In one paragraph (100 words max), describe your organization/project?

*
Answer: The single largest bottleneck when it comes English learning is having high dependency on an
expert teacher. At Leap ForWord we are trying to eliminate this bottle neck through a model where we
enable less qualified individuals from the underserved community to become facilitators of English
Learning. The premise being, if we are able to convert a house maid / unemployed youth / famer /
housewife to an English Language Facilitator then we have managed to sow seeds for a large scale
educational impact. Being an out of classroom effort, it is not dependent on government`s partnership
to achieve scale.
In one or two words, what is your organizations/projects main area of focus?
Answer: Enabling Opportunities
What is your title at this organization/project?
Answer: Assessment Lead
4. Read Acumens Manifesto. Which line resonates with you the most? * (300 words)
Tell us a story about how youve seen an aspect of the Manifesto play out in your own life.
Answer: When I reflect back on the kind of decisions I have made, I feel the line which resonates with
me the most is Doing whats right, not whats easy.
Whats Right is subjective and would vary from person to person. For me it was, making decisions
based on what the heart said over what the majority defined to be right. During my MBA course when
all my classmates were searching for internships with big corporations, I was the only one who was
trying to find an internship with an Educational Non Profit. When my peers were talking about CS &
CFAs, I was talking about National Eligibility Test & State Eligibility Tests (exams required to become
eligible to teach). After graduating, when my peers were earnestly looking forward their structured
corporate Job, here was me who was rejecting offers from large companies to finally end up taking a job
with an educational startup.
Even though this company was started doing well early and I had earned 10% sweat equity in the
business, I decided to leave the organization, as I sensed that it was becoming more of an international
travel company than being an educational initiative.
In my next career move, others counseled me take up a good corporate job but I chose to work and
contribute in the real time educational setup by becoming a teacher (Asst Professor). Now when things
on the surface seem to be really very nice in terms of my progress at HR College, my inner voice is asking
me to go one step further by getting married to an effort of solving a problem which I see to be wide
spread, grave and worth this life time.

3. What is your vision for India? * (200 words)

How do you hope India will change in your lifetime? How is the work youre doing
contributing towards that vision?
Answer: I dream of a country where access to opportunities is not a function of economic status, where
birth place does not define the scope of these opportunities. A society where merits triumphs and while
everything else takes a back seat. A system which eliminates unnecessary filters in the journey of
aspiration to achievement. A country kid a rural background is able to live a same dream as his urban
peer.
We see English language skills to be one of such unnecessary filters in our existing system. In this
lifetime, if my efforts are able to eliminate this filter, I think I have lived a considerably worthy life.
With the vision of creating large number of teacher entrepreneurs (from a pool of under qualified
individuals) and delivering English language skills without compromising on learning effectiveness, we
aim to prove a model. A model which opens up possibilities for any skill to get delivered by enabling
unskilled / semi skilled individuals from community itself.
If we are able to prove working of this model on ground consistently across geographies and numbers,
then I feel we have sown the seeds for eliminating many such unnecessary filters which may mushroom
in the future.
Why are you applying?* (200 words)
What do you want to get out of this program? What are your personal/professional development goals,
and how will the Acumen India Fellows Program help you achieve them?
With respect to my current deliverables and the team`s work, I can see acumen fellowship helping us
understand the intricacies of social business models.
The mentoring & inputs from experts will help us avoid making mistakes which are common in nature
and push ourselves to gain more clarity. As I understand from the Acumen 101 session and from my
interaction with one of the Acumen Fellows (2013), this fellowship enables a lot of peer to peer learning
which is crucial to the stage we are at. This network along with the inputs for improvement will also give
us perspectives from different angles, which I value as priceless.
Considering my deliverable as an Assessment Lead and the vision of operating it as standalone
assessment business within Leap-For-Word frame work, I expect this fellowship to build in more of
leadership capacity in myself and my outlook.
On an organizational front this affiliation can lend us greater credibility, which in turn may lead to
increase in the conversion of email requests to meeting appointments, thus helping us achieve our
desired impact goals on a faster and leveled consistency .

1. Why do you do what you do?* (200 words)

(What were those pivotal moments in your life that have led you to dedicate yourself and your work to
social impact? We already have your resume, so focus more on the personal and less on the professional.
Where does your passion and motivation come from?)
The decision of focusing all my efforts in the space of Education comes from a belief, that contribution
towards this sector is high leverage effort. Here the impact on one individual is not limited, it transcends
to his influence circle. Hence all my engagements have been linked to education, be it academic
projects, internship (www.atma.org), Volunteering Effort (Night College), Entrepreneurial venture
(www.edulab.in), teaching profession (H.R College) and my current role as an Assessment Lead (Leap For
Word).
My previous job roles and my drive for learning more has made me use the internet quite extensively
and I have closely witnessed its power. My motivation of working in the English Language space springs
from this question, Is India Internet Ready?. In the coming years access to internet is not going to be a
challenge for India but one more requisite to truly leverage its power is going to be English language
Skills. I can see the difference the internet could have made in the lives of my night college students.
English for them is not just a language but a window to opportunities, and this makes me do what I do.