Global IndianstoryUppma Virdi: The 30-year-old Indian-origin lawyer who made Australia fall in love with chai

Entrepreneurship

Uppma Virdi: The 30-year-old Indian-origin lawyer who made Australia fall in love with chai

Written by: Global Indian

(November 3, 2021) Who would have thought that a cup of tea could propel a 20-something Indian Australian into the country’s big league? But that’s exactly what happened with Uppma Virdi, a Sydney-based lawyer, who shot to fame with her venture Chai Walli. So much so, that in 2016 Virdi was selected as Businesswoman of the Year at the 2016 Indian Australian Business and Community Awards (IABCA).

Quite the accidental entrepreneur, Virdi chanced upon the idea for Chai Walli when she was working as a commercial lawyer. Despite a full-fledged legal career ahead of her, advising some of the fastest growing tech startups and a growing portfolio of employment, IP, and commercial clients, this Global Indian decided to set up a new venture on the side. She founded Chai Walli, a tea business focused on introducing to Australia authentic Indian and Ayurvedic teas. The venture took off and soon Virdi was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Check out my latest article: Chai Walli Winner of the Micro Business of the Year Award 2021 at the IABCA Gala Night! https://t.co/iF70QBdGpw.

— Uppma Virdi (@UppmaV) May 18, 2021

The girl from Chandigarh

Born in Chandigarh in 1990, Virdi was raised in Melbourne where her family moved when she was one-year-old. She did her Bachelors of Law and Commerce from Deakin University and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from The College of Law. Throughout her student years, Virdi worked actively; sometimes as a customer sales representative and sometimes as a seasonal clerk. She also worked as a paralegal towards workers compensation and also completed her secondment with Toyota Motors in Australia.

Through it all, her love for tea remained a constant. Always the go-to person to make tea for family gatherings and friends, she once made as many as a thousand cups of tea during her brother’s wedding. In an interview with SBS she said, “In the Indian culture people come together through tea. Whether it’s a happy occasion or a difficult moment, tea is all pervasive. I tried, but couldn’t find many good tea places in Australia.”

Global Indian entrepreneur Uppma Virdi

Brewing mantra

Virdi launched Chai Walli in 2014 while still doing her day job at a law firm. Her introduction to tea, she says, was courtesy her grandfather, who was an Ayurvedic doctor. He was the one who taught her how to make a cup of good herbal tea. It was these lessons that she channeled into her startup and began offering Australians a good cup of chai. Her chai business began as a side project while she continued in her day job as a lawyer. She would spend evenings and the weekends blending chai with a pestle, which she would then take to the markets to brew fresh masala chai for the customers. Her tea began gaining popularity and soon Chai Walli was a phenomenon in its own right.

Initially though, her family had quite a few misgivings about this lawyer plunging headlong into the chai business. “My parents were against my decision. They wondered why I wanted to be a tea-seller of all things. That’s when I had to convince them that chaiwallas too can do something worthwhile,” she said in an interview.

Road to success

In a country where coffee was the norm, Virdi made inroads with her steaming cups of Indian chai and its various variants. She began her journey of popularising tea with seminars on The Art of Chai with the aim to educate Australians on the nutritive benefits of Ayurvedic tea. Her workshops did the rounds of social media and she began selling her tea in small stores in Australian markets. She tied up with poor tea farmers in India and imported their produce to Australia. For Virdi, this was an opportunity to familiarise Australians with Indian culture and what it meant to be a first-generation Indian migrant.

Today, Virdi’s online store sells a variety of teas and related products such as candles, pots, kettles, strainers and tea flavoured goodies. The original Chai Walli blend is made with 11 fresh spices, with the warm and cool spices being tempered as per the season to enhance the chai experience. Her workshops where she coaches people on how to brew the perfect cup of chai is quite the rage with tea enthusiasts.

Global Indian entrepreneur Uppma Virdi

Chai Walli won the best chai award at the Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards in 2017 and was the finalist at the Best Health Food and Beverage Awards. In all, the brand offers 15 Ayurvedic blends and teas with the tea being sourced from organic farms in India. For now, the lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, who was featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 is on a mission: to rid the world of bad chai.

Follow Uppma Virdi on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

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Published on 03, Nov 2021

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Madhukar Varshney: The US-returned innovator-turned-entrepreneur helps children problem solve

(November 30, 2021) If the Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Forum is right, 65 percent of students entering primary school will ultimately work jobs that haven’t even been invented yet. Then how does one prepare children for the future? It involves a farsightedness that Madhukar Varshney, founder of NimbleQ, has made a part of his DNA. The IT honcho imbues children with essential skills — creative thinking, communication, problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration. Technology is at the heart of many jobs, and understanding how to apply it to innovate and create able future generations is Varshney’s core strength. The idea, says the innovator-turned-entrepreneur, is to teach children to apply knowledge to solve real world problems and have a growth mindset. “Did you know only 2 percent of Fortune 500 companies have CEOs of Indian-origin?” he asks, adding, “This is because there is some flaw in the way we teach our kids. We focus on the math, but where is the creativity? Where is the proclivity to create and innovate?” [embed]https://twitter.com/HakimHabibulla/status/1418132814600433673?s=20[/embed] A holistic approach NimbleQ’s holistic skills development programme focuses on building the next generation of leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, and it was developed by the US-returned Varshney and his wife Shailey Motial, who handles brand

mbed]https://twitter.com/HakimHabibulla/status/1418132814600433673?s=20[/embed]

A holistic approach

NimbleQ’s holistic skills development programme focuses on building the next generation of leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, and it was developed by the US-returned Varshney and his wife Shailey Motial, who handles brand development and strategies.

What started as an after-school curriculum, now focusses on helping youngsters to innovate. “The idea is to get children to think independently like creators. While it is important to learn all things tech-related, it is also important that children know how to apply the knowledge, understand business, entrepreneurship, and money,” says Madhukar, who was in the US for 20 years thanks to the citizenship he was awarded under the Outstanding Researcher Category in 2009.

[caption id="attachment_16994" align="aligncenter" width="4898"] Global Indian Madhukar Varshney Madhukar Varshney with students during a NimbleQ class[/caption]

Raised in a very conventional family in Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh), entrepreneurship didn’t even cross his mind. Born in 1974 to a father, who was a government contractor father, and teacher mother, Madhukar grew up believing that the route to success was through a US education. “Career choices then were either as doctors or engineers. I’d never thought about starting up. When I moved to the US, I got the opportunity to explore with an exposure to diverse cultures and professional experiences,” recalls Madhukar, who graduated in chemical engineering from HPTI, Kanpur, and then did a master’s and PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of Arkansas.

Madhukar then worked at Cornell University as a research associate studying micro and nanomechanical cantilever-based sensors. A job at NABsys, a company which develops semiconductor-based tools for genomic analysis, came next.

The researcher turned educationist

During his career as a researcher, Madhukar published over 35 papers and owns three patents. Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, he decided to branch out on his own. In 2014, he set up his first company Forty-Five NE, a digital healthcare company that influences disease outcomes by empowering patients to get involved in self-care.

[caption id="attachment_16984" align="aligncenter" width="1065"] Global Indian Madhukar Varshney Madhukar Varshney with his wife and co-founder Shailey Motial[/caption]

He ran the Massachusetts-based company for two years. The Varshneys then began searching for something empowering in education. “We weren’t too happy about where the education system was headed. For instance, in India, students are not encouraged to question. There is no room for creativity, independence or leadership qualities. In the US too, though the system is different, there is still a loophole that needs to be plugged,” he tells Global Indian.

The seed was planted, and the couple moved lock, stock, barrel and family, to India and set up NimbleQ in 2017. Headquartered in Lucknow, NimbleQ is aimed at developing nimbleness of the mind. “They say that intelligence and capability are not natural talents; they are built by the flexibility of the mind. At NimbleQ, that’s what we aim to do: we encourage students to learn how to learn, question, focus, (even) fail and take in their stride and begin again,” says the founder of the so far bootstrapped startup.

Designed to teach

The NimbleQ experience is designed to teach kids to adapt, be flexible, question the status quo and adopt a holistic approach to life. “This is why business and entrepreneurship and understanding money are important aspects of the programme. So children are truly future ready,” he adds.

[caption id="attachment_16986" align="aligncenter" width="758"] Global Indian Shailey Motial Shailey Motial[/caption]

With programmes aimed at kindergartners to class 10 students, the startup has already been seeing some very positive results. For instance, a six-year-old student of theirs, won a Business Idea Hackathon for suggesting that energy be harnessed from Mars. “We don’t want our engineers to build a Taj Mahal. What’s the point of a Taj Mahal if it cannot be sold? The idea is for our engineers to innovate and design buildings that can be scaled and sold,” says Madhukar. So far, about 4,000 students have signed up since they started, with 80,000 plus hours of classes conducted.

The programmes are designed to treat students like adults, show them real time scenarios and what real jobs involve. After months of research, sit-downs with industry leaders, educationists, and researchers, Madhukar developed the programmes which today they are helmed by NimbleQ teachers (all engineers).

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlpvltyIF9M[/embed]

The startup has students in India, US and UAE. Plans are afoot to resume offline classes again, with expansion plans. “We’re also looking to raise funding to aid these plans,” says Madhukar, who is headquartered in Lucknow and always wanted to start small. "We’re not in it for the race.”

The father of two, loves to unwind with his children and encourages them to explore and question the world.

“At the end of the day, we put the student at the centre. We treat them like grown-ups. We don’t restrict ourselves to premium schools, we want to democratise education and also tie up with mid-size and small schools,” says the entrepreneur, who loves to sketch.

Follow Madhukar Varshney on LinkedIn.

Reading Time: 10 mins

Deepinder Goyal: The resilient entrepreneur ever hungry for bigger challenges

(July 16, 2021; 6:55 pm) What began as an intranet website has now turned into one of the biggest food delivery companies in the country. Zomato, a brand that became a billion-dollar empire in just a decade, has now hit another jackpot with its ₹9,375 crore Initial Public Offering (IPO). Such has been the craze that its IPO subscribed nearly five times on the second day of its issue. A feat not many companies have attained. And, the lion’s share of credit goes to its founder Deepinder Goyal. At the Zomato office pic.twitter.com/0hzeZD9M9g — Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) July 14, 2021 Ever since the record-breaking debut at IPO, Goyal has been at the receiving end of immense support and cheer from other entrepreneurs. From co-founder Pankaj Chaddah and Info Edge’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the laurels keep pouring in. Pankaj Chaddha, the co-founder of Zomato, tweeted, “Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem. Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO” Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team!

/strong>, the laurels keep pouring in.

Pankaj Chaddha, the co-founder of Zomato, tweeted, “Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem. Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO”

Congrats @deepigoyal & the entire @zomato team! The IPO is a huge validation of the value created through the years, and is a landmark event for the start-up ecosystem.

Feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of the journey. Keep showing the way! #ZomatoIPO

— Pankaj Chaddah (@pankajchaddah) July 14, 2021

How it started. How it’s going @zomato @deepigoyal pic.twitter.com/zcNou498UN

— Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) July 14, 2021

The humble beginnings

It was while ordering a pizza from his room at IIT-Delhi that an idea of starting a food delivery company struck Goyal. However, it fizzled out soon, and Goyal ventured into the corporate world with Bain & Company. It was here that the idea regerminated when he saw a sea of crowd struggling to place the order at the canteen during mealtimes. With the help from his colleague Pankaj Chaddah, who was also Goyal's junior at IIT-Delhi, the two came up with a creative solution for saving time spent while ordering food. That was the beginning of Foodiebay.com. Scanning the office canteen's menu and those from neighboring restaurants made Foodiebay.com an instant hit at Bain.

With the revenue trickling in, Goyal and Chaddah decided to turn their side hustle into a proper business. They quit Bain in 2009 and decided to start their own company.

The positive response encouraged Foodiebay.com to extend its wings to other metropolitan like Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, and Bengaluru, and in one year, they listed over 8000 restaurants.

The game-changing e-mail

Foodiebay.com was doing well for a start-up, but little did Goyal know that an e-mail from a fan would change their lives forever. It was Sanjeev Bikhchandani, the founder of naukri.com and Info Edge, who reached out to Goyal telling him that he would like to invest in Foodiebay.com. The two signed the deal within few days of the email. Info Edge invested $1 million in 2010 in Foodiebay.com.

How Foodiebay became Zomato

With a million-dollar invested in Foodiebay.com, Goyal decided to change the name to Zomato. The entrepreneur soon realized that there was 'ebay in his brand, and in his words, "one should not build a business on a name which has 5% chance of getting screwed in the future."

Soon Zomato was introduced to the world with a massive marketing and rebranding exercise.

"We decided to keep the idea of food at the center but choose a name that is timeless and encompassing. We decided on the name Zomato. Zomato’s got a zing to it and is originally a play on the word Tomato. Zomato is not restricted to food either," Deepinder Goyal wrote in his blog in 2010.

The Global Indian brand

In two years of the start-up, Zomato went international by launching its service in Dubai and Singapore. The same year, Zomato went social with its new tools asking its 2.5 million active monthly users to review restaurants and share their love for food.

In 2013, Sanjeev Bikhchandani pitched Zomato to venture capital giants Sequoia, and in no time, they jointly invested $37 million in the food delivery company, which then had 600 employees and its existence in 11 countries.

With an appetite for global expansion, Zomato acquired New Zealand's MenuMania, Czech Republic's Lunchtime, Poland's Gastronauci, and America's UrbanSpoon. With its US launch, the food aggregator brand entered the coveted unicorn club with a $50 million fundraiser from Vy Capital and Info Edge.

Trouble in paradise

The food delivery giant started facing trouble in its paradise in 2015 when it had to lay off 300 employees. It even made an exit from 14 countries it was in and reduced its cash burn from $9 million to $1.6 million.

Zomato vs Swiggy

It was towards the end of 2018 that Zomato started to feel the heat from its competitor Swiggy, that was making a big wave in online delivery food. But Goyal wasn't ready to bow down to competition yet and introduced strict timelines for food delivery in 2015. And within one year, Zomato hit 1 million orders.

In 2018, Zomato felt a huge blow when Pankaj Chaddah, the co-founder, quit the company without any explanation. This was also the beginning of restaurants' cold relationship with Zomato. So much so that a Log Out campaign was launched by the restaurants alleging high commissions. However, Zomato had a different story to tell and called the restaurants its partners.

It was in January 2020 that Zomato bite into its competition when it bought Uber Eats in a $350 acquisition.

And now Zomato has come knocking on the people’s doors for delivering its shares. How well would Zomato do as a public company? The whole of India’s startup ecosystem would be watching.

Editor's Take

Deepinder Goyal revolutionized the food industry with Zomato. He literally brought every restaurant to our doorstep with just a swipe on the phone.: A feat that wasn't achieved in the food business until 2008. Zomato’s rise from a bootstrapped venture to a company that is raising a record amount through its IPO augurs well for the Indian startup ecosystem. For the first time, a new-age Indian internet venture - typically not exposed to public scrutiny – will be dissected and analyzed. This will also be a test of whether India’s equity markets are ready to accept fast-growing, but loss-making companies. The Zomato IPO will be a testbed for Indian startups.

Reading Time: 6 mins

Born in Chicago, settled in India, Anjum Babukhan set up a school that makes a difference

(October 7, 2021) Anjum Babukhan's is an unconventional story. Born and brought up in Chicago, she moved to India for her husband. But where she could've basked in the glory of her new life, she decided instead to channel her energies into branching out on her own. A keen learner herself, she found the education system in the country outdated and set out to make a change in her own small way. She founded Glendale Academy, a co-education school that laid an emphasis on holistic growth and a nurturing environment, in Hyderabad. The concept clicked and today, the brand has flourished into a chain of private schools that was ranked number 1 in Telangana and at number 8 in India by Education World. For close to three decades now, Anjum has striven to transform lives through education, which remains her top priority even today. Otherwise, the award-winning educationist can teach you a thing or two about martial art form like Tai Chi or Chinese exercise Qigong, show off her urban sketching skills and Yin-Yang art, display her Ikebana expertise, become a dance choreographer or wow people with her Zumba and Yoga moves. In everything that she does, Anjum sets the standards

e a dance choreographer or wow people with her Zumba and Yoga moves. In everything that she does, Anjum sets the standards high.

By leaps and bounds

“I do my best and let god do the rest,” smiles Anjum, settling down for an exclusive interview with Global Indian. Her desire to achieve and a passion to convert her dreams into reality led to the birth of Glendale Academy. She took off with one school in the early 2000s; 25 years later, Glendale has expanded by leaps and bounds.

“We now stand as number 1 in Telangana and top 10 in India; we are known for our pedagogy – the art of teaching and holistic curricular approach more than anything else," informs a beaming Anjum, the Director of Glendale, as she looks back at her illustrious journey.

From America to Hyderabad

Born and raised in Chicago in the United States in a conservative family, Anjum is the eldest of four siblings. Her Indian Muslim parents immigrated from Hyderabad in the 1970s. "I keep traversing between continents, cultures and conditions. Whether it was adapting as a bicultural child of immigrants in the US to moving halfway across the world to India and adjusting to the social constructs of the society here, I pick out elements of what I choose to harmonize in my symphony of multi-layered and multi-cultural being," says Anjum.

She was a high honor roll student, who won several scholarships on graduating from high school before she went on to study Psychology in the honors program at Loyola University, Chicago. While in her last year at the University, Anjum met an international student from Hyderabad, Salman Babukhan, whom she married after college. Anjum moved to India in 1995 after pursuing her Masters in Education Administration and Instructional Leadership at University of Illinois.

Entrepreneurial journey

Within months of her settling down in India, she discovered the education system here was outdated and rigid. She wanted to change things, so Anjum set out on a mission. "We wanted to create nurturing spaces that develop every child's multiple intelligence spectrum, physical capabilities, creative potential, 21st Century life skills and multicultural awareness. At Glendale, our focus has always been and remains on cultivating competence and character," she informs.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8i9DT5BbkI[/embed]

A lifelong learner, Anjum is not only keen on sharing her knowledge, but also adapts and evolves with the changing times. "Everyone changes and everyone evolves. From my teens, 20s, 30s, and now in my 40s, I have grown more effective in my career, confident in capacities, resilient in challenges and comfortable within my own being as time moves forward. In the biological paradigm, those who adapt not only survive, but thrive," says the mother of three.

Anjum has many feathers in her academic cap. Among them are the outstanding academic achievement awards in the Presidential Academic fitness awards program signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and President George HW Bush in 1990, as well as an "academic and leadership excellence" award presented by Hyderabad foundation of Chicago.

The eternal Global Indian

Describing herself as a Global Indian American Muslim, Anjum is constantly pushing the boundaries. Even now, she is strong in her academic pursuits in her quest for lifelong learning. With courses like Strategy in Action and Project Zero from Harvard, courses from Cambridge and recently a Design Thinking course from Stanford D school, she exemplifies her motto of learning every day. The visionary leader that she is, Anjum says she loves to learn anything that contributes to building her own multiple intelligence spectrum.

"One should explore their many sides across identities, capacities, cultures and ways of knowing the world. Every aspect one has in them can be channelized and optimized. There is no one like you and never will be. Be the best version of yourself always," she advises all those embarking on a journey. A globetrotter, Anjum says she keeps wanting to bridge the best of both worlds with what she likes and lives in both places. "I guess we are all travelers in this world," says Anjum, who is also a TEDx speaker.

Global Indian Anjum Babukhan

Staying true to her roots

With an experience of over two and half decades in implementing the best teaching methodologies, she has also authored a book, ABCs of Brain Compatible Learning, which is a guide for all educators.

The one Indian-ness, she says, that remains with her is the Hindustani language, be it Urdu or Hindi, which is a way to know, enjoy and be enriched by culture. "Nothing can be as colorful and vibrant as ethnic apparel and accessories. But even if I feel comfortable with the secular and pluralistic ideals of countries I call my own, my belonging may be questioned by the right-wing powers of the majority at times, whether it is in the US or India," says Anjum, who has won innumerable awards, accolades and recognition not just individually but for her institutions as well.

Anjum, who received an honorary doctorate in education by the National American University and National Institute of Education and Research, has an interesting take on Brand India. "As long as Brand India maintains its pluralism, secularism and humane values on which the nation was founded upon, it will grow stronger, taller and wider by harnessing the strength of unity in diversity. If it is inclusive, striving for justice and opportunity for all, Brand India will be a potent force like no other."

Follow her on LinkedIn

Reading Time: 8 mins

Grinding batter to entrepreneurial success: How PC Musthafa built a ₹2000 crore company

(November 1, 2021) PC Musthafa realised very early that being enterprising was the only way to ride out of abject poverty. He was only 10 years old when the realisation dawned on him. Hailing from a remote village in Kerala's Wayanad district, Musthafa's father worked as a daily wage labourer for less than ₹10 a day, and Musthafa gave a helping hand to his father in his work to earn a little bit. But he had a plan in place. After saving money for a long time, Musthafa bought a goat, reared it and sold it after some time. He used that money to buy a cow which became a source of income for the family. Musthafa had found a way to keep his family afloat through his venture. Musthafa, who founded iD Fresh Foods decades later, says that he may have had a very active mind, but he was weak in one area. "I was very poor in studies. Once I failed in class six and stopped going to school. I decided to help my father in earning a living," he says talking to Global Indian. [caption id="attachment_14691" align="aligncenter" width="730"] PC Musthafa is the CEO of iD Fresh Foods.[/caption]

ttachment_14691" align="aligncenter" width="730"] PC Mustafa PC Musthafa is the CEO of iD Fresh Foods.[/caption]

Musthafa's teacher, "Mathew Sir," saw a spark in the young boy and convinced him to continue his studies. It wasn't very comfortable for him to sit with his juniors, but somehow he developed an interest in mathematics. And there was no looking back.

Within a year, he was topping not only in mathematics but other subjects too. That, in a way, changed his life. "The lesson out here was when your confidence is low, take baby steps. Learn from your experience and slowly work towards your goals. That's when I started enjoying school a lot." he says. Later he did engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut.

Somewhere along the line, Musthafa's entrepreneurial drive got lost as he got busy with his education and then a job came his way. While working a 9-5 job in the Middle East, he realised that this was not something he wanted to do for long. Moreover, he was keen to do something for his village, especially its children. "There were many kids from my village who were way smarter than me. But like me they didn't get the opportunity. I wanted to offer them something," he says.

He decided to give in to his entrepreneurial yearnings, quit his job in 2003 and returned to India. Meanwhile, Musthafa did his MBA from IIM, Bangalore, and started brainstorming with his cousins to start a new venture.

One day, one of his cousins mentioned a local store selling dosa batter in plastic packets with a rubber band to hold it together. "The batter was in demand, yet people had issues about packaging. Some people were complaining about it being unhygienic. That's when we stepped in," Musthafa shares.

With around ₹50,000, Musthafa plunged into the batter business. Four of his cousins joined him. In 2005, iD Fresh Food rolled out from a 50 sq ft kitchen. The journey began with two grinders, a mixer, a sealing machine and a second-hand gear-less scooter. Musthafa and his cousins would go to the market every morning, buy rice, urad dal, come back, wash it, grind it, and put it on fermentation. The following day they would pack it and load it on the scooter to sell the batter packets. "It was back-breaking work. Our shirts were soaked in sweat, yet we enjoyed it a lot." he laughs.

[caption id="attachment_14690" align="alignnone" width="1200"] PC Mustafa preparing dosa[/caption]

It took them almost nine months to get 20 customers and sell 100 packets.

Today iD sells more than one lakh packets every day. "Idlis and dosas from batter feeds more than one million Indians everyday," says a proud Mustafa.

According to TiE Chennai, in 2018, the iD Fresh Food was ₹1,000 crore brand.

The company has its presence across South India and West India, Dubai and the US. With the backing of large investors such as Helion Venture Partners and Azim Premji's investment, iD Fresh Food is spreading its wings and reaching Europe. It has diversified its products with inclusion of filter coffee and others.

Talks are on with a few more investors for the next round of funding as iD plans to expand in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. "Our existing partner, Helion Venture is about to exit and we have more people interested in investing in our future," Musthafa informs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvvblHr9zok

With a team of 2,000 employees across the globe, iD Fresh Food is on a growth spree that few companies can match. Apart from its flagship batter, iD's other popular products include Malabar parotta, paneer, filter coffee and bread,

An early riser, Musthafa enjoys spiritual books during his free time. Though he enjoys all kinds of food, he claims he can't cook. "My dosa resembles Australia's map," he smiles.

Looking back at his life from a remote village to being one of India's most successful young entrepreneurs, Musthafa says, "The journey has been tough, yet very memorable and satisfying." But he has a long way to go and scale greater heights.

Follow PC Musthafa on Instagram and Linkedin

Reading Time: 6 min

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.

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