Audio Video

Welcome to our showcase: this is where you can see select samples of our work: for our clients, in tandem with our partners and on our own behalf. For other interesting thoughts, you can check out our blog.

Meena Vaidyanathan

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 Meena Vaidyanathan Interview

Ravina Raj Kohli

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 Ravina Raj Kohli Interview

Rajiv Khandelwal

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 Rajiv Khandelwal Interview

Natya Tatineni

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 Natya Tatineni Interview

M Ayyappan

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 M Ayyappan Interview

Jasjit Singh

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 Jasjit Singh Interview

Anya Baum

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 Anya Baum Interview

Hans Wahl

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 Hans Wahl Interview

Diana Jue, Co-Founder of Essmart

ISEP SUMMIT 2018 Diana Jue Interview

Uday Wankawala from the National Entrepreneurship Network

A Wadhwani Foundation incubator, talks about how the incubator works with student entrepreneurs across the country. Mitesh Gala, Founder of SEED, a social enterprise that addresses rural needs, talks about how partnering with NEN has helped him build a product portfolio very quickly and in a cost effective manner. While SEED provides market needs, NEN gets products developed by students to address these needs.

Vivek Pandey, Co-Founder of ecoZen

A solar cold storage for farm produce, talks about how he received guidance from organizations that work with the same market segment selling different products. He also talks about how he leveraged these organizations to distribute his product.

Abhay Garg, Portfolio Manager at Acumen Fund

An impact investment fund, talks about how Acumen helps its investees foster innovation. He shares his views about the main challenges faced by entrepreneurs in this sector.

Uday Kagal of Innovation Social Consultants

A BOP consulting company, talks about how his organization fosters social innovation by providing management and financial advisory services to social enterprises. He also shares his views on how such advisories can be successful only when there is mutual respect between social enterprises and consultants.” class=”cbp-lightbox cbp-l-caption-buttonRight

The team at Ashwini Adivasi Hospital

A hospital run by and for the Adivasi communities in Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, talk about working styles and decision-making in a collaborative organisation where the community

Myshkin Ingawale, Founder of Biosense

He talks about how the belief in their idea and incubation by IIM-Ahmedabad and the Villgro Innovations Foundation helped them grow. He also talks about the importance of making mistakes fast and learning from them.

Arati Nandi, an experienced freelance consultant

She talks about the pros and cons being a freelancer and the importance of networking skills

Bashobi Tiwari, Founder of Green Earth

A producer of handicrafts, talks about how and why she started this company. She focuses on how she finds it difficult to delegate and rely on sub-ordinates, and the value of collaborating with like-minded organisations.

Roopa Mehta, founder of Sasha

She talks about her hiring and motivation strategies for employees.

B K Jhawar, Founder of Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra and industrialist

He talks about how he taps into the local community and develops their managerial skills to help them take on bigger organisational responsibilities.

Yezdi Karai an independent consultant

He talks about how discipline and management skills are just as important in the social space as they are in any other industry sector. He also shares how professionals wanting to move over to the social enterprise space need to adapt and learn new skills to be successful.

Sanjeev Kumar, Managing Trustee of the Goat Trust

He talks about how he entered into this sector by chance while interviewing for placements at campus. He finds huge attrition in this sector and would like to have a social networking website specifically for this sector to find good, motivated talent.

Pankaj Jain, Founder of Impact Law Ventures

He talks about regulatory challenges for social enterprises and offers advice on how to overcome them.

Jaspal Shakya, Founder of Opportune Jobs, a recruitment platform

He talks about how rural and urban jobs require different kinds of candidates. He also shares his perspective on how candidates are evaluated by different kinds of organization such as MFIs and some unique challenges that he has seen while hiring talent.

Durgesh Nandan, CEO of Automation Ads

A social enterprise that places advertisements on auto rickshaws, talks about how he looks for passion and similar values in candidates and how he leverages his personal passion for the work he does to attract the right people into his organisation.

Sam White, Founder of Promethean Power

He talks about critical moments in the history of the organization and how they learnt to overcome major challenges with support from the social enterprise ecosystem.

Saloni Malhotra, Founder of Desicrew

India’s first rural BPO, talks about the role that IIT Madras Rural Technology Business Incubator (RTBI) and Villgro, played in various stages of the organisation’s growth. She also talks about how they have learnt to put the organization ahead of people and how they never backed down when challenges came about.

Jatin Singh, Founder of Skymet

He talks about the impact the organisation has created, which he attributes to association with great weather scientists, getting good customers, incubation support by Villgro, and getting timely Venture Capital funding.

Joe Madiath, Co-Founder of Gram Vikas

An NGO focused on improving quality of life in the villages they work with in Odisha, talks about the challenges in hiring talent for rural projects and shares his views on how

Deepak Srinivas

An investment banker who moved to Impact Investment by accident, talks about why he decided to move back to corporate investment banking and how he feels the

Surya Narayanan, CFO of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements

An urban social incubator, talks about how how institutions like his can mentor and develop the social entrepreneurs human capital in order to enable him/her to be more successful and establish more sustainable enterprises.

ProProfessor Nagarajan, Head of CSIE at IIT Madras

He talks about challenges faced by students seeking to jump into social entrepreneurship right after college and how IIT Madras along with their alumni are trying to address some of these challenges.

George Verghese, President of Development Alternatives

An NGO focused on livelihoods and environment, talks about how he finds, attracts, motivates, empowers and retains talent.

Rikin Gandhi, Founder of Digital Green

A knowledge sharing platform amongst rural communities conceived at Microsoft Research, talks about how he finds, attracts, develops and empowers talent.

Kabir Chadha, Founder of Epoch Eldercare

A company providing health and support services for elder citizens, talks about how he hires talent at the same price and quality as any corporate for-profit organization and how he retains them by asking upfront for a one year commitment and providing a good career path.

Bharath Shetty, a serial entrepreneur

He talks about the lack of information sources to advise professionals like him who are eager to work on projects that can bring about social change, about available options for work in the social enterprise sector.

Kishan Nanavati, Sr. Manager at Spring Health Water

He talks about why he decided to move from the corporate sector to the social enterprise sector, and the reasons he doesn’t get tempted by the many lucrative job offers he continues to get in the corporate world.

Sanjiv Sarangi, who works for Indian Grameen Services

A subsidiary of microfinance provider Basix, talks about the reasons he continues to be motivated being in the social sector for over 17 years.

Paul Basil, Founder and CEO of Villgro

A social innovation incubator, talks about the strategies to attract talent into his organization. He also discusses the importance of ownership and recognition for retaining the best employees.

Roshan Nair, a social entrepreneur

talks about how he finds and develops talent. He talks about the importance of onboarding and clarity in job design.

Pari Jhaveri, Founder of Third Sector Partners

She talks about the trends in the movement of talent from corporate to social sector.

Sudha Krishnan, Founder of Dialogue in the Dark

She talks about how she finds and manages talent, most of whom are visually impaired. She shares her views on why she believes her organization’s attrition rate is very low.

Sreejith, N.N. Co-Founder of Rope International

He talks about his biggest lessons knowing how to focus on the right opportunity, managing cash and satisfying the customer. He also talks about how he started off by partnering with another company and how incubation support by Villgro played a part in their success.

Tripti Naswa, an engagement manager at Sattva

A media and consulting firm focused on enterprises serving the BOP, talks about how her motivation stems from the quality of work she does and the positive attitude of the management team.

Michael MacHarg, Co-Founder of Simpa Networks

He talks about learning from customers and incorporating the learnings in the company’s business model.

Caitlin Marinelli, Marketing Head of Uniphore

She talks about how the biggest moment in the company’s history was when they decided to become a B2B company instead of B2C company. She also talks about the challenges they faced and the ecosystem supported them at critical moments of their journey.

The niiti primer on our approach to monitoring & evaluation.

This video captures the elements of a good monitoring and evaluation system to measure social impact and how it can be weaved into operations for better results, with insights into technological enablers to scale.

Abhijit Ray, Co-Founder of Unitus Capital

He talks about how Unitus helps its investee companies in a holistic manner. He also talks about his take on social innovation and gives examples from some of Unitus’ client companies.

Rangan Varadan, Co-Founder of Microgram

An online microcredit platform using crowd sourcing to attract finance for social enterprises, talks about spending a good amount of time in figuring out the business model before starting his venture. He also emphasizes the importance of informal networks that helped him in his success.

Bill Thies, Researcher at Technologies

He talks about the importance of prototyping one’s innovation and testing it with the target users in the field. He also discusses ways in which technology is useful to scale or increase efficiency of an existing successful prototype but cautions that technology cannot always be relied on as the core solution.

Deepti Chatti, a researcher at the TERI University

She talks about how events or physical spaces that bring together people of different backgrounds to work together towards the same cause, help foster social innovation.

Awanti Bele, Director of Global Networks at Ennovent

An innovation accelerator, talks about how Ennovent helps its clients to foster social innovation. She also talks about some of the challenges for social innovation.

Shemeer Babu, Founder of 'm for Change'

An online and mobile platform that helps crowd-source information about a cause and build awareness, talks about how an existing innovation can be used to bring about change. He shares his views on how complex problems could be solved by simplifying and breaking them down into smaller steps.

Piyush Jaju, Co-Founder of Onergy

A solar lighting company, talks about the marketing strategy for their innovation in the market place that is based on providing better access to loans through banks and good after sales service. He also talks about how a combination of for-profit and non-profit legal entities works well for a social enterprise.

P Mukundan, Founder of Servals Automation

A cleantech product company, talks about the importance of venture funding, the support that the right venture capitalist can provide an entrepreneur and his own experiences with his funders.

Kannan and Vijay Babu of Vortex Engineering systems

A company that creates eco friendly robust ATMs, talk about the criticality of timing when it comes to seeking venture funding and share their own experiences on how their needs changed at different stages of scaling their venture.

Michelle Abraham, Co-Founder of Unconvention

An event-based eco system building platform run by Villgro Innovations Foundation, talks about the unique approach that Unconvention-Local has taken by going to Tier II and III cities of India to focus on providing an enabling platform for social innovators across India.

Hindol Sengupta, Journalist and Founder of WhyPoll Trust

He talks about how he and his partners took a conscious decision to stay part time in the social sector while continuing to pursue “regular” jobs. He shares his views about the importance of hiring people with the right attitude, in additional to their skills.

Dr. Jitender Agarwal

A dentist who lost his eyesight and started an NGO to enable the disabled to be financially independent earn their living, talks about how he uses campus and college networks to find talent.

Salomi Nautiyal, an engineer-turned-social enterprise professional

She talks about why she changed her career path and what motivated her to do so.

Savitri Sharma, Director of Find Your Feet

A UK based NGO, talks about how she found her job and how she prefers working with freelancers. She finds word of mouth marketing to be the best channel to find good, motivated professionals.

Satyarupa Shekhar, Research Lead at IFMR Center for Development Finance

She talks about how an enabling workplace can motivate talent and how professionals like her have got hooked on development research.

Natasha Oza, Sr. Consultant, Talent Management at Dasra

A strategic philanthropy foundation and advisory, talks about how talent infusion in this sector has developed over the years and why there is low attrition at Dasra.

Aparna Joshi, a recruiter in the social sector

She talks about how social sector is different from corporate sector when it comes to recruitment. She also talks about what candidates look for in an organisation and what organizations look for in a candidate.

KGVK Women Self Help

Self-help Groups (SHGs) play a crucial role in poverty alleviation through active participation of the communities. By definition, SHGs are self-managed collectives and characterized by participatory decision making and pooling of their savings towards a common economic goal. The first evidence of a bank linkage of SHGs to allow them access to loans in India was in the mid 80s when MYRADA approached NABARD. Since then, SHGs have been actively promoted as to allow funding agencies to reach out to the poor without physical collateral, and are an effective instrument for grassroots organisations like KGVK to initiate livelihood interventions and build capacity in their Total Village Management programme.

Dr. Ramana, Professor at XIMB

He talks about ‘Business School on the Street’, innovation that has taken business education to street vendors. He shares how committed professionals could contribute towards increasing the human capital and improving business for street vendors, and his vision for how he plans to scale up the initiative to an all-India level.

P R Ganapathy, COO of Villgro

A social enterprise incubator, talks about how the Villgro Innovation Foundation helps foster innovative based enterprises focused on the needs of the poor through its unique programs for entrepreneurs at different stages. He also talks about gaps that exist in the incubation industry.

Pooja Warier, Co-Founder of UnLtd India

A social innovation incubator, talks about how her organization uses the power of informal networks to foster social innovation. She shares her views on the value of sharing work spaces and how her organisation fosters this by providing co-working spaces and organizing learning programs for entrepreneurs.

Ross Baird, Co-Founder of Village Capital

He talks about his belief in for-profit, scalable ideas to bring about social change. He also talks about the unique method of peer evaluation used by Village Capital to fund incubatees. He emphasizes the importance of having clarity on business goals and objectives to reduce risk of failure.

Aparajita Agarwal, Co-Founder of Intellecap

A consulting and financial advisory company, talks about Sankalp Forum, an initiative that aim to build an ecosystem for social innovators through events that provide networking and mentoring opportunities.

Neelam Maheshwari, Director of Grants at the Deshpande Foundation

She talks about the organization’s goals and they facilitate social innovation by working closely with initiatives in a tightly defined area consisting of several villages and Tier II cities in Karnataka.

Julian Marshall, Professor at the University of Minnesota

He talks about the challenges faced by students wanting to embrace social entrepreneurship and his mentoring strategies that help students overcome these challenges.

The team at Ashwini Adivasi Hospital

A hospital run by and for the Adivasi communities in Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, talk about working styles and decision-making in a collaborative organisation where the community is involved in decision-making of the hospital and that fosters a sense of ownership among them. The hospital now serves both tribals and non tribals and has become a source of self esteem for the tribals.

Dr. Reddy, Assistant Professor at TISS

He talks about the incubation center at his institution and how it supports in developing students to become social entrepreneurs.

Arati Nandi, an experienced freelance consultant

She talks about the pros and cons being a freelancer and the importance of networking skillsentrepreneurs.

Bashobi Tiwari, Founder of Green Earth

A producer of handicrafts, talks about how and why she started this company. She focuses on how she finds it difficult to delegate and rely on sub-ordinates, and the value of collaborating with like-minded organisations.

Roopa Mehta, founder of Sasha

She talks about her hiring and motivation strategies for employees.

B K Jhawar, Founder of Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra and industrialist

He talks about how he taps into the local community and develops their managerial skills to help them take on bigger organisational responsibilities.

Yezdi Karai an independent consultant

He talks about how discipline and management skills are just as important in the social space as they are in any other industry sector. He also shares how professionals wanting to move over to the social enterprise space need to adapt and learn new skills to be successful.

Sanjeev Kumar, Managing Trustee of the Goat Trust

He talks about how he entered into this sector by chance while interviewing for placements at campus. He finds huge attrition in this sector and would like to have a social networking website specifically for this sector to find good, motivated talent.

Durgesh Nandan, CEO of Automation Ads

A social enterprise that places advertisements on auto rickshaws, talks about how he looks for passion and similar values in candidates and how he leverages his personal passion for the work he does to attract the right people into his organisation.

Jaspal Shakya, Founder of Opportune Jobs, a recruitment platform

He talks about how rural and urban jobs require different kinds of candidates. He also shares his perspective on how candidates are evaluated by different kinds of organization such as MFIs and some unique challenges that he has seen while hiring talent.

Pankaj Jain, Founder of Impact Law Ventures

He talks about regulatory challenges for social enterprises and offers advice on how to overcome them.

Pallavi Singh, a freelance marketing consultant

She talks about how she balances projects in the social and corporate sectors, and how she derives work satisfaction from one and financial benefits from the other.

Knowledge Factory 2019

Knowledge Factory 2020

Knowledge Factory

The Chef's way to healthcare

Theater in the Digital Age

Leadership Dilemma

Environment and Us

Terrorism through other prisms

Gender Pay Gap

Future of travel

Qissebaazi

Dealing With A Billion People

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Suresh Narayanan and Chitra Narayanan

She and The City

Vandana Vasudevan and Meena Vaidyanathan

Beyond the Dangal

Into a Sportsperson’s mind – Aparna Popat and G. Rajaraman

Bartending Workshop

The Art of Mixing Drinks – Vikram Achanta

Taking the Classical Arts to the Masses

Rahul Ram, Sudha Raghuraman and Vikram Sampath

Why Bharat needs the Bard

Is Shakespeare still Relevant? – VS Ravi and Keval Arora

Addressing the Urban Crisis

Bharti Chaturvedi, Santosh Desai and Partha Mukhopadhyay

Future of the Millennial

Anuja Chauhan, Abhijit Bhaduri and Megha Vishwanath

Knowledge Factory Quest on Politics with Rajdeep Sardesai

Going Green

The Why and The How! – Jairam Ramesh

Know your Beer

Pradeep Gidwani

Knowledge Factory Quest

Politics with Rajdeep Sardesai

Open chat