Wadhwani Foundation’s UCEP uses open source AI to help citizens across India engage with government services in their local languages.
The Wadhwani Foundation is introducing the Unified Citizen Engagement Platform (UCEP), a voice-first, open source AI platform designed to make digital governance accessible to all Indians. Built on a secure, government-grade AI stack, UCEP supports population-scale interactions at low cost and is cloud-native, hyper-scalable, and multi-tenant.
“With ChatGPT coming into the mainstream, AI became democratised. Since it offered an easy explanation, people started asking questions,” said Prakash Kumar, CEO of Wadhwani Centre for Government Digital Transformation (WGDT). He emphasised that nearly 40% of India’s population may have smartphones but cannot access applications due to low digital literacy.
UCEP’s voice-first design allows citizens to interact naturally in local languages, bypassing typing or app navigation barriers. It currently supports 12 Indian languages and adapts to local dialects, connecting seamlessly with Bhashini for speech-to-text and translation across 22 official languages. The platform’s open architecture allows ministries to integrate services via APIs without rebuilding systems from scratch.
The AI uses generative AI, conversational intelligence, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) trained exclusively on government data, ensuring accurate, reliable responses. Potential applications include child health reminders, farmer advisories, tax notifications, grievance redressal, and large-scale public campaigns.
WGDT has trained over one million government officers and provides Chief AI Officer-led teams to ministries to develop AI roadmaps. Kumar highlighted the importance of indigenous AI development, reducing reliance on Western-trained models and ensuring local relevance.
UCEP is yet to be officially launched, with the foundation working closely with the Government of India. The platform represents a significant step towards inclusive, transparent, and scalable digital governance for all citizens.
