Infiheal Attends Mpower's MPowering Minds Mental Health Summit 2026
Infiheal recently attended Mpower's MPowering Minds Mental Health Summit 2026 at The Falcon Prestige in Bengaluru, the second edition of this national forum, which focused on the important and often under-addressed theme of women's mental health.
A Summit Built Around Acceptance, Action, and Advocacy
The summit was led by Neerja Birla, Founder and Chairperson of the Aditya Birla Education Trust and Mpower, and graced by Chief Guests Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Minister of Women and Child Development and Disabled and Senior Citizens Empowerment, Government of Karnataka; Dr. Prathima Murthy, Director and Senior Professor of Psychiatry at NIMHANS; and Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Co-founder and Director of EkStep. Anchored in the pillars of Acceptance, Action, and Advocacy, the 2026 edition placed women's wellness at the heart of the country's journey toward a Viksit Bharat.
From the outset, the summit set a clear tone: the conversation around mental health must move beyond awareness and toward systemic action. Neerja Birla delivered a sharp and reflective address on what she called the 'silent crisis' of women's mental health in India, urging the country to confront it as one of the defining public health challenges of our time.
Dr. Idriss Shariff represented Infiheal at the summit and returned inspired by both the depth of the conversations and the collective urgency felt across the room.
A Day of Multiple Perspectives
Throughout the day, speakers and panelists built on this central idea from multiple angles. Discussions repeatedly returned to the idea that women's mental health is often mediated by structural pressures, family expectations, caregiving roles, workplace discrimination, and the stigma around seeking help, with speakers noting that while general awareness has improved over the past decade, women continue to face unique barriers in accessing care.
Leaders like Rohini Nilekani and Dr. Pratima Murthy brought important policy and clinical insight to the day's proceedings. Voices such as Anju Bobby George and Masaba Gupta spoke about resilience through lived experience, while Ira Khan and Dr. Zirak Marker highlighted the growing importance of youth perspectives in shaping the future of mental health conversations.
The discussions were further enriched by contributions from Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Dr. Janhavi Nilekani, Dr. Akkai Padmashali, Prof. Peter Fonagy, Sunita Wazir, and many other esteemed clinicians, advocates, and global researchers working to drive meaningful change in the field.
Beyond Awareness, Toward Structural Solutions
What stood out most was not just the dialogue on stage, but the shared recognition across the room that awareness alone is no longer enough. The focus, the summit made clear, must now shift toward structural and systemic solutions that genuinely expand access to care, rather than simply naming the problem and moving on.
A Mission Reaffirmed
At Infiheal, the team works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and mental health. Conversations like the ones at MPowering Minds reaffirm a belief that sits at the core of Infiheal's work: that thoughtfully designed, responsible AI can play a meaningful role in addressing the global mental health access gap. This belief is what drives the ongoing work on Healo, Infiheal's AI mental health companion, built with the conviction that technology should expand access to care while always preserving the humanity at the heart of mental health support.
The team left the summit inspired, more purposeful in its mission, and encouraged by the collective momentum building across India's mental health ecosystem.
