Siddharth Ravinutala: Building AI-for-Good Solutions

Ladderworks is a publishing platform of diverse picture books and online curriculum with the mission to empower over a million kids to become social entrepreneurs. Our current series features interviews by our interplanetary journalist Spiffy with inspiring Social Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Builders, and Changemakers who are advancing the UN SDGs.

Hi friends, it’s Spiffy, back again on Planet Earth with an eye on entrepreneurs making the world a more equitable place! I have one more interview for you this week. Today I’m excited to cruise around with Siddharth Ravinutala, chief data scientist at IDinsight. Are you ready to be inspired?

Spiffy: Hi Sid, thanks a million for talking to me today. Tell me, what challenge is IDinsight addressing?

Sid: It’s great to be here, Spiffy! It turns out that 80% of a person's income can be determined by their country of birth and their parents' income. That's a very unjust world for many people. IDinsight works to reduce this inequality. The way we do it is by using data, technology, and algorithms to amplify the impact of other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and developing-country governments. This might involve better decision-making, improving efficiency through technology, or creating new services.

Spiffy: What motivates you to do it?

Sid: I love math, stats, tech, and coding. My happiest days are when I’ve been working on a mathematical model or coding a new feature. Hours pass, and I forget to eat or drink, but I still come out of it feeling energized and high on life. I am also deeply driven by the need to work on something that matters to me. I don’t want to make the rich richer by increasing advertising revenue, click-through rates, or recommending knickknacks on some e-commerce site. I’m lucky to have a job that lets me do both. On a micro level, I’m driven by my love of technical things. On a macro level, I’m driven by the urgency to address the inequities of this world.

Spiffy: That’s wonderful! What would you say is the impact of your work?

Sid: I have worked on a number of projects. One significant project is a service that answers health questions from new and expecting mothers in South Africa. Our artificial intelligence (AI) question-answering service handles over 60,000 questions per month, ensuring that medical emergencies are identified and addressed promptly. Additionally, we helped an NGO locate out-of-school girls in India, identifying 600,000 more girls using our machine learning model than they would have otherwise. We have also used mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) models to determine how to run a contraception program—deciding when, where, and which delivery model to use—to maximize coverage and how to allocate teachers to maximize the number of children with access to education.

Spiffy: Wow! Tell me about a recent milestone/initiative by you or your org. What impact does that make?

Sid: For the maternal health question-answering project I mentioned above, we recently rolled out an updated version that not only improves performance but also analyzes the topics people are asking about so we can serve them better. With help from Google.org, we made this open-source and deployed it as a software-as-a-service, allowing other organizations to start using it for free. I’m excited about creating such open-source public goods. These products reduce the barriers to adopting AI and technology in general.

Spiffy: Is there anything else you would love to tell our audience?

Sid: The story I tell about my career seems so linear and clean. It makes it appear that I always knew what I wanted to do, but it is hardly that. I was buffeted around by wanting to do interesting technical work and work on something meaningful. It took me over 30 years to even articulate the kind of career I wanted. While I was finding the words, I was open to new challenges and new experiences—I guess all of that adds up in the end.

Spiffy: Thanks for speaking with me today, Sid—it’s been an honor!

Siddharth Ravinutala is the chief data scientist at IDinsight. He is responsible for leading and growing the data science and AI capabilities within IDinsight. He oversees the design and development of all data science projects and products and leads technical innovation within the organization. He and his team have built a wide range of AI-for-good solutions, such as using predictive models to identify out-of-school girls in India, optimizing the allocation of teachers to schools in Nigeria, and using Large Language Model-powered hotlines to answer questions from mothers in South Africa. (Nominated by Ricki Meyer at Google.org. First published on the Ladderworks website on December 25, 2024.)

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of Ladderworks LLC.

© 2024 Ladderworks LLC. Edited by Sujit Kunte. Spiffy’s illustration by Shreyas Navare. For the Ladderworks digital curriculum to help K-3 kids advance the UN SDGs, visit Spiffy's Launchpad: Creative Entrepreneurship Workshops for K-3 Kids and their caregivers here.