Money alone might improve extreme poverty; economic justice requires more. When Upaya looks for companies that create dignified jobs for the poor, we evaluate questions of reliability, safety, and fundamental respect in addition to the economic benefits.
Ten years ago this month, we were three founders of a fledgling non-profit organization. None of us had ever started nor run a non-profit. None of us had formal fundraising experience, nor were we independently wealthy. But what we did have was deep, lived experience in building programs for extremely poor communities.
Upaya Social Ventures is proud to announce that Sreejith Nedumpully has joined the organization as Director, Business Development. In his role, Sreejith will lead Upaya’s LiftUP Project in India.
Sreejith brings to Upaya over 12 years of experience in retail, emerging markets, financial inclusion, SME promotion, incubation and entrepreneurship. Most recently, he was the Co-Founder and Managing Director of ROPE International, a premium brand of natural, handmade lifestyle products from renewable materials. Today the company creates employment opportunities for over 1,000 rural artisans through its village cluster model, and wholesales its products to a variety of well-recognized domestic and international retailers.
Throughout his career, Sreejith has been involved with several social enterprise efforts including work with TeNeT Group, IIT Madras, Villgro Innovations Foundation, and the DHAN Foundation, and has consulted for organizations including Business and Finance Consulting GmbH Zurich, Women on Wings, the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, and Simpa Networks.
Nedumpully’s arrival follows the spring departure of Upaya Co-Founder Sriram Gutta. Gutta was recently named a Fulbright scholar and is pursuing a Masters degree.
On June 20th, Upaya's Director of Business Development Sriram Gutta spoke with participants in the Acara Summer Institute about many of the operational challenges young entrepreneurs face in launching a new social venture. Drawing on his work with Upaya, as well as his role as a co-founder of Mobile Medics (now part of the Piramal Foundation), Gutta emphasized the importance of pilot testing a concept with pre-defined success metrics in place.
“No matter how experienced they are, every entrepreneur needs to go through a period of experimentation and refinement before they can think about scale,” said Gutta, “and before a pilot is launched, the team needs to establish a common understanding of how success will be measured.”
“Young entrepreneurs often make assumptions about how their model will work without ever testing those assumptions,” he said.
Over the course of the intensive nine-day program, participants from two US and five Indian universities are brought together for working sessions, workshops, panel discussions and presentations of their models. Participants include a wide variety of entrepreneurs focused on issues such as clean water, sanitation, energy, public health, and food and agriculture.
The Summer Institute is organized by Acara, a program of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment (IonE). The Acara Institute was founded by experienced corporate and university professionals in 2009 and has since become a formal program of IonE. Acara's mission is to provide the infrastructure, education and awareness to find sustainable solutions, and then to assist in implementation where possible.
Upaya Social Ventures is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Seattle
508 Yale Ave N #214,
Seattle, WA, 98109
Bangalore
91 Springboard,
21 George Thangaiah Complex,
80 Feet Road, Near Sir CV Raman Hospital, Bangalore - 560038
