Mekin Maheshwari
Founder and CEO, Udhyam
Mekin started Udhyam with a vision of making the entire nation entrepreneurial.
An engineer by education, Mekin has had entrepreneurial roles throughout his career. Notably, he joined Flipkart in 2009 to head technology. After having built a strong technology foundation and a great team, he moved on to running two new businesses before finally heading their HR for his last 2 years at Flipkart.
Mekin deeply cares about people succeeding in life. Udhyam is his commitment to see a massive number of people achieve their potential.
Akshay Midha
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Akshay partners with various players in the educational eco-system in Udhyam's journey of reaching young learners. He enjoys co-creating solutions with people to maximise impact.
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Akshay is passionate about co-creating solutions with people to maximise impact.
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Akshay believes in the the potential of the youth and Udhyam's vision of co-creating a caring world, where people fearlessly pursue their potential.
Anshula Madgula
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Anshula works with youth and institutional enablers on entrepreneurial mindset oriented programs through curriculum design and implementation.
Anshula believes that young people are full of surprises and has a deep interest in understanding their motivations about learning, and the social context in which they make choices.
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Udhyam's belief in the innate and diverse capabilities of every individual keeps me connected to the work.
Arunima Chandra
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Arunima is a part of the Monitoring & Evaluation team at Udhyam Shiksha.
Arunima is passoniate about working towards reducing income inequalities.
Arunima views Udhyam's work on empowering individuals to believe in, and puruse their potential, as a fundamental way in which income inequalities can be bridged.
Arjun M
Associate, Udhyam Vyapaar
Arjun works with the Monitoring & Evaluation team at Udhyam Vyapaar measuring effectiveness of various interventions.
Arjun cares about the people who are less focused and vulnerable in society.
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Udhyam's work with less-focused on people and its great belief in human potential inspires hi to work at Udhyam
Archita Sisodia
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Archita is currently working with the Delhi government on developing an Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum for grades 9th to 12th.
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Archita deeply cares about making opportunities, learning and growth accessible to people, and is passionate about solving problems with an iterative approach.
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Udhyam's focus on mindsets, action-oriented and iterative approach to problem solving are things Archita respects and connects deeply with.
Badal Satapathy
Early Team Member, Udhyam Vyapaar
Badal works with grassroots micro-entrepreneurs to understand their problems and seeks to create solutions encouraging them to experiment with and adopt new opportunities.
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Badal's grounding in rural Orissa makes him passionate about the Right to Freedom, protection of Human Rights, and easy access to law and judicial services. He is also passionate about health, the quality of life and access to education.
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It is Udhyam's vision of empowering lives that Badal associates with most closely.
Cyril Joseph
Early Team Member, Udhyam Vyapaar
Cyril leads the Vyapaar Saathi function in the Vyapaar function. This entails hiring, training, mentoring and monitoring their performance. He also manages loan operations.
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Cyril creates agency in micro low-income entrepreneurs through income uplift by delivering the best products and problem-solving.
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Udhyam's call for ‘belief in human potential’ is what connects to Cyril the most.
Deepa Kuncheria
People function, Udhyam
Being the Key People Catalyst at Udhyam, Deepa exercises the opportunity to work with everyone in the organisation. She finds Udhyam, a place beaming with bright, enthusiastic people with a strong sense of purpose.
She looks after the HR responsibilities of Udhyam, with a keen focus on creating processes/ support systems to help Udhyamis achieve the vision.
Deepa is passionate about art, dance, food, travel and trying all things new and good. She resonates with Udhyam for building a "Can DO" attitude - a liberating mindset that empowers people to make their dreams come alive, in everyone.
Gauri Parate
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Gauri works on Facilitation along with its impact on the content Udhyam develops. Her focus lies in training and on-ground support for our facilitators.
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Gauri is passionate about the personal growth journeys of people, including herself. The importance of good mental and emotional health, awareness of oneself with a permanent focus on growing and doing what makes you happy is her mantra.
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Gauri connects to Udhyam's focus on pursuing one's potential from a place of increased agency which involves tenets of self-awareness, independence
and self-belief.
Harish Manwani
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Harish works closely on implementing med - large scale projects on ground and is currently involved in proposed statewide implementation of Shiskha program in Haryana. Harish sits out of Udhyam's Delhi branch office.
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Harish comes with over a decade of experience across multiple social impact verticals in the fields of education, safe drinking water, last-mile technology adoption and poverty elimination.. He is an ardent follower of Hindi and Sufi music and hosts the best parties at Udhyam.
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Harish is most excited by Udhyam’s idea of addressing the “education-to-career” gap and utilizing one’s own strengths based on her interests.
Karthik Bhaskara
Early Team Member, Udhyam Vyapaar
Karthik works on creating products that enable the economic upliftment of small businesses at scale.
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Karthik is passionate about urban sustainability, which he feels is a combination of ecological viability and social inclusion. In his free time, he works on creating products and techniques in urban agriculture and natural cleaners.
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Karthik connects with Udhyam since his work here directly translates to social inclusion.
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Krishnan Ranganathan
Lead, Udhyam Shiksha
Krishnan leads the Shiksha Program at Udhyam. He is passionate about education and entrepreneurship, and finds Udhyam to be a great intersection of the two. He believes that life is a great game of optimization where one has to learn to pick the optimum set of choices to maximize happiness.
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Krishnan connects deeply with the 'real-life experiential learning' philosophy of Udhyam, as he attributes most of his own learnings to real experiences rather than pure academics.
Kritika Jain
Early Team Member, Udhyam Vyapaar
Kritika works on providing business solutions to low-opportunity Tea Vyapaaris. She also co-owns Monitoring & Evaluation in an effort to make Udhyam Vyapaar more data-driven.
Kritika is passionate about cities and the people that live in them - the communities they live with, the stories they tell and how the urban landscape shapes around them. She also takes a keen interest in curating experiences and conversations for people. When not working, she can be found travelling, food-hopping, making art or playing board games!
Kritika connects with Udhyam's focus on working with micro-entrepreneurs in the informal sector towards agency and enhancing their business potential.
Nezrin Midhlaj
Consultant, Udhyam Shiksha
Nezrin focusses on state-level partnerships and program implementation.
Nezrin loves working for a social cause. I am passionate about establishing meaningful connections with people of a positive attitude. Her hobbies and interests vary from all forms of art, literature, public speaking, cultural exploration, fashion, anchoring & dancing.
Nezrin is excited to join a team that equips students to make informed decisions about their careers by advocating entrepreneurial opportunities available for young people in the world.
Manasi Joshi
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Manasi is currently working with the Delhi government on developing the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum for grade 9th to 12th.
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Manasi cares about conversations she builds with people around her. She wishes to have a gender sensitive society. She loves to swim and experience new types of food. Manasi is very passionate about watching movies in her free time.
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Udhyam's belief that a change in mindset and experiential learning can initiate bigger changes in society is what Manasi connects to the most.
Mehvash Arslan
Early Team Member, Udhyam Vyapaar
Mehvash works with micro-entreprenuers to help them scale their businesses through product and mindset interventions.
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Mehvash's passions are varied and range from understanding social structures and their complexities - figuring out how we can work to create sustainable and lasting impact within these - to animals, sports, and books outside of work.
Monica Pillai
Consultant, Udhyam
Monica works on people-related projects and supports the team to bring about changes in people operations and culture.
Monica is passionate about staying true to one's stated beliefs and attempting to keep the conscience of the organization intact. Outside of work, her focus is on bringing together communities, and living with equanimity.
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Monica connects to Udhyam's attempt to question inequity and its efforts in using collective shoulders to balance it out.
Payal Agrawal
Team member, Udhyam Shiksha
Payal works as a curriculum specialist to develop EMC along with the Delhi government.
Payal cares about building bottom-up solutions as it keeps her grounded in the purpose. Micro-schools are also Payal's current obsessions and she hopes to start one someday.
Udhyam's work on mindsets not only has vast scope in terms of approaches but also has the potential for lasting change and thus connects to Payal's aspirations.
Ravali
Early Team Member, Udhyam Vyapaar
Ravali works on mindset-based group interventions among low-opportunity Vyapaaris through curriculum design and program facilitation.
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Ravali has a strong interest in social justice, liberation, representation, and the amplification of the voices of marginalized groups in mainstream spaces. She believes that operating with a systems approach along with a cognizance of diverse contexts is our best hope for sustainable social change.
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Udhyam's focus on working towards the agency of micro-entrepreneurs in the informal sector is what Ravali connects to the most.
Roshini John
Early Team Member, Udhyam Vyapaar
Roshini works on building partnerships for scaling the Entrepreneur Transformation program at Udhyam Vyapaar.
Roshini is driven by a strong desire to create a more just and equitable society for all. She wants to pursue work in the area of policy research with a focus on governance and social issues. She loves reading books, experimenting with culinary dishes and spending time with loved ones.
Roshini connects with Udhyam because Udhyam believes in the power of human potential and focusses on livelihood upliftment.
Surabhi Yelsangikar
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Surabhi works with the Quality & Scale Lab overseeing partnerships, product design, operations & facilitation to ensure successful program implementation.
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Additionally, Surabhi also helps set up processes to improve the culture at Shiksha team. Surabhi is passionate about working with children & youth towards creating a better future - one in which they get to do what truly makes them happy. She also deeply cares about creating a positive working environment that brings out the best in people! Surabhi obsesses over art, stationery, food and ice-cream!
Belief in human potential is what connects her to Udhyam and continues to drive her to do her best.
Sahaj Parikh
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Sahaj is passionate about experiencing cultures, literature, food, music and philosophy. He has an interest in singing Indian classical and folk music. He also loves cooking complex dishes and getting the spices right.
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Sahaj connects to Udhyam's belief in the power of experiencing choice and the desire to enable every child to feel it.
Samir Kumar
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Samir works with the Curriculum Development and Facilitation Teams. His job is to ensure that Facilitators are trained properly to execute the program with
intended outcomes.
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Samir's interests lie in understanding human development and working on developing beings - preferring changes in them over those to the system. He likes to help people in whatever way possible to have them attain their potential.
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Samir's belief in people and their capabilities, as well as the entrepreneurial mindset as a possible solution to understand and work on their own development resonates with the organization's vision and mission.
Srishti Gulati
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Srishti works with the program to understand and unpack Udhyam's impact. She ensures that with relevant data the programs are iterated enough for building agency in the youth.
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Srishti is passionate about how individuals, teams and organizations learn and reach their potential.
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Srishti strongly believes that when equipped with the right mindsets and skills, the youth of our nation are going to be at the forefront of change. She resonates with the mindsets that our program works towards and the learning principles we root
all our work in.
Tushar Uchil
Early Team Member, Udhyam Shiksha
Tushar works with the Facilitation team, working on training and hiring of facilitators for Udhyam's various programs. At the same time, he also facilitates sessions for audiences, enabling them to understand their true potential.
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Opportunities to learn and grow gets Tushar's gears turning. Having something new is not only challenging and exciting for him, but also has an element of fun in it. Working with youth directly, has all the aforementioned elements, hence making it a perfect fit for him.
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Due to the environment, values and ideologies, working at Udhyam comes very naturally to Tushar. According to him, Udhyam's aim of building agency in its participants also stems into the way the organization goes about its work.
