Content - Vision India Foundation...2018/01/16 · attitude, positive thinking, resume preparation, presentation skills, communication skills, group discussion skills, job interview

Aabhas Gaba

Aakash Singh

Akshat Gandhi

Ankit Tulsiyan

Arshad Shaik

Chandra Sabbavarpu

Hansika Singhal

Ishaan Sethi

Kundan Singh

Ninad Sonawane

Pooja Mehra

Pranam Bansal

Prasad Thakur

Radhika

Sabareesh Ramachandran

Saranya Dhingra

Satish Kumar Pendyala

Snigdha Bairagi

Ujjwal Deepak

Varun Pendyala

Vijay Mallangi

Consulting

Governance

Political Analysis

Sanitation

Primary Education

Skill Development

Higher Education

Rural Development

Agri-business

Enviroment

Governance

Organizational Development

Infrastructure, Finance

Sanitation, Rural Development

Research

Governance

Youth empowerment, Politics

Rural Development

Governance

Governance

Activism, Civic Engagement

Content

Aabhas is part of the Swachh Bharat Mission National

Project Management Unit (KPMG Government Advisory

team) of Ministry of Urban Development, Government of

India. His team’s phenomenal work in Indore aided the city

in being ranked as Number 1 in Swachh Survekshan 2017.

Swachh Bharat Mission is among the major schemes of the government and the dire need of the country today. India

has bad statistics in terms of open defecation than most developing and underdeveloped countries. 40% of its population

defecates in the open. Further, Solid Waste Management is becoming a humongous challenge for our cities. Poor state

of waste collection, transportation and treatment makes it a ticking bomb for our urban population. Having an urge to

be part of the solution, and an interest and commitment towards nation building, Aabhas decided to work towards the

mission and contribute to it personally as well as professionally.

Aabhas Gaba

24, Male

Work Location: India (multiple locations)

VIF Program: Policy BootCamp 2015

Domain of Work: Consulting

“Policy Bootcamp was the best thing that happened to me while I had to decide career path before

my graduation. It became a launching pad where I met like-minded people, passionate about India’s

development. VIF continues to be a place to discuss and share ideas and take them to level of

implementation.”

Aakash Singh is a member of Central Executive Body of

Youth United for Vision and Action (YUVA) with the aim to

unite non-political youth with a nationalist vision across 50

plus Delhi colleges. He also runs a news portal ‘Campus

Chronicle’. On completing Masters in Media Governance, he

joined LAMP Fellowship.

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Being associated with campus activism, he observed that energy of non-political youth, a majority in campuses, goes

unutilized largely due to disenchantment from the campus politics. Thus, he decided to channelize their energy towards

nation-building through YUVA and Campus Chronicle. Being a student of Media Governance, he was able to observe the

existing loopholes and after joining the LAMP fellowship, was able to observe governance issues more intricately.

He drafted and filed ‘Right to Public Service Bill’, ‘The Press Council (Amendment) Bill’, ‘The Menstruation Benefits Bill’

and the first two bills are attempts to reform media and democratize governance.

Aakash Singh

24, Male

Work Location: New Delhi

VIF Program: Governance Journalism 2016

Domain of Work: Governance

“VIF has helped me to see a practical implementation of e-governance which I was studying in theory in

my Masters course. I was also able to see governance with a positive perspective through VIF”

Akshat is managing the campaign for a major political party

in the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections, with the aim to

achieve maximum seats in an optimum manner. By micro

managing the election process from constituency to the

booth level, he plans for party’s best performance.

The 2012 Gujarat Elections, where he voted for the first time, were the turning point of his life. Thereafter, he began his

journey of exploring democratic process. By analyzing data, he tried to understand thoroughly the journey of pre and post

elections from 2013 onwards. With an interest in the field of electoral analytics, he decided to be a part of big game of

elections and not a mere spectator. He now works on the campaign strategy for each booth and provides political party

with detailed analysis of the seat, budget required for each booth, mode of campaign, social media guidance, media

track, strategic implementation, feedback etc. He has even provided possible solutions for Patidar Andolan effect that

has heavily influenced the area.

Akshat Gandhi

24, Male

Work Location: Gandhinagar, Gujarat

VIF Program: Policy Bootcamp 2017

Domain of Work: Political Analysis

“My dream turned into reality after joining VIF as a delegate in PBC17. Shobhit Sir and his team guided

me throughout. VIF continues to be a strong pillar of guidance in both my professional and personal lives

to achieve success and contribute towards nation-building.”

Sanitation is a basic human need and cities, towns and village level authorities are responsible for effective on-ground

implementation. Monitoring the performance helps all authorities realize their gap areas and initiate targeted action.

It shall also help in knowing the best practices across the Nation and promote a culture of cross-learning. As part of

the Open Defecation Free project, he has been responsible for conducting inspection of 1308 cities/towns across India.

Another 2800-3000 cities/towns are working for improving their sanitation infrastructure coverage and standards. Million

of lives esp. in low income communities/slum areas shall get the basic dignity of an access to a toilet if 4041+ cities/towns

become ODF in the next two years. The journey has already started.

“I attended VIF’s GGY Winter 2016. Seeing the governance mechanism, initiatives, dedication of authorities

reaffirmed my thoughts that Govt. is the largest social enterprise in the world. I am thankful to VIF for

making such a beautiful programme. Seeing is believing.”

Ankit is working in Quality Council of India as National

Project Manager for Swachh Bharat Mission. On graduating

from NIT Nagpur and TERI University, he worked for ranking

of 500 AMRUT cities on Swachhta Parameters, for Swachh-

Survekshan 2017.

Ankit Tulsiyan

30, Male


VIF Program: Good Governance Yatra 2016

Domain of Work: Sanitation

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Arshad is working towards reforming Islam and Madrassas

(educational institution) in the old city area of Hyderabad.

After completing his engineering, Arshad has been working

in the social sector at Youth For Seva and Vandemataram

Foundation since last 6 years. He started Kalam Foundation

and is running a magazine.

“Old City Hyderabad is a very sensitive place for communal issues. From Nizam’s time, Hyderabad is more connected to

Arabs. Even now Arab sheikhs marry minor girls and contract-based marriages are common. One year back, his NGO

became the first NGO to start planned programs of modern education in Madrasas. This paved way for easy entry into

Madrasas by other NGOs. Gradually, people are opening up about their problems and have started raising questions

against their odds. Eventually they aim to even start solving the issues but currently, their success lies in encouraging

people to open up.”

Arshad Shaik

27, Male

Work Location: Old City, Hyderabad


Domain of Work: Primary Education

Shobhit Mathur, VIF’s Executive Director has helped me by sharing contacts and facilitated learning on

diverse issues and understanding problems. I’m active on VIF’s WhatsApp groups wherein the discussions

are engaging and thought-provoking.

Chandra is working for youth empowerment through

Chandra Sekhar Foundation(CSF) at Warangal, Telangana.

Graduated in Computers from Kakatiya University, Chandra

worked in various organizations including Paypal in US.

Through CSF, he is training local youth to find IT jobs.

Giving a fish to a man feeds him for a day, teaching him to fish will feed him for lifetime. He started CSF which teaches

spoken English, corporate training & software training for hiring entry-level graduates. They focus more on aptitude

skills such as training on mathematical skills, reasoning, puzzles etc.; verbal ability (English); and soft skills such as

attitude, positive thinking, resume preparation, presentation skills, communication skills, group discussion skills, job

interview skills. The course is for a tenure of 3 months, after which the students are provided internship opportunities in

Valsatech Corp, a US-based company.

Chandra Sabbavarpu

38, Male

Work Location: Warangal, Telangana

VIF Program: World Governance Expedition 2017

Domain of Work: Skill Development

“I feel the idea of Vision India Foundation itself is inspiring as this gives young, fresh minds a channel to

aspire and make positive changes in the country, in a creative way. CSF looks up to VIF for making more

creative change in society.”

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Hansika has been working as an Assistant Professor of

Psychology at Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi

while simultaneously pursuing her Ph.D. in Psychology from

IIT Roorkee. She has completed her graduation and post

graduation in Psychology from University of Delhi.

She feels that in order to change the system one has to be a part of the system. Hence, she chose to serve the society by

catering to skill development of youth. She imbibes in her students a sense of ownership towards their nation by including

in her lectures examples of social activists who are positively impacting the society through their work. Additionally,

she encourages students to think out-of-the-box and helps them with career decisions. Her students show a renewed

interest towards working for the society through organisational Psychology discipline that she teaches. Her Ph.D. deals

with inculcating positivity in Indian employees.

Hansika Singhal

26, Female

Work Location: Delhi


Domain of Work: Higher Education

“This platform paves way for meeting and networking with people from varied fields. It’s one of the best

ways to understand about policy making and linking it to your field, thereafter coming up with creative

ways to deal with the societal issues at hand.”

Ishaan works as a consultant with the Directorate of Rural

Development, Govt. of J&K, and is scaling-up efforts under

Swachh Bharat Mission-Grameen to make J&K free from

open-defecation by October 2019. Previously, Ishaan was a

Teach for India fellow in a low-income minority school in Old

city, Hyderabad.

If one claims that Kashmir is a wholehearted part of the Indian union, then one also must not be ignorant or indifferent

about the atrocities faced and restrictions imposed upon our fellow citizens in the Valley. The people in the rest of the

country have been kept at a distance from the crisis that has erupted in Kashmir since the 1990s and the suffering the

average Kashmiri has gone as a result, through deaf ears. He is attempting to uplift the backward communities in the

villages of Kashmir, along with baby-steps to integrate this region, with the rest of India.

Ishaan Sethi

23, Male

Work Location: Various districts of J&K


Domain of Work: Rural Development

Being part of VIF’s Good Governance Yatra gave me the ability to look at various social problems from a

public policy lens. The words”dke djus ds fy, uhfr ugha] fu;r pkfg,,” which I learnt and also saw in action

in the Yatra, continue to give me inspiration whenever I am confronted by an enigma.

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Kundan is working with the Food and Agriculture Organisation

of United Nations in Delhi. His work involves designing,

implementing and assessing projects in the country that

are managed by various agencies of the government and

financed by International Financing Institutions such as the

World Bank.

I am primarily working on agribusiness and rural livelihood projects. Many a times we are left wondering that if year

on year the government is spending so much money on poverty alleviation then why don’t we see any difference in the

conditions of farmers. He focuses on management and financial aspects of agri-business projects and rural enterprises

that have a sharp focus on engaging with small and marginal farmers and connecting them with bigger and profitable

markets across the country.

Kundan Singh

30, Male



Domain of Work: Agri-business

“VIF has helped me learn the importance of governance. GGY helped me understand that individuals

i.e “us” are a critical link for the government to succeed and it is “us” who determine the quality of

governance that is delivered to us.”

Declining forest cover, environmental degradation and agrarian issues are the main focus areas.These mainly affect

sustainable growth and could have disastrous results in the long run for all of us. He has been involved in native and

medicinal tree promotion, propagation and plantation. This is being done through different drives/events which are very

useful in dissipation of information and inspiring people to take action. Besides, he has been studying cultivation methods,

market demand and economic models for non conventional/medicinal crops and will start pilot field trials very soon. This

should provide alternative cropping cycles/patterns which are more commercially viable than the current cash crops

which are causing more harm than benefit.

“VIF has introduced me to a huge growing network of enthusiastic people determined to make change

happen in a proper manner.”

Ninad is an engineer turned entrepreneur with an

engineering background and IT industry work experience.

He currently works for his family firm and is focussing on

streamlining its existing business model.

Ninad Sonawane

29, Male

Work Location: Pune


Domain of Work: Environment

1 2 | 1 3

With her start-up, she aimed to provide fashionable yet modest clothing options to Muslim women who otherwise find it

difficult to speak powerfully about their faith via dressing. They came up with corporate and power dressing. In Rajasthan

government, they are trying to create support system for MSMEs and start-ups to provide handholding and assistance

to new and aspiring industrialists. MSMEs, with maximum employment, are growth driver of Indian economy. Rajasthan

being rich in mineral resource base yet lacks in thriving industry ecosystem. There is urgent need of intervention and

she is doing it in the Ministry. They have developed MSME Investment Facilitation Centre, which has prospective industry

opportunities with sectoral industry profile, information repository with all the schemes and incentives of Government.

Pooja is Assistant Director, Industry, Govt. of Rajasthan.

Prior to this, she was an Independent MSME Consultant.

While at IIM Ahmedabad she co-founded Shehzadi, a modest

clothing start-up.

Pooja Mehra

25, Female

Work Location: Jaipur, Rajasthan



“My relationship with VIF was path defining. VIF provided me opportunities to genuinely contribute towards

nation building and be a change agent. I feel proud to be part of such an impact driven organisation.”

A Production and Industrial Engineer from IIT Delhi and a

former Young India Fellow, he has since been working in

the field of experiential learning and growth. He is currently

the co-founder of iDiscover.me, a research lab and HR

consulting firm.

35% of our total waking hours in a lifetime is spent at workplace. Still jobs are the greatest source of discontentment for

most people. Pranam believes that fulfillment at workplace is not possible unless it is geared with inner growth of an

individual. At iDiscover.me, he is helping design new scientific methods to assess and develop the human potential. The

tools designed at the lab have gradually started to build a new vocabulary for spiritual growth in organizations.

Pranam aims to design large scale interventions that impacts the organizational culture and helps build more nurturing

workplaces in our country.

Pranam Bansal

25, Male


VIF Program: Volunteer,Campus Ambassador

Domain of Work: Organizational Development

“VIF has always been a source of inspiration and guiding light for me. Knowing that a dedicated community

of individuals is working with the same vision, gives me hope and acts as a constant pool of motivation.”

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Prasad works with Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC)

‘War Room’ in the domains of public-finance, international

relations and renewable energy. He is a graduate from

IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Bombay. He led PMC’s efforts in

launching the largest municipal bonds program in India in

June 2017.

In the context of the rapid and unplanned urbanization seen in India, there is a need to make cities better places to live,

work and visit. Our cities must lead the country in achieving faster, inclusive and sustainable development.This entails

creation of large scale financial resources for Urban Local Bodies to fund infrastructure projects related to mobility

of people and goods, solid waste management, drinking water, sanitation, education and renewable energy. Prasad is

currently developing various models and instruments to create these financial resources in partnership with various

national and international organizations.

Prasad Thakur

29, Male

Work Location: Pune, Maharashtra


Domain of Work: Infrastructure, Finance

“WGE 2017 organised by VIF helped me establish connections with relevant stakeholders in the UK for

setting up institutional partnerships to exchange knowledge and best practices in urban governance.

I look forward to working with VIF on more projects that contribute positively towards our country’s

development.”

India is at the peak of development and standard of living has been improving. But, people have not yet adopted safe

sanitation practices. This leads to diseases, health costs, pollution, gender inequality and garbage sights are a pain to

the eyes. To have a greater reach and scale, working with the government in an efficient manner is essential. Her method

has been to work as a doer, supporter, communicator, investigator, facilitator, innovator and motivator to create the

ambiance to achieve the Open Defecation Free (ODF) target on time on a mission mode. Simultaneously, she’s working

on sustainability and usage using CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation) and SBCC (Social Behaviour Communication

Change) approaches.

Radhika is working for Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) with

Panchayati Raj Office, Uttar Pradesh. She has done Masters

in Economics and has done research on organic farming,

rural labor and drought conditions.

Radhika

23, Female

Work Location: Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh


Domain of Work: Sanitation,

Rural Development

“VIF has been a ‘tool’ of constant upgradation and nourishment for my curious mind. I am working with

civil servants and local government staff. Without GGY, I wouldn’t have had a positive mindset working

‘with’ and ‘for’ the system.”

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Sabareesh is working as a Research Associate, on an

education project, at J-PAL South Asia, based out of Bhopal,

Madhya Pradesh. He is an alumnus of London School of

Economics and Indian Institute of Science.

Policies in our country should be based on data and rigorous analysis. The governments spend a lot of money on various

schemes and programs. It is hence necessary that every policy be rigorously evaluated and the public exchequer be spent

efficiently. A prerequisite to this is the availability of quality data. The research project he is working on is evaluating some

of the policies introduced by the Madhya Pradesh Government in the field of education.

Sabareesh Ramachandran

23, Male

Work Location: Bhopal


Domain of Work: Research

“VIF gives me the hope that there are many in this country working with nation building as the goal. I

have been introduced to many wonderful people through VIF.”

Saranya Dhingra is a Research Consultant at Evidence for

Policy Design (EPOD-India) at Harvard Kennedy School’s

Center for International Development. Graduating from

Delhi College of Engineering and Sri Sri University, she is

also an active Volunteer with Art of Living.

Through her brief experience of working at EPOD and travelling, she has learnt that a scheme/initiative /Govt directive

partially implemented is worse than it not being there at all. So she is working with government schemes by evolving and

promoting local, indigenous methods and practices to solve local issues and problems. I have attempted to tackle policy /

governance gaps by the use of information technology and also, working on building better human relations by facilitating

mind management (meditation) workshops within communities and organisations so that by coming together, they are

now better equipped to deal with their own problems.

Saranya Dhingra

25, Female




“It has given me confidence and opened up opportunities in terms of connections that I made at the

PBC. The diversity of talented people in VIF, all committed to nation building, is a huge resource and

inspiration at the same time.”

1 8 | 1 9

Satish, an Advocate at Hyderabad High Court, is Founder

and CEO of DeedsnDrafts and a Mentor for Civil Services

aspirants. He started off as a volunteer with Abhilasha

Foundation in 2008 and now is playing a key role in youth

empowerment and politics.

He is working on developing future thought leaders who are aware of different socio-political aspects by utilizing various

means like Right to Information (RTI), Public Interest Litigation (PIL etc., Youth constitutes more than 50% of population

and they are the future backbone of the country. He believes that there is a need to train the youth towards nation building.

He has played a key role in Foundation of Democratic Reforms, Youth for Better India, Youth Parliament and is also

consulting Government of Andhra Pradesh. Recently he filed 3 PILs in public interest on double MRP of water bottles,

Library cess and illegal parking fee collection. He is also the founder of DeedsnDrafts, an organization which provides

consultation services to constituencies.

Satish Kumar Pendyala

29, Male

Work Location: Telangana


Domain of Work: Youth empowerment, Politics

“VIF is a unique organisation that works with the sole motive of indulging youth in nation building. It

is a platform which gives opportunity to interact with futures leaders of the country in all domains.

#BeAndMake “

Snigdha is working on holistic community development in

Rural West Bengal with Bithari Disha NGO. On completing

Gandhi Fellowship in Rural Rajasthan, Snigdha worked for a

year with Goonj NGO with special focus on women health &

hygiene and child education.

Her family lost three ladies due to cancer (Cervical & breast). She saw that awareness on women’s health and hygiene is

very low and it is a secondary issue of the family. Especially in the eastern region the rate of cervical and breast cancer

is very high comparing to other parts of India. Currently she is am working with 30 women pressure groups, with 7 - 10

women in each group. The approach is holistic development of the community where women are the most important

pillars. They are trying to bring these women groups on one platform by generating alternative livelihood options and

sensitizing them about their health, rights, gender issues, disaster management, etc.

Snigdha Bairagi

28, Female

Work Location: West Bengal


Domain of Work: Rural Development

“I participated in GGY 2016 (winter). It was a huge opportunity for me to learn about projects initiated by

government and brought back my faith in the government.”

2 0 | 2 1

Ujjwal is working as an Officer on Special Duty to Chhattisgarh

CM. He has worked in multiple leadership roles with TATA

and Reliance. With a strong desire and passion to serve his

State, he has been a political strategist for last five years.

During Chhattisgarh State separation movement, he and his friends fought for the statehood and were even imprisoned

temporarily. Unlike the capital region, other regions were deprived of infrastructure, education and health facilities. On

graduating, he worked on pro-bono basis as a consultant to government’s key officials through his NGO, while being

employed on full time with corporates in Mumbai. In 2012, impressed by his commitment towards Chhattisgarh, the

Honorable CM offered him the role of a political strategist in his core think-tank team, and now he is serving as the OSD

to the CM.

Ujjwal Deepak

36, Male

Work Location: Raipur



“I unlearned several perceptions during PBC 2016 and then during my regular interactions with the VIF

team. Unparalleled sharing of knowledge especially from younger generation provided insights which

have helped me in solving real problems in governance.”

Larger systemic changes can be achieved by engaging with the government in the policy making process. With this

thought in mind, he is working with the officials in the district administration to understand the various schemes,

procedures/processes involved, grievance redressal mechanisms in place and the implementation challenges. Also, he

is engaging with the people by conducting surveys, interviews and inspections. This approach has helped him in gaining

valuable insights on issues in beneficiary identification, procedural hurdles, malpractices across the process chain that

stall intended benefits. His on-ground experiences are helping him come up with informed perspectives & work towards

solutions based on evidence and logic.

“The VIF experience has been exceptional in terms of introducing me to vast network of amazing people

and ideas. The PBC helped me gain significant insights into the policy issues of various domains.”

Varun is working as a Research Associate in Chief Minister’s

Young Professionals for Development Program, Govt. of MP.

On graduating with B. Tech from Osmania University Varun

worked as a Technology Analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

for about two years before taking up this role.

Varun Pendyala

23, Male

Work Location: Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh


Domain of Work: Research/Fellowship

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Vijay Mallangi is working on strengthening grass root

governance and fight against corruption by activism and civic

engagement through 5th Pillar Hyderabad. A Civil Engineer

from Osmania University, he established the Hyderabad

chapter of 5th Pillar (International Anti-Corruption

Organization) in 2015 while he was in the 2nd year of his

college.

Through 5th Pillar Hyderabad, he is creating a chain of young change agents (Via college chapters) who will work at

ground-level to solve local civic Issues and tackle the inherent lethargy in local governance by creating an environment

of active citizenship, pressure groups, petitioners, mass grievances etc. College students are trained to empower &

enable the local communities to demand/fight for their basic civic facilities. They are fighting lower-level corruption

at government offices by creating awareness on RTI and distributing their “ZERO RUPEE NOTE”. They have worked

on restoration of a 100-acre polluted Ibrahim lake, getting a footpath sanctioned, fixing roads/streetlights, garbage

management etc., all by citizen participation.

Vijay Mallangi

22, Male

Work Location: Hyderabad, Telangana


Domain of Work: Activism, Civic Engagement

“PBC17 was the least expected platform that fortunately turned out to become the most significant one,

where I received help and mentorship to make a critical decision of continuing in the field of activism

after my engineering.”

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PROGRAMS AT VISION INDIA FOUNDATION:

VIF Fellowships: A 3-year nation building program for aspiring public leaders and thinkers to bring an impact in the various policy problems.

Policy BootCamp: 21-day residential program in public policy as a launchpad for future policy makers.

World Governance Expedition: 10-day immersive program for an international delegation to experience international best practices in governance.

Good Governance Yatra: 9-day immersive travel program for aspiring change makers, to have first-hand exposure of good governance models in the country.

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[email protected]

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Documents

Content - Vision India Foundation...2018/01/16 · attitude, positive thinking, resume preparation, presentation skills, communication skills, group discussion skills, job interview