Australia's triple Olympic swimming champion Stephanie Rice has announced plans for a swimming academy in India with the ultimate goal of achieving the country's first Olympic swimming medal.

Rice won three gold medals in world record times in Beijing in 2008 and will next month be inducted into The Sport Australia hall of Fame as an Athlete Member.

But the 31-year-old is now directing her efforts to opening the Stephanie Rice Swimming Academy in a bid to encourage more Indians to pursue greatness in the pool.

The swimming champion believes there is a wealth of undiscovered swimming talent among the 1.3 billion population and that even getting an Indian swimmer to the Olympics would be a cause for celebration.

She intends to use her expertise to encourage Indian swimmers not to travel overseas saying: "A lot of the current Indian swimmers train in Thailand or the US and they come back to compete for the country.

"It makes it really hard for India to become a really good sporting nation because you require every athlete to have funds to be able to train somewhere else in the world." 

Over the next few days Rice will be finalising the location for her academy after meeting with sponsors and partners and it will become fully operational from next year.

"I could take my swimming academy to anywhere in the world and it would do well. But India's a market that I feel I can make the biggest impact and have the biggest growth," she said.