REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP)
Data Collection for Foundational Reading Tool in Odisha
Closing Date for Submission:
<15th March 2026>
1. INTRODUCTION
Wadhwani AI is the flagship Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiative of LEHS, a charitable organization dedicated to building equitable and sustainable systems that bring modern technology to underserved populations in India. Our core mission is to develop, deploy, and rigorously evaluate AI-powered solutions for social impact across domains, including healthcare, agriculture, governance, and education.
In alignment with our objective to support projects of national and social significance, Wadhwani AI promotes the integration of cutting-edge technologies like AI into the Indian mainstream systems. We execute this through strategic partnerships with State and National Governments, apex institutions, international agencies, and key ecosystem contributors.
This Request for Proposal (RFP) is issued by Wadhwani AI, under the umbrella of LEHS, to identify a dedicated partner to execute a large-scale English voice data collection project required for developing and contextualizing a Foundational Reading Tool for the state of Odisha.
2. BACKGROUND
A significant number of students in Indian public schools (Grades 1–8) lack foundational reading skills, impacting their academic progress across all subjects. This challenge is compounded by the absence of scalable, data-driven tools for assessing reading in diverse languages and for identifying specific proficiency levels to enable targeted interventions.
In response, Wadhwani AI has developed and successfully deployed an AI-powered tool for Reading Assessment and Remediation designed to help teachers achieve universal attainment of foundational reading skills. The tool has three components:
- Assessment: The tool leverages highly contextualized and fine-tuned Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) models to analyze word and paragraph reading in different languages.
- Diagnostics: It generates key performance metrics, identifies specific reading miscues, and applies an intelligent layer to categorize students into reading levels. This provides teachers with actionable insights necessary for planning targeted classroom interventions.
- Remediation: We plan to integrate a cutting-edge Generative AI module to produce practice worksheets tailored for each student cohort. This will provide teachers with customizable, context-specific remediation materials for use in the classroom.
To date, Wadhwani AI has successfully assessed over 7 million students in two major states - Gujarat and Rajasthan, with this tool.
Wadhwani AI is now expanding the scope of its work in Odisha to include assessments in Odia & English. We require an experienced partner to collect the necessary voice data to train the ASR models for the state's specific linguistic context.
3. PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The primary objective is to execute a large-scale data collection program to collect voice data of students, reading different texts, in Odia & English for Grades (1-8) from the state of Odisha. This collected voice data will be used to train and contextualize the Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) models employed in the Foundational Reading Tool.
Language: Odia & English
4. SCOPE OF WORK
Summary of Activities
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S.No
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Activity Description
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Timelines
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1
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Data Collection: students' reading of textual items (letters/words/non-words/paragraphs) in Odia & English languages for Grades 1-8.
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Data Collection should be completed in April 2026
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Details of the Activity Below:
Data Collection: Collect audio data of students reading texts in Odia & English from Grade 1-8
Total Number of Hours to be collected: ~360 hours for the Odia language
Total Number of Hours to be collected: ~115 hours for the English language
Submission Details
- All proposals to this RFP must be received no later than <15th March 2026>. The proposal should be submitted only through e-mail in PDF format addressed to the Procurement Team at:rfp.lehs@wadhwaniai.org. The email's subject line must contain the reference number and title of the RFP: Data Collection for Foundational Reading Tool in Odisha (Name of Partner)
- Any proposals received by Wadhwani-AI after the deadline prescribed in the timeline of this document are liable to be rejected.
For detailed information, please check the complete version of the RFP attached below