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India’s Adalat AI named finalist in Harvard innovation challenge
The platform aims to address judicial inefficiencies using AI-driven tools.
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Rwittika Chakraborty - Mon, 30, Mar 2026
- 05:04 EDT
- 35
Utkarsh Saxena and Arghya Bhattacharya, co-founders of Adalat AI. / innovationlabs.harvard.edu/
Utkarsh Saxena and Arghya Bhattacharya, co-founders of Adalat AI, have been named finalists for this year’s Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge, the university’s flagship venture competition for students and select alumni.
Adalat AI is India’s first end-to-end justice technology platform designed to address systemic inefficiencies in the judicial system, aiming to modernize legal processes through artificial intelligence.
This year’s theme for the Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge is “What Moves You,” reflecting the experiences and ideas that drive founders to build ventures with real-world impact.
More than $500,000 in prize money will be awarded, with five ventures receiving grand prizes of $75,000 and five others receiving $25,000. The challenge will also present Ingenuity Awards of up to $2,500 to support early-stage ideas.
The 25 finalists represent teams from 11 Harvard schools, working across a range of industries and disciplines.
According to the official website, Adalat AI’s tools, including specialized voice transcription software, are designed to reduce case backlogs and improve accuracy in legal proceedings.
The platform was incubated at MIT and Oxford and is based on research conducted at Harvard. It focuses on AI- and large language model-driven solutions to address delays in legal systems and the resulting social challenges.
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In collaboration with courts, Adalat AI is developing voice transcription tools tailored for judges and stenographers.
Saxena, co-founder and CEO, previously served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of India and has worked on legal reforms and policy initiatives. He holds degrees from the University of Delhi, Harvard Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School, and is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Oxford.
Bhattacharya joined the venture in 2024 as co-founder and CTO. An AI researcher, he holds degrees from the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad and has published work in leading journals such as ACL, EMNLP, CoNLL and EaMT.
His expertise includes AI-powered identity verification, machine learning systems and large-scale product development, with a focus on multilingual and low-resource language technologies.
In 2025, Bhattacharya was named to the Forbes “30 Under 30 Asia – Social Impact” list for his work in applying technology to improve justice delivery.
Finalists will present their ventures to judges ahead of the awards ceremony on May 6, where winners will be announced to a global audience.
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