Country: Ahmedabad, India
Organization: Centre for Innovation, Incubation, & Entrepreneurship
In the summer of 2017, I joined the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship as a Strategy Associate. Working vigorously under four initiatives, I gained vast exposure to many startups, industries, ideas and entrepreneurs which I will expand on below.
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Country: India
Organization: Vaya
Vaya is a for-profit microfinance institution (MFI) based in Hyderabad, India, the capital of the Indian state of Telangana. Vaya is operational in six states in India and is currently the only microfinance firm present in Telangana following the Andhra Pradesh crisis in 2010. Throughout my nine weeks at Vaya my focus was on individual lending.
Read MoreiSTAR is an education technology firm that addresses the skilling needs of people and addresses the problem through a public –private partnership. It provides end to end services in higher education management including content and program development, curriculum design, delivery, assessment, recruitment and consulting services. Its mission is to create sustainable livelihoods through intensive skills training across multiple sectors including banking and financial services, retail, IT and IT enabled services.
Read MoreDeepti Jayakrishnan worked at Educate Lanka Foundation Inc, a 501c3 non-profit organization which creates a unique platform for the global Sri Lankan diaspora to engage with their home country by financially contributing the education of its children and youth. Deepti’s responsibilities included conducting feasibility studies, preparing project reports, identifying and potential corporate partners, reviewing existing legal contracts, and managing an intern.
Deepti : “Besides adapting my legal skills to a new jurisdiction, I had opportunities to refine my grant writing skills and negotiating skills. It also depend my interest in impact investing and social investment businesses. I am highly likely to start my own company or at least heavily invest in a social business in the future.”
Read MoreTapish Bhatt spent a summer at ACCESS, which impacts the poor of India at all levels of the sector value chain. His work entailed Streamlining internal processes of the organisation viz. sales and production planning, designing a marketing strategy for JJADE, and studying the feasibility of a managed production cluster.
Tapish: “I remain committed to achieving impact at the bottom of the pyramid, but now I would like to work with corporations towards managing their donations better to achieve maximum output.”
Read MoreNate Stell carried out an evaluation of the OVC team’s vocational training model which provides services (skills, education, microfinance and life skills eduation) to street children, Orphans and Vulnerable Children through interviews with prior participants and key staff to determine if the processes being used are being optimized for success.
Nate: “One key attraction was that the focus of my internship was on designing and implementing an evaluation of a well regarded vocational training program. I was interested in developing a skill set in program evaluation because I am planning my career in the nonprofit management field.”
Read MoreHannah Schiff’s work included in-person interviews with villagers, experts in the field, and other social entrepreneurs as well as exposure to a wide variety of social enterprise models. She gained experience helping social enterprises define smart business strategies and processes and created questionnaires, guides and other content for Start Up! India’s Incubation Tool Kit.
Hannah : “This was a powerful internship through which I gained many insights that will be useful in my academic and career decisions going forward. The experience helped me to refine my idea of what I am looking for in a future work environment.”
Read MoreEvelyn conducted field research with World Health Partners in rural India, in support of the social franchise’s efforts to improve access to healthcare using local market forces and cutting-edge technology. Her work in Bihar focused on understanding the organic network of Bihari health providers before the WHP network was to be started. She conducted a baseline survey of existing providers to find out how they were connected to one another, including doctors, pathological labs, pharmaceutical distributors and supply chain components. The goal was to see what gaps, bottlenecks or roadblocks existed. Data included referral practices, impact on patient in terms of cost and patient travel time, cost to patient for four priority diseases so that WHP’s franchise could be as efficient and effective as possible.
Read MoreJillian worked at CARE’s Economic Development Unit, examining and documenting agricultural projects put in place as part of the recovery process after the 2004 tsunami that devastated the east coast of India. She is analyzing agricultural and fisheries value chains, with an eye to using markets to empower women and support sustainable development
Read MoreJacqueline worked with World Health Partners, implementing private sector practices in the reproductive health service delivery, including efficient service delivery, bundling of goods, and monitoring and evaluation.
Read MoreLily held focus groups and interviewed members of farming communities to evaluate the efficacy of programs implemented by the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), an NGO working throughout South Asia. Developed crisis mapping scenarios, held financial literacy classes and prepared proposals for dealing with major urban disasters.
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