | Kharagpur, India | Advancing SDG 1, SDG 10 & UNAI 3

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" The fellowship grants the credibility that will help me get more talent to collaborate on my project and develop a highly scalable and impactful solution. "

Millennium Fellowship Project: AI for Financial Literacy in Rural India

If you were to ask your parents where they keep their extra money or savings, they would intuitively say, "a bank.". This is not true for 4/10 Indians living in rural areas. During emergencies, they have to rely on informal credit sources charged at unrealistic interest rates that prey on their lack of financial literacy. Those who have a bank account, the reality is not as rosy. 1/3 of accounts opened during a government drive were found dormant in a 2021 survey by the Reserve Bank of India. This problem of financial illiteracy inhibits household economic growth, social security, and the equity of opportunities. To tackle this, I am working on an app that uses cutting-edge GenAI models to create avatars and video/text modules that are highly engaging, available in regional languages, and aim to impart knowledge about fundamental financial concepts like numeracy skills, savings, interest, and judicious usage of credit. I knew that the solution could not be costly to build; otherwise, it would be scrapped by various authorities, because ultimately, financial inclusion is a very long-term objective that does not align with most government tenures. Using AI for development and deployment, the costs can be cut down massively.

About the Millennium Fellow

Rajshekhar Satish Upadhyay is an undergraduate student at the Agricultural and Food Engineering dept. of IIT Kharagpur, India. He is passionate about researching novel ideas to concurrent problems and building efficient systems with interdisciplinary knowledge of his team. Through the fellowship, he is trying to empower Rural Indians to access financial knowledge about different credit, savings products that can drive social mobility for the bottom 50%. He thinks technology and advent of AI can truly democratize tech-for-good at the last mile. Equipped with the right skills and tools, he and his team are all set to take on one of the most persistent challenges in Indian society.

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