Global IndianstoryMeet the Indian startups fueling the country’s Electric Vehicle dreams

Entrepreneurship

Meet the Indian startups fueling the country’s Electric Vehicle dreams

Written by: Global Indian

(August 6, 2021; 6.45 pm) The future is electric: it’s as simple as that. If we want to create a sustainable future, electric vehicles (EVs) are part of the solution. The effects of climate change is for everyone to see… frequent extreme weather episodes, pandemics, rising levels of pollution, and entire species racing towards extinction. Add to the mix rising prices of fuel and the burden of import costs and you have a recipe for disaster. Electric vehicles then seem like the way forward. In fact, the global automotive industry itself is undergoing a paradigm shift, with several major players launching hybrid or completely electric versions in the market.

The Indian automotive industry is the fifth largest in the world and catering to a vast domestic market with a reliance on conventional fuels will eventually be unsustainable. According to a study by CEEW Centre for Energy Finance, the EV market in India will be worth $206 billion by 2030 if India makes steady progress in the sector. Another report by India Energy Storage Alliance projects the Indian EV market’s growth at 36% till 2026.

In this article, Global Indian looks at some of the most promising EV startups in the country.

Revolt Motors

Founded by Micromax’s Rahul Sharma in 2019, Revolt Motors develops AI-enabled electric motorbikes: RV300 and RV400. With features such as full LED lighting, Bluetooth connectivity, digital display with real-time bike diagnosis, mono-shock rear suspension, optimum charging time and battery capacity, it is quite the game changer in its segment. It also offers users a mobile app to manage the bikes. Its manufacturing facility in Manesar has an annual production capacity of 1.2 lakh units.

Backed by RattanIndia, the company recently announced that it would soon launch a more affordable e-bike called the RV1. Given the focus on going green, Domino’s Pizza too has decided to go green by acquiring the existing inventory of the RV300 to convert its entire delivery fleet to EVs.

Ola Electric

Ola to open high tech factory for its e-bikes

Bhavish Aggarwal’s Ola Electric created quite the buzz when it opened bookings for its soon-to-be-launched scooter last month. Within 24 hours of the bookings being opened, the company received over 1 lakh reservations, making it the most pre-booked scooter in the world. Expected to be priced at ₹85,000 the company claims the e-scooter will be the best in its class in terms of range, speed, boot space, and technology. According to the company, the Ola Scooter has already won several prestigious awards including the IHS Markit Innovation Award and the German Design Award.

The first of the e-scooters will roll out from the Ola FutureFactory which is built across 500 acres in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu. Touted to be the largest in the world, it will be AI-powered with 3,000 robots and will have one e-scooter rolling of the production lines every 2 seconds. The factory will also act as the company’s export hub when it expands its footprint to the international market. Earlier this year, the company also signed a $100 million debt financing deal with Bank of Baroda for a 10-year period.

Ather Energy

Founded in 2013 by IIT-Madras alumni Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, Ather Energy has already launched two scooters in the market: Ather 450X and Ather 450 Plus. The company also manufactures AtherGrid, an electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Though priced upwards of ₹1.25 lakh, the e-scooters have already gained popularity with its flagship Bengaluru showroom selling bikes worth ₹10 crore in a span of a month. In fact, the company’s revenues rose from ₹11.7 crore in FY19 to ₹48.8 crore in FY20.

Backed by Hero MotoCorp, Flipkart’s Sachhin Bansal, Singapore’s InnoVen Capital and VC firm Tiger Global, Ather’s bikes come loaded with features. Some of them include BLDC motors, fast charging, Li-ion batteries, water and dust resistance, multiple riding modes, interactive dashboard, and onboard navigation. The company also provides an app that allows users to monitor charging status, and home chargers with app connectivity.

Tork Motors

Founded in 2010 by Kapil Shelke, who’d earlier worked with the Zongshen Racing team in China, Tork has developed six models of its motorcycle. Some of them went on to beat expectations in prestigious racing competitions such as the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. The firm finally began accepting pre-orders for its commercial model T6X in 2016. While the company’s commercial model is yet to take off, Shelke is confident of launching it in the market soon. “We underestimated the time it takes to validate a product,” he told Quartz. “We’re the only company in the world that builds its own motor and battery. It took us about four years to validate the motor we were building.” Backed by Ratan Tata, who bought a stake in the EV startup, the company has its factory in Chakan, an automobile hub near Pune.

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Vandana Luthra the businesswoman who brought the winds of change to the Indian wellness industry

(October 16, 2021) In the late 1980s, when Vandana Luthra came up with the idea of a transformation center – offering beauty services, wellness and weight management programs for men and women all under one roof – many, including her financiers, were apprehensive. Some even dismissed her idea as too futuristic. Back then, the health and wellness industry were doing well abroad but were still unheard of on Indian shores. After all, it was an era when most women would head to their friendly neighborhood parlor, one would that often be tucked into the owner’s home, for their beauty needs. She painstakingly convinced people that her venture as a business model was both scalable and sustainable. Despite the naysayers, Vandana stayed persistent. The convincing took a while, but she secured a bank loan and the first VLCC transformation center opened up in Safdarjung development area in New Delhi in 1989. [embed]https://twitter.com/Vandanaluthra/status/1440666809519067155?s=20[/embed] Woman with a vision Fast forward to 2021 and the numbers speak for themselves. The VLCC health care operates in 326 locations in 153 cities and 13 countries in South Asia, South East Asia, the GCC region and east Africa; the company manufactures and markets 170 hair care, skin care and body care products along with functional and fortified foods, which are sold through one lakh outlets in India and over 10,000 outlets across various countries and e-commerce channels.

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Fast forward to 2021 and the numbers speak for themselves. The VLCC health care operates in 326 locations in 153 cities and 13 countries in South Asia, South East Asia, the GCC region and east Africa; the company manufactures and markets 170 hair care, skin care and body care products along with functional and fortified foods, which are sold through one lakh outlets in India and over 10,000 outlets across various countries and e-commerce channels.

Today, her chain of transformation centers VLCC is a brand to reckon with. Vandana’s work also earned her the Padma Shri in 2013, the Enterprise Asia Women Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2010, and the Asian Business Leaders Forum Trailblazer Award in 2012. She was also ranked 26th in the Forbes Asia list of 50 Power Businesswomen in the APAC Region and was featured in Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in India list for five straight years.

Indian businesswoman Vandana Luthra

Long road ahead

But she is not done yet. "By nature, I am a restless person. Though I certainly take great pride in what the VLCC family has achieved, we have much more to accomplish," says Vandana during an exclusive chat with Global Indian. She says that the incidence of obesity continues to rise alarmingly and its related issues are a huge public health challenge. "The COVID-19 crisis has heightened awareness about proactive and preventive healthcare across age groups and that has made a leading Wellness & Beauty services and products player like VLCC even more relevant today. We have a significant role to play in this area," she says.

Vandana says she realized quite early in her entrepreneurial career that there were certain stereotypes that needed to be challenged. "Nutrition is the key aspect of providing wellness, weight management, skin and hair treatments for a 360-degree transformation. Though there were women out there who had very impressive qualifications in dietetics, very few had taken up that academic qualification to make a career in the nutrition domain," she says. Most women would only opt for these courses to attract good matrimonial prospects.

[caption id="attachment_13281" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Indian businesswoman Vandana Luthra Vandana with her husband Mukesh[/caption]

The Delhi girl with a mission

Born in New Delhi in July 1959, Vandana’s father Ram Arora was a mechanical engineer, while her mother Kamini an Ayurvedic doctor. Vandana did her schooling from Mater Dei School before graduating from Lady Shriram College in 1979. She then chose to move to Karlsruhe in Germany for her higher studies in cosmetology and nutrition.

Ask her what she makes of her journey when she looks back, and she says, "Over the years, I have become far more aware about issues than I otherwise would have had I been focusing only on the transactional aspects of creating and nurturing successful businesses," says the 61-year-old.

Recalling her own experiences, the entrepreneur says that one of the first issues that a woman grapples with when embarking on a professional journey is self-doubt with respect to work-life balance. "This issue may be less acute today when compared to two-three decades ago but women continue to struggle with it. If one takes a look at the traditional, stereotypical role of women as homemakers, they will realize that women are inherently good managers, balancing work and home. So, one need not obsess too much about balancing different priorities, it comes naturally to women," says Vandana, herself a mother of two.

"Our 3,000-odd colleagues across 12 countries are the torchbearers of VLCC's success," smiles Vandana. She credits her husband Mukesh and their two daughters who helped her ride the tide throughout her entrepreneurial journey. "Then came along my VLCC family which has grown over the years and has always been my strength," smiles Vandana, who was appointed the first chairperson of the Beauty and Wellness sector skill council, an initiative that provides training under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana scheme, in 2014.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4WHiAs2WAM[/embed]

Giving Back

While her work keeps Vandana busy, it is the Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust, of which she is the patron, that is close to her heart. Founded by her mother, the trust pioneered the concept of educating children with and without disability in equal numbers from nursery to class eight; it has over 800 children in its two schools. Vandana is also the vice chairperson of the NGO Khushii which has projects like telemedicine centers and a remedial school catering to 3,000 children.

On Brand India, Vandana explains how it has evolved over the years to become a multi-faceted icon. "Today, brand India stands tall among the community of nations for its reputation as a unique tourist destination, splendid in its diversity, for its status as a growing economic powerhouse, for its attractiveness as a large and lucrative market of over 1.3 billion consumers, for the respect it commands as a talent nurturing pool for outstanding leaders in the global corporate world. The list is long," says Vandana, who has authored two books on wellness and fitness.

Follow Vandana on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Reading Time: 8 mins

Mukti Bosco: The Indian social entrepreneur who is changing lives with her healing touch

(September 2, 2021) Twenty years ago Mukti Bosco, then a post graduate student in health management, was on a field visit to Hyderabad’s Charminar area. She struck up a conversation with some women from the area and asked them what they would do in the face of an unforeseen emergency, most of them said that they would mortgage their assets. But it was one woman’s response that changed Bosco’s perspective forever: she told Bosco that she had to pull her six-year-old son out from school and send him to work at a tea shop as she had borrowed ₹5,000 for her husband’s typhoid treatment. The incident moved her so much that Bosco decided she didn’t want to be a mere bystander, she wanted to do something to change things - and Healing Fields Foundation (HFF) was born. Headquartered in Hyderabad, HFF has been providing training and support for women as health change agents in their communities. The Foundation works in rural areas of poorer states to impact change in the areas with the greatest need. From working to prevent health problems and facilitate access to health services and entitlements from the government, HFF has been working across the sector and has done extensive pandemic relief work as well. In fact, HFF has recently been recognized

and Healing Fields Foundation (HFF) was born. Headquartered in Hyderabad, HFF has been providing training and support for women as health change agents in their communities. The Foundation works in rural areas of poorer states to impact change in the areas with the greatest need. From working to prevent health problems and facilitate access to health services and entitlements from the government, HFF has been working across the sector and has done extensive pandemic relief work as well. In fact, HFF has recently been recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of India’s Top 50 COVID-19 Last Mile Responders.

[caption id="attachment_9131" align="aligncenter" width="575"] Indian social entrepreneur Mukti Bosco Mukti Bosco[/caption]

Rocky beginnings

Growing up with medical professionals at home - her father being an eye doctor and her mother a nurse - Bosco knew she would also follow in their footsteps. But her path was unclear until she finished her degree from Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore. "That is when I knew what I wanted to do something for the society," recalls Bosco in an exclusive chat with Global Indian. She graduated in Occupational Therapy from Vellore and later completed her Master's degree in Healthcare Management from the Administrative Staff College of India and John Hopkins University.

[caption id="attachment_9132" align="aligncenter" width="564"] HFF volunteers A Healing Fields Foundation CHE at work[/caption]

The Charminar incident shook Bosco more than she’d anticipated. "It broke my soul and that's how Healing Fields was conceptualized," she says. Mother to a 5-year-old son herself, Mukti resolved to do something in the health sector so that no underprivileged person had to sacrifice their children's future again.

The initial days of the Foundation were difficult. Few people took her seriously, but Bosco knew what she was doing. "When they saw I was determined, support started pouring in," smiles Bosco, who is also an Ashoka Fellow. With zero experience in the social sector, she stepped in with a positive mindset. "Social entrepreneurship is always in a startup mode and nothing can be taken for granted. I learnt most of it on the job," she says.

Working for impact

In the last twenty years, Bosco has been giving back to society by leading Healing Fields Foundation into several areas. From training and supporting health and hygiene initiatives for women in rural areas to training health professionals at the grassroots level and beyond, the aim has been to reach as many people as possible. Healing Fields has worked across the country in states like Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, and Jharkhand.

Healing Fields has so far has trained 5,000 community health entrepreneurs across 10 states, reaching 6.25 million people. This year, HFF plans to undertake a new project called TeleHealth. "This project aims to train a health leader to conduct basic health checks, as well as connect her to a network of clinics through a digital platform," says Bosco. "She will be therefore able to earn extra income for herself while bringing last-mile health services for her community," she adds.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usiLaSLakBg[/embed]

One evening in June, a health worker at the Healing Fields Foundation in Bihar received an urgent call from Bheriya village in Kaimur district. Around 20 children were vomiting and displaying symptoms of diarrhea in the village. Immediately, a team comprising Community Health Entrepreneur (CHE), the Gram Pradhan, Healing Fields staff, and the doctor was formed.

The CHE assessed every child who was unwell and advised the parents regarding maintaining hydration. ORS and medicines were given free of cost, and children with severe symptoms were shifted to a hospital. The team also coordinated with the local government officials and organized a health camp in the village to assess and identify the cause of the illness. It turned out that it was due to food served at a wedding.

The quick action by HFF meant that the problem was nipped in the bud. When a problem relates to children, the Foundation makes it a point to solve the problem as early as possible.

It may have been a twenty-year journey with Healing Fields Foundation, but for Bosco every day is new, filled with challenges and new ideas to serve the community.

Reading Time: 5 mins

Atul Satija: The social entrepreneur who gave up a lucrative corporate career for poverty alleviation

(September 23, 2021) The IMF recently forecast that India is emerging as one of the fastest growing major economies in the world. While that is certainly a reason to cheer, there is a scenario that one can’t ignore – the damage to the economy due to the pandemic has had far reaching effects. Over 230 million individuals fell below the national minimum wage poverty line, according to a report by the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University (APU). And it is to address issues such as the widespread poverty in India that individuals like 42-year-old Atul Satija, founder of The/Nudge Foundation and founder 2.0 of GiveIndia, have been working towards poverty alleviation. In his LinkedIn profile, Satija writes, “Every human being can live a dignified life out of poverty, and it’s well in our collective means to achieve that goal. Within our lifetime.” A philosophy he deeply believes in and has been working towards ever since he gave up a 17-year-long career in the corporate sector to dive headlong into social entrepreneurship. Humble beginnings Born in a lower middle class Chandigarh home, Satija grew up watching his government employee father and school teacher mother go out of their way to help extended family who

fetime.” A philosophy he deeply believes in and has been working towards ever since he gave up a 17-year-long career in the corporate sector to dive headlong into social entrepreneurship.

Humble beginnings

Born in a lower middle class Chandigarh home, Satija grew up watching his government employee father and school teacher mother go out of their way to help extended family who were of modest means. The family’s financial status made Satija want to study well and earn good money, but his father’s outlook also inspired him to help people. So, after graduating in engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Satija worked with companies such as Infosys and Samsung before doing his Masters from Indian School of Business. He then worked with Adobe for two years before joining Google as the head of business development first in India and then for the Japan and Asia Pacific markets. In 2010 he moved to San Francisco to join InMobi as its Chief Business Officer where he helped scale the organization from a small startup to a global leader in mobile advertising.

When the social sector beckoned

Throughout his career though, Satija would make it a point to volunteer during the weekends with a nonprofit in Gurugram. But it never felt enough. "I was working with Google then. Few months into volunteering, I realized it was the social sector that I wanted to work in over the long term – I was looking for meaningful work and potential for impact,” he told the Global Indian in an exclusive chat.

[caption id="attachment_9222" align="aligncenter" width="581"] Indian social entrepreneur Atul Satija Atul Satija[/caption]

He found that his weekend volunteering kept him from contributing to society as much as he’d wanted to. By 2015, he had quit his corporate job to set up his own startup in the social sector space. “In 2015, I started my journey with The/Nudge Foundation to work towards poverty alleviation,” he says, adding, “The journey has been challenging, understanding the layers of the development sector, grassroot realities and then creating innovative solutions to reach our goals. The journey has also been one of purpose, meaning and satisfaction. I truly believe our generation can eradicate extreme poverty in India, given the resources and talent available now for this work.”

A journey that fulfills

When he began his journey with The/Nudge, Satija spent a few months working with various communities across Bengaluru and Delhi and narrowed down on skill development through gurukuls as their first intervention area. They then began looking for grants, which is when Nandan Nilekani, former CEO of Infosys, supported them with a seed grant of $200,000. “Being our very first grant, it was an important milestone for the entire team. This was quickly followed by a series of partners coming forward to support our work including Mphasis, Cisco, Tata Trusts etc. Similarly graduating the first batch of 45+ students from our Gurukuls with 100% placements was also something that reinforced our approach and belief, and allowed us to stay focused in growing both our programs and impact aspirations,” says Satija.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjV-Sko6sVg[/embed]

In 2017, Satija and Venkat Krishnan, founder of GiveIndia, happened to have a conversation where they discussed working through funding challenges that nonprofits face through a tech platform. The two realized their goals and visions were aligned and soon Satija was brought on board as GiveIndia’s Founder 2.0. “The work at both The/Nudge Foundation and GiveIndia is for the larger purpose of poverty alleviation but the approaches are very different and complementary in India’s development journey,” explains Satija.

An evolving philanthropic culture

Over the years though, Satija has seen philanthropy and the concept of giving back in India evolve. The pandemic has increased the scale of giving by organizations as well as individuals and foundations and philanthropists are now playing a crucial role in strengthening the work being carried out in the development sector. “Digitization has increased connectivity among people and communities. With digitization making giving convenient, donors have increasingly become more forthcoming. In the pandemic, people have given more than they did before. Additionally, the Corporate Social Responsibility laws requiring organizations to give 2% of their profits has increased donor participation in the societal challenges,” he says.

So far, The/Nudge has been working towards addressing livelihood issues but is also aware of other areas that need to be supported such as education, public health etc. “Poverty is a wicked problem - complex, multilayered and multifaceted. We are focused on livelihoods as our primary area of work, and look at solutions that tackle the income in the hands of the poor by providing skilling and job placement, financial security, and social mobility."

Work during the pandemic

The past year has been about addressing the increased socio-economic concerns that the pandemic has raised. The need of the hour for the Foundation was to work towards efficient mobilization of aid to reach more and more of the needy population. “While GiveIndia has been working tirelessly to save lives, The/Nudge has geared huge efforts towards saving livelihoods and empowering the social welfare ecosystem, through its multiple initiatives across our three impact streams – Centre for Rural Development, Centre for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Centre for Social Innovation," says Satija, adding, “We launched Asha Kiran, which aims to serve 5 lakh poor households by 2025. We launched Indian Administrative Fellowship, to aid influx of talent into the development sector and to influence public policy and strategy. We are supporting other Social Enterprises through our incubator/accelerator. Our skilling and employment program has gone online and witnessed more enrolments than ever before, to help in economic empowerment of youth.”

[caption id="attachment_9223" align="aligncenter" width="377"] Indian social entrepreneur Atul Satija Atul Satija[/caption]

In April 2021, GiveIndia relaunched its flagship giving collective that began in April 2020 – India COVID Response Fund (ICRF) to meet the rising demands of the second wave. The organization mobilized aid in the form of oxygen cylinders and oxygen concentrators to those in urgent need and help families in financial distress. “We also worked closely with several NPOs to deliver ration and food relief into the heart of communities where it was needed the most.”

During the second wave, GiveIndia’s ICRF managed to deliver:

40,000 oxygen concentrators and cylinders at hospitals and to individuals at homes
279 districts of 25 States and 2 UTs supported through oxygen intervention
50 oxygen generation plants are being installed across the country
Over 87,000 diagnostic and wellness kits, 18,000 oximeters and 27,000 isolation kits were distributed
3.8 lakh people reached with meals and food rations
Cash relief provided for over 3,500 families of Covid-deceased

Road map ahead

“Since the inception of The/Nudge, we have been able to impact the lives of over 10 million people through both our direct and indirect work across India. Over the next five years, we want to focus on playing a catalyst role in scaling solutions that work on the ground across rural and urban livelihoods. GiveIndia was formed with an aim to serve the poor of the country. The pandemic has helped us grow as a giving community and we look forward to helping the needy and poor by enabling giving back for both individuals and organizations, and making giving bigger and better,” signs off Satija.

Reading Time: 10 mins

Jayshree Ullal: The Indian American self-made billionaire who is among the top 5 influential people in the networking world

(October 28, 2021) Jayshree Ullal has many monikers to her credit; Queen of the wired world is just one of them. She is not just another Indian name that has made it big in the global corporate world. According to Forbes, Ullal is counted amongst the top five influential people in the world of networking and has been giving technology behemoths a run for their money. This year, 60-year-old Ullal, was one of the five Indian Americans to be named in Forbes’ list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women with a net worth of $1.7 billion. The president and CEO of Arista Networks, who is known for her business chops, helped transform the cloud computing firm into a world leader in networking technology. In fact, her acumen and skills have earned her several awards and recognitions. She was named one of the Top Ten Executives by VM World, A Woman of Influence for Security CSOs, Innovator and Influencer Award by Information Week, was ranked number 2 in Top 25 Disruptors of 2014 by CRN, World’s Best CEOs: Growth Leaders in 2018 and was also ranked 118 on Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year for 2019. Indian roots Born in London and raised in Delhi, Ullal studied at the Convent of Jesus & Mary before her family relocated to the US when her

est CEOs: Growth Leaders in 2018 and was also ranked 118 on Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year for 2019.

Global Indian Jayshree Ullal

Indian roots

Born in London and raised in Delhi, Ullal studied at the Convent of Jesus & Mary before her family relocated to the US when her physicist father got a new job. She eventually attended San Francisco State University where she did her Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and then her Masters in Engineering Management from Santa Clara University. In college she was only one of two female students in a batch of 70. Which she says is a sign that more women need to be encouraged into technical education.

She began her career at Fairchild and eventually moved to AMD before joining Crescendo, a communications company, which was later taken over by Cisco. Ullal, too, was brought on board by Cisco on a two-year contract, which thanks to her skills lasted for a good 15 years. According to an interview she gave Business Line, Ullal said, that she with the support of her CEO and boss was able to grow the switching business from zero to a more than $10-billion business in a decade. The startup spirit within such a large company was what excited Ullal and soon she was appointed a senior executive at Cisco. Incidentally, the switching business turned out to be a cash cow which brought in a third of Cisco’s revenue by helping businesses link their devices to the same network.

Global Indian Jayshree Ullal

All about the balance

As Ullal continued to grow from strength to strength, she did have her moments of self-doubt. Was she being a good parent? Was she able to balance it all and do justice to each of her roles? “In 2000 I wondered if I was being too career driven. So, I took a leave of absence from Cisco for several months to be a full-time mom to my daughters. However, they were soon telling me, ‘Amma, when are you going back to work?’ A very telling moment. I did return to Cisco, this time with heightened awareness that I was meant to balance my career and family,” she said in an interview. The fact that she had incredibly supportive parents and husband helped too.

In 2008, she left Cisco to join Arista Networks as president and CEO. She’d long been itching to head an independent company and Arista was the perfect opportunity. Soon she was nabbing business from her former employer and added some major clients such as Microsoft and Facebook to her portfolio. As she chipped away at Cisco’s market share, Arista has now become one of the fastest growing cloud networking companies with a valuation upwards of $25 billion. In fact, it was Ullal who played a major role in turning a once tiny nondescript startup into an emerging force in the field of computer networking.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_iC3c1cgaU[/embed]

Incidentally, when she led Arista’s IPO in 2014 at the New York Stock Exchange, its valuation was $2.75 billion. This makes Ullal’s estimated net worth $1.7 billion thanks to her 5% stake in the company. She is among the 72 self-made women billionaires in the world. This year she ranked 16 on the Forbes’ list of America’s top self-made women.

As this Global Indian continues to juggle a successful career and family, Ullal believes that to be able to strike a work-life balance it’s important to stay real. “You don’t have to be perfect at everything. There are some tradeoffs that should be made. It’s ok to take shortcuts. Work-life balance means you have to be realistic,” she said in an interview.

Follow Jayshree Ullal on LinkedIn

Reading Time: 5 mins

Pankaj Agarwal: The Indian entrepreneur changing edtech for rural India

(August 10, 2021; 6.30 pm) That learning will increasingly go digital is a given. Especially, in light of the pandemic that has brought the world to its knees and shut schools and colleges across the globe. 2020, touted to be the year of edtech startups, saw several enterprises step in to provide solutions for a smooth takeover of virtual classrooms. However, there was one glaring gap that couldn’t be bridged — what of rural India with its digital divide? That is when entrepreneur Pankaj Agarwal decided to introduce an app Class Saathi through his startup TagHive. The app works equally well in classrooms with and without computers. The solution does not require internet or electricity to work; only a smartphone for the teacher. The service uses a clicker solution that works alongside a mobile phone app which works well even in the offline mode – making internet connectivity issues redundant. In fact, one of Agarwal’s key focus areas has been to create solutions that will help reduce the dropout rates in India’s schools. His work, got him noticed and the 38-year-old was featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list this year. [embed]https://twitter.com/DoRA_IITK/status/1400290649266552833?s=20[/embed] Agarwal’s mission has been to reduce dropout rates in schools. In an interview with The

n to create solutions that will help reduce the dropout rates in India’s schools. His work, got him noticed and the 38-year-old was featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list this year.

[embed]https://twitter.com/DoRA_IITK/status/1400290649266552833?s=20[/embed]

Agarwal’s mission has been to reduce dropout rates in schools. In an interview with The Week, he said,

"The dropout rates widen as we go from grade 1 to grade 8. Our focus is to reduce the gap in the early stage."

According to Agarwal, a leading reason for the high dropout rates in India’s government schools is the learning gap that widens as the grade progresses. Class Saathi offers teachers special features to identify and reduce these gaps.

Journey to the top

According to his LinkedIn page, Agarwal knows the value of good education.

“I come from a small village in India which had no good schools. From there, I went on to study in the best of schools across 3 countries. That led me to believe that education is a great equalizer in life and that technology can help improve the quality of education,” he says.

Agarwal did his B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from IIT-Kanpur before moving to Seoul for his Masters at Seoul National University as a Samsung GSP Scholar. Upon his graduation, he joined Samsung Electronics in South Korea and worked there for over three years.

His thirst for knowledge though drove him to aspire higher. In 2010, Agarwal became the first international employee to be sponsored by Samsung for an overseas MBA and studied at Harvard Business School. This was followed by four more years at Samsung in South Korea: first as advisor to the CTO and then as Creative Leader at Tag+.

[caption id="attachment_7090" align="aligncenter" width="650"] That is where Pankaj Agarwal’s TagHive stepped in with its app Class Saathi which works equally well in classrooms with and without computers. Pankaj Agarwal[/caption]

Entrepreneurial journey

All along though, Agarwal knew he wanted to do something to give back to his country; especially in the education space. So, in April 2017 he quit his cushy job to dive headlong into entrepreneurship and founded TagHive, a South Korea-headquartered company that was seed funded by Samsung Ventures. Under TagHive, Agarwal launched Class Saathi, a learning solution tailor made for India. Requiring no electricity, internet connectivity, low maintenance and low cost, it is perfect for classrooms across the country; especially in rural India where the digital divide is a glaring chasm of uncertainty.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PxgJBMq7Po[/embed]

Based on the concept of quizzes, Class Saathi provides students with clickers which connect via Bluetooth with the teacher’s smartphone. The startup also ran a pilot project in Uttar Pradesh which found that attendance and learning outcomes of students had gone up significantly within a month. This led the UP government to invite TagHive to deploy its solutions across 200 schools, followed by a project for the Madhya Pradesh government covering 2,000 schools. Agarwal told The Week,

"Class Saathi is a lens that lets us now see things that were not possible earlier. It gives schools and governments tangible data to evaluate and assess the educational system."

When the pandemic struck last year and schools across the country were forced to shut down, Class Saathi began to focus on its at-home learning app with content for Math and Science tailored for classes VI-X based on the NCERT syllabus. The self-learning app can be used by students at home for self-evaluation and to gauge the learning process.

According to data by UNESCO, 1.2 billion children are out of school globally due to the pandemic and the unprecedented toll it has been taking on our education system. This is where an edtech solution such as Class Saathi steps in to ensure that students continue to be able to access education and Agarwal’s unique perspective has been helping the startup offer India unique solutions.

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