In one paragraph (100 words max), describe your organization/project?*

Answer: The single largest bottleneck when it comes English learning is having high dependency on an expert teacher. At Leap ForWord we are trying to eliminate this bottle neck through a model where we enable less qualified individuals from the underserved community to become facilitators of English Learning. The premise being, if we are able to convert a house maid / unemployed youth / famer / housewife to an English Language Facilitator then we have managed to sow seeds for a large scale educational impact. Being an “out of classroom” effort, it is not dependent on government`s partnership to achieve scale.

In one or two words, what is your organization’s/project’s main area of focus?

Answer: Enabling Opportunities

What is your title at this organization/project?

Answer: Assessment Lead

4. Read Acumen’s Manifesto. Which line resonates with you the most? * (300 words)Tell us a story about how you’ve seen an aspect of the Manifesto play out in your own life.

Answer: When I reflect back on the kind of decisions I have made, I feel the line which resonates with me the most is “Doing what’s right, not what’s easy.”

“What’s Right” is subjective and would vary from person to person. For me it was, making decisions based on what “the heart said” over what the majority defined to be right. During my MBA course when all my classmates were searching for internships with big corporations, I was the only one who was trying to find an internship with an Educational Non Profit. When my peers were talking about CS & CFAs, I was talking about National Eligibility Test & State Eligibility Tests (exams required to become eligible to teach). After graduating, when my peers were earnestly looking forward their structured corporate Job, here was me who was rejecting offers from large companies to finally end up taking a job with an educational startup.

Even though this company was started doing well early and I had earned 10% sweat equity in the business, I decided to leave the organization, as I sensed that it was becoming more of an international travel company than being an educational initiative.

In my next career move, others counseled me take up a good corporate job but I chose to work and contribute in the real time educational setup by becoming a teacher (Asst Professor). Now when things on the surface seem to be really very nice in terms of my progress at HR College, my inner voice is asking me to go one step further by getting married to an effort of solving a problem which I see to be wide spread, grave and worth this life time.

3. What is your vision for India? * (200 words)How do you hope India will change in your lifetime? How is the work you’re doingcontributing towards that vision?Answer: I dream of a country where access to opportunities is not a function of economic status, where birth place does not define the scope of these opportunities. A society where merits triumphs and while everything else takes a back seat. A system which eliminates unnecessary filters in the journey of aspiration to achievement. A country kid a rural background is able to live a same dream as his urban peer. We see English language skills to be one of such unnecessary filters in our existing system. In this lifetime, if my efforts are able to eliminate this filter, I think I have lived a considerably worthy life. With the vision of creating large number of teacher entrepreneurs (from a pool of under qualified individuals) and delivering English language skills without compromising on learning effectiveness, we aim to prove a model. A model which opens up possibilities for any skill to get delivered by enabling unskilled / semi skilled individuals from community itself. If we are able to prove working of this model on ground consistently across geographies and numbers, then I feel we have sown the seeds for eliminating many such unnecessary filters which may mushroom in the future.

Why are you applying?* (200 words)

What do you want to get out of this program? What are your personal/professional development goals, and how will the Acumen India Fellows Program help you achieve them?

With respect to my current deliverables and the team`s work, I can see acumen fellowship helping us understand the intricacies of social business models.

The mentoring & inputs from experts will help us avoid making mistakes which are common in nature and push ourselves to gain more clarity. As I understand from the Acumen 101 session and from my interaction with one of the Acumen Fellows (2013), this fellowship enables a lot of peer to peer learning which is crucial to the stage we are at. This network along with the inputs for improvement will also give us perspectives from different angles, which I value as priceless.

Considering my deliverable as an Assessment Lead and the vision of operating it as standalone assessment business within Leap-For-Word frame work, I expect this fellowship to build in more of leadership capacity in myself and my outlook.

On an organizational front this affiliation can lend us greater credibility, which in turn may lead to increase in the conversion of email requests to meeting appointments, thus helping us achieve our desired impact goals on a faster and leveled consistency .

1. Why do you do what you do?* (200 words)

(What were those pivotal moments in your life that have led you to dedicate yourself and your work to social impact? We already have your resume, so focus more on the personal and less on the professional. Where does your passion and motivation come from?)

The decision of focusing all my efforts in the space of Education comes from a belief, that contribution towards this sector is high leverage effort. Here the impact on one individual is not limited, it transcends to his influence circle. Hence all my engagements have been linked to education, be it academic projects, internship (www.atma.org), Volunteering Effort (Night College), Entrepreneurial venture (www.edulab.in), teaching profession (H.R College) and my current role as an Assessment Lead (Leap For Word).

My previous job roles and my drive for “learning more” has made me use the internet quite extensively and I have closely witnessed its power. My motivation of working in the English Language space springs from this question, “Is India Internet Ready?”. In the coming years access to internet is not going to be a challenge for India but one more requisite to truly leverage its power is going to be English language Skills. I can see the difference the internet could have made in the lives of my night college students. “English” for them is not just a language but a window to opportunities, and this makes me do what I do.