GDL - Piramal Foundation

Source for Change speaks at TEDxShekhavati

GDL Admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:04:07 +0000

Shrot Katewa, the co-founder and COO of Source for Change recently spoke at TEDxShekhavati in Fatehpur, Rajasthan. Even more exciting is the fact that Shobha Sharma, an SFC Business Process Associate, joined Shrot on stage. Please see them both here:

TED is a global conference which attracts some of the sharpest, best known minds on the planet. TEDxShekhavati, an offshoot of this larger movement, was located in the small town of Fatehpur in the Shekhavati region not far from our home base of Bagar. It attracted over 1,000 local attendees which makes it the largest venue at which Source for Change has been able to present its business and development model. In order to align with the value of elucidating new ideas to the Shekhavati community, all the speeches were conducted in Hindi. Topics ranged from photography, health, women’s empowerment, and of course to rural outsourcing.

The story which led up to TEDxShekhavati and the associated struggles can be read on the link below. It’s written by the organiser, Masarat Daud:

http://tedchris.posterous.com/private/HgICHbwrhA

One of the most inspiring bits of feedback at the end of the event was “You have raised the bar for all the girls. Now, the women community is very inspired and parents will educate their girls.”

We hope many such similar events will occur all over the world!

Happy Holi!

GDL Admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:47:04 +0000

The GDL Team celebrated Holi or होली in Bagar this past Monday. We enjoyed visiting friends in the community, throwing colored powder or rang at each other, eating sweets, and watching Holika being burned.

Please learn more about Holi here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi

Bagar Employment Institute and Source for Change speak to BITS Pilani students

GDL Admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:16:41 +0000

A few of us at GDL were asked to speak on development at the grassroots level at BITS Pilani on Sunday February 7th. The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership hosted an Entrepreneurship week and our panel discussion was one of the events. Fortunately we were also able to bring BEI’s Community Leadership team, a nine member team comprised of young leaders from Bagar and the surrounding villages, who had the chance to share their ideas on how to build trust with communities for the purpose of development. Above are a few pictures from the event. The people in the panel are Sahil Chaudry, Vivake Prasad, and Kaushal Rajoriya of the Bagar Employment Institute, and Karthik Raman of Source for Change. The guys in the uniforms are the BEI Community Leadership Team. It was a really great experience for the students who wanted to learn more about social enterprise and for the panelists who were able to reaffirm their commitment to development using business methodologies.

Source for Change Completes Web Research / Data Entry Work for US-based Real Estate Firm

GDL Admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:33:08 +0000

BAGAR, RAJASTHAN, INDIA (24 December 2009) – Source for Change (SFC), a company established through the Ajay G. Piramal Foundation, completes the 17^th IT-based project in the company’s history. The most recent project was for UrboCorp, a real estate firm based in Houston, Texas, USA. The client needed comprehensive research from multiple websites regarding 1800 acres of residential properties located in Houston, Texas to be compiled into a central informational database.

“We were extremely excited to execute on a project that required detailed web research. As always, we applied our rigorous quality checking procedures and delivered a high quality product to the client.” says Shrot Katewa, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Source for Change.

SFC saved UrboCorp hundreds of hours allowing the company to focus on its core competencies. According to Mr. Tom McCasland, the owner of UrboCorp, his company benefited financially due to the reduced cost of the project. A similar project completed in a major Indian metro costs 30-40% more. Mr. McCasland was pleasantly surprised by both the quality and the cost of the project completed by Source for Change. The project began on October 6, 2009 and the final product was delivered ahead of schedule on November 26, 2009.

“The quality of the final product, the professionalism of the staff, and the rapid completion of the project all exceeded my most optimistic expectations,” says Mr. McCasland. “Because UrboCorp is a startup company with limited staff, Source for Change provided the perfect partner for completing a large web-based data entry project that was crucial to the growth of my company. Working with Source for Change and the women that it employs in rural India has reinforced my deeply held belief that doing well and doing good are not mutually exclusive concepts for businesses with vision, creativity and a social conscious.”

Source for Change is a solutions provider for business process services with a strong emphasis on quality which is creating tremendous efficiency gains for businesses. Now in its second year of operation, SFC offers its clients high quality outsourcing solutions with a competitive cost advantage by unifying three processes: people, quality, and innovation. SFC has completed 17 projects for 9 clients. Most clients have been from India, but UrboCorp is the fourth foreign client. Previously, The University of Maryland (USA), University of California, Los Angeles (USA), and Reel Colour Studios (UK) have all benefited from Source for Change’s industry leading quality assurance practices.

Source for Change, incubated by the Ajay G. Piramal Foundation, has its center in Bagar, Rajasthan. SFC works alongside the women of rural India in delivering the highest level of quality to our global clients while creating opportunities for educated women to learn new skills and develop their professional abilities. Providing employment opportunities for women is a way of tapping dormant talent, as there is much potential but few opportunities for professional women in rural areas. From thorough IT training to efficient project delivery, our business model operates on competitive cost and high quality while creating social impact.

BEI VOICE LAB

Arbind Singh — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:48:10 +0000

The Voice Lab has become operational at BEI center in Bagar.It is an attempt to provide platform for students in rural areas to communicate in English using technology, listen to pre recorded matter to improve their listening skills.Interact with the system in Q&A format to enhance their interview preparation skills, it also has interactive grammar learning features with vocabulary and accent improvement aid.

THE BAGAR PARADOX

Arbind Singh — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:26:18 +0000

BEI was established with a single point focus of providing quality training to rural youth to bridge the gap between the urban and non urban students. The training would empower them to snatch a job in fighting situations. In the last year or so we have opportunities of delight when a student or two of our institute managed to grab a job at uban elite centres like LIFESTYLE and others. But this year the delight and difficulty is different. Not one but two of our students were offered a job at this place but they refused citing the salary was too little . This offer was finally taken by a student who was not earlier selected and is working there right now. The challenge that now appears is what is the scale that as an institute we should be looking for our students. Bagar being , socially and educationally rich compared to other rural area presents a paradox. The not rich are influenced by the rich and the migrant population in the middle east so a job offer of 5000 or so seems petite. On the other hand there are people who are ready to work even for 2000 thousand or less. The challenge here is to how to develope a strategy that caters to all. Otherwise in future the refusal of students will dent our relationship that we have built with potential employers

New initiative at GDL: Developing Entrepreneurship

pulkit — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 05:06:12 +0000

Dear GDL Blog readers,

This is my first entry (4 months into my time here!) so I should introduce myself.. My name is Pulkit Agrawal and I am one of the trinity of Indicorps Aug 08 fellows that are currently at GDL. I shall leave the others to give more details about themselves, but I have come with the aim of working to tackle youth unemployment, a significant issue here and other rural areas, during my 1 year at GDL..

Born not too far from here, in Jaipur, I’ve spent almost all my life abroad, mainly the UK and now live in London with my parents and younger sister. I’ve just graduated with a Masters in Chemical Engineering from Cambridge University this year and wanted to spend some time living and understanding India as well as doing something constructive before moving into the world of employment.

From tomorrow I shall begin classes to encourage entrepreneurship amongst youth here, as a means of self-employment. I hope to teach my students basic business skills through practical activities and develop their confidence in their own ability to successfully start and run a small rural enterprise. I will primarily be using the MOVE (Market Oriented Value Enhancement) manual – by Dr. M S Subhas (Kousali Institute of Management Studies, Karnatak University) – and Barefoot MBA – by Katherine Boas and Scott Raymond (two Stanford Business School graduates) – along with other individual sources. I hope to foster various soft/life skills alongside and foster a culture of civic responsibility amongst the participants. The first (pilot) batch will run for 2 hours/day and 6 days/week for 1 month, as a preliminary to a more developed strategy.

I am looking for a trainer to work with me in developing the course and to continue after I reach of my time here. In addition there are many aspects of this project that crave input and resources, so if there are any volunteers that would like to spend time developing this concept and start-up course then please get in touch at pulkit@gdl.org.in.

In addition the website is now undergoing some updates, after being pretty redundant for some time, so watch this space!

The Level of Elementary Education Survey was completed by the BEI Team

kaushal — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:08:51 +0000

In collaboration with ASER (Annual State of Education Report) – 2008, facilitated by Pratham Rajasthan (Jaipur). The survey for level of elementary education was completed by the BEI team. This effort was co-ordinated by Kaushal Rajoriya and State Head of ASER organization, Mr. Ajay Sharma. The survey was completed in thirty villages of the Jhunjhnu District, each consisting of twenty households. The objective of the survey is to assess the education level of 3 to 18 year olds, the condition of Angan bari centers, and village livelihoods. After completing the survey, ASER distributed certificates to the BEI team.

BEI Use N-Computing Technology

kaushal — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:06:43 +0000

BEI has shifted to a new building. It is situated in front of the Piramal Boy’s Sen. Sec. School. It was inaugurated on Piramal Jayanthi Day, 18^th November, 2008.

Additionally, we have installed a relatively new technology, N-Computing, in the computer lab. It is cost effective because one computer is used to power three additional displays/stations through the N- Computing terminal. It also saves on electricity.

NEW INITATIVES ARE BEARING FRUITS

Arbind Singh — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:42:35 +0000

The arrival of autumn has brought chill and numbness in the weather but the spirit at the BEI English classes is high. The English class took the initiative of imparting medical representative training to the rural youth who were science graduates and above. The curriculum for the one month course was developed at BEI. It was a challenge to motivate people in these parts to think about careers in private sector. After some persuasion we were able to start a batch which concluded prior to Dipawali. The next big challenge was to find proper jobs for them as promised at the start. We are glad to announce that the effort put in by the students and the team has shown results. Three of our students Guljarilal Kumaot, Mahendra shaini and Kamlesh Dudi have been selected by Piramal e- Swasth to be their Field Supervisors. The only girl in our Class Mahesh Bambu who is M.Sc bio-tech is also on the threshold of landing a good job for herself. Once again , we at BEI appreciate the effort put in by the students and thank everyone who made it possible.