Infiheal Speaks at Bharat Innovates 2026 in Nice, France
Infiheal's Founder and CEO, Srishti Srivastava, had the honour of being invited to speak at Bharat Innovates 2026 in Nice, France. Being there as an Indian founder building in France, and representing both sides at an event of this magnitude, made the experience feel especially meaningful.
A Historic First Edition
Srishti witnessed Bharat Innovates 2026 being jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palais des Expositions de Nice, the first edition of this initiative ever held outside India. Organised by the Government of India as an initiative of the Union Ministry of Education, the event served as a premier platform for advancing innovation-led partnerships between India's deep-tech innovators and global stakeholders, showcasing 120 Indian innovators, 15-plus Higher Education Institutions, and over 500 global stakeholders including CEOs, industry leaders, and venture capital firms.
President Macron, addressing the gathering, said that Nice hosting the first Bharat Innovates event ever held outside India was a powerful testament to the strength of the ties between the two countries, ties grounded in a long-standing technological, scientific, and industrial partnership that has transformed remarkably in recent years. One line in particular stayed with Srishti: the question is no longer if India innovates, but who will innovate with India. It captured something she has felt building between the two ecosystems for years.
Tracing a Path Back to Where It Started
Srishti traces her own path into that room back to the IndiaAI-led Incubateur HEC Paris programme with STATION F, the first place she watched the Indian and French ecosystems sit across the table from each other in a genuine working relationship. What she has witnessed since has been a clear pattern: India and France actively building the infrastructure for founders, researchers, and institutions to move between both geographies, not occasionally, but as standard practice. Bharat Innovates 2026, organised with strong support from the IIT ecosystem, was that pattern made visible at scale, and a marker of what Indian innovation looks like when given a truly global stage.
On the European Soft-Landing Panel
Srishti spoke on the European Soft-Landing panel, focused on Grants, Chambers, Cities, and Market Access, alongside Jean-Luc Barlet, General Secretary of CCI France International, and Adeline Ciccolella, Head of Inward Investment for MedTechs and Life Sciences at Invest in Grenoble Alpes. The conversation explored how French chambers and city ecosystems actively support international startups in finding real footing in Europe, and what responsible, grounded market entry actually looks like in practice, beyond the pitch decks and press releases.
What kept coming through was something Srishti has learned firsthand in her own journey: technology moves through ecosystems, not just markets, and founders grow fastest when they build with that reality in mind rather than against it.
Conversations That Mattered
Srishti also interacted with some of the most respected names in global and Indian innovation, including Michiel Scheffer, President of the European Innovation Council; Himanshu D, Director of Marketing and Development at CCIFI; Rajan Anandan of Peak XV Partners; Manindra Agrawal, Director of IIT Kanpur; and Karthik B. Reddy of Blume Ventures.
Why Rooms Like This Matter
As Founder and CEO of Infiheal, an IndiaAI healthcare startup, Srishti believes rooms like this matter beyond the optics. They are where you get to see how different countries are actually thinking about responsible AI, and what it takes to translate that thinking into systems that hold up on the ground. But underneath the panels and the platforms, what stays is simpler: the responsibility to keep building.
This is still just the beginning, and there is still plenty to learn. The Infiheal team continued straight on to VivaTech 2026 in Paris, carrying that momentum forward into the next room, and the next conversation.
