Building the institution I wished had existed
NAAMII, the Nepal Applied Mathematics and Informatics Institute for Research, began as a conversation among Nepali students in France. Today it is Nepal's leading AI centre of excellence.
As an engineering student in Nepal I topped a competitive entrance exam, got into the country's best engineering school, and found an education built around passing exams rather than solving problems. Leading our robotics club against teams from Japan and China showed me the talent was there. What was missing was the structure and mentorship to turn it into lasting knowledge.
In France, working at INRIA and seeing how CNRS and the Max Planck institutes run, I saw what autonomous research groups with flexible university partnerships can do. With Nepali peers I met there, that became a plan for an independent research institute in Nepal. We structured it as a profit-not-distributing company so that it could sustain itself and reinvest, rather than depend only on foreign aid.
I proposed the name in October 2016: naamii means "famous" in Nepali. I then chaired the founding working group of eight co-founders until NAAMII was registered in March 2018. The first Annual Nepal AI School that winter was the turning point. With it, and with early seed support from Fusemachines, I resigned my post in London and moved home in 2019 to build NAAMII full-time.
World-class research can be done in, and from, a low-income country, if we build the institutions for it.
Three pillars
Modelled on INRIA, NAAMII is an agile research structure that sits outside traditional academia and works alongside it.
Research
Research groups working on AI for health, language, climate and more, publishing at MICCAI, NeurIPS, MIDL and in journals such as the BMJ.
Education & outreach
The Annual Nepal AI School, workshops and mentoring that are building Nepal's AI talent pipeline.
Industry & innovation
Partnerships with industry and an incubation model for startups. Tangible was incubated within NAAMII.
From an idea in France to 52 people in Kathmandu
- 2007
Led Nepal's team at ABU Robocon, Hanoi
Robotics taught me that talent is not the constraint; institutions are.
- 2010
Left for France, committed to coming back
MSc in computer vision, then a PhD at INRIA. The idea of NAAMII took shape among Nepali peers in Europe.
- Oct 2016
Proposed the name NAAMII
Chaired the founding working group for 17 months. The three pillars were set out in this period.
- Mar 2018
NAAMII registered
Eight co-founders, including an orthopaedic surgeon working in remote Nepal who helped carry the registration on the ground.
- Dec 2018
First Annual Nepal AI School
More than 100 participants from many countries. ANAIS has since run for six editions.
- 2019
Moved back to Kathmandu full-time
Founding Director, then Executive Director from 2020, while leading the TOGAI research group.
- 2024
Professional Excellence Award, ICT Awards Nepal
- Feb 2025
Handed executive leadership to Sandhya Sitoula
Always the plan. I now chair the board and focus on vision, philanthropy and the Innovation Factory.
NAAMII Innovation Factory
NAAMII has spun out deep-tech startups informally since 2019. The Innovation Factory is meant to make that deliberate: process, networks, funds, and the right people (incubator staff, mentors, angels and investors), aiming at 50 startups in five years. It uses the same playbook that built NAAMII's research division.
AI centres of excellence for the Global South
Lasting solutions don't come from being consumers of technology built elsewhere. I argue for multidisciplinary AI centres of excellence in the Global South, with NAAMII as one blueprint.