My name is Himanshu Goyal. I am from Haryana. I have done B.Tech(Mechanical and Automation Engineering) from GGSIPU, Delhi. Later I worked for 2 years at Infosys. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur but while working at Infosys I realised that just earning money would not bring me inner peace.

When I came to know about social entrepreneurship(few months before I joined the program), I knew this is something I want to pursue. I was looking for avenues which can support and give expression to my aspiration and then came to know about TII. What intrigued me most about TII was its experiential learning approach during the first 6 months of classroom facilitation and the practicum. Classroom facilitation by practitioners made the learnings more realistic and practical on the ground while academicians brought the structures and frameworks.

For practicum, I was placed in Quest Alliance and given the task to build and implement an entrepreneurship program for the youth (students of ITIs, Polytechnics and rural youth) which helps them explore entrepreneurship as a career option, prepares them for it and supports them in the journey.

The objective of the program was to help individual earn her aspirational livelihood but more importantly to bring the power of choice(agency) to the young people. For the same reason, during the initial year of the demonstration, we chose to implement the program with Women ITIs and Women Polytechnics. Though the implementation comes with its own set of challenges but seeing aspiring young women working tirelessly for their dreams makes the journey worthwhile and inspiring. Looking back at these 18 months of practicum, I see the evolution in my thoughts, abilities and mindset hence in the evolution of the program from a 6-day self-employment training program(visualised initially) to a 7-month wholesome entrepreneurship program which would enable and equip young people to be the creators of their own destiny.

My name is Sri Harsha Bharadwaj. I am from Telangana. I have done my B.Tech in Mechatronics from SASTRA University, Thanjavur. After which I worked at Robert Bosch Engineering and business solutions India Pvt Ltd. (RBEI) for a year. This was the time period during which I started to feel that I do not belong to that place. I was looking for something which helps me engage with the people and more dynamic in nature. Fortunately, I came to know about the Transforming India Initiative (TII) through a friend of mine. I have applied to see what it was. However, I have made up my mind to join TII only after I attended the Direct Assessment (DA). DA made me realize that the time I would spend would be an enriching experience.

Once I joined TII, every day was a bombardment of information, exposure, and it was challenging me to reflect and understand my role in the current world. The concept of having practitioners as facilitators and Social Entrepreneur Saturday sessions made me understand the possibilities and practical challenges in the entrepreneurial journey and the development sector. The eighteen months practicum was even more challenging which required us to step up to the next level. I worked at Chitrika, in establishing a Producer Company fo the weavers of Narayanpet (Telangana).

I worked in member mobilization for the producer company, setting up a production center, marketing, and sales for weaver producer companies that are working with Chitrika. Later I worked with the farmer producer companies which are promoted by Access Livelihoods in Srikakulam district. I worked in the sales of organic cashew and turmeric powder.

While working with these organizations, I have understood the importance of lifestyle choices made by individuals. The joy of working with communities is irreplaceable. The amount of positivity and the hope they have for a better tomorrow fills me with energy to continue to work with them.

My Name is Manish Singh. I am from the state of Bihar. I completed BE from Nagpur University in Computer Technology. During my graduation, I got exposed to the development space and decided to contribute to the bottom of the pyramid. With that inspiration, I joined National Institute of Rural Development and Panchyatiraj (NIRDPR), Hyderabad. Later I worked with DDUGKY wing of NIRDPR. I was working with Skill Development projects. I was disappointed with the quality of training that was being provided to the rural youths. I was willing to contribute more to the lives of the rural community especially youths in multiple dimensions of life and livelihoods.

For doing all these I was will to start my own enterprise. But I didn't have adequate knowledge and skills to run an enterprise. I was looking for such an opportunity where I can get trained to equip myself for the same. TII design and curriculum was promising all the aspects that I was envisioning to learn before starting up. One of the most important was Self-transformation. This was the biggest gap when I observed myself as an individual. I was unorganised, scattered in thoughts, unable to summarise my thoughts and not able to plan. TII fellowship was offering Self-transformation component with experiential learning. With no other thoughts, I decided to apply and join the program. I was newly married so the decision was quite difficult. I got tremendous support from my wife Jyoti and family in taking this decision.

TII fellowship was a well-designed system with equal emphasis on input, process and output. All the assignments were practice-oriented and few of them were real-time work to step out of the campus interact with people outside. We were interacting with one Social entrepreneur every Saturday. Listening to the stories of their starting up and the way they dealt with the enterprise development challenges, helped me a lot to overcome the fear of starting up. Travel workshops helped me to see and understand the enterprises performing in real-time.

During the program, I worked with three producer companies incubated by Access Livelihoods in Kodangal cluster of Telangana. I was given a responsibility to set up and dairy enterprise with the existing PCs. I used my research, HR, Finance and Project Management skills while executing my task. I prepared the business plan and mobilised more than 3 lakh rupees from the community. During this assignment, I revisited all the concepts that was being taught to me during the first six months. I got a lot of support from my mentors to overcome the failures. Learnings of self-transformation helped me a lot in remaining persistent.

Along with all these activities, I also went through the cycle of discovering, Dream, design and deploy. This activity helped me to set my vision in the long term for the enterprise that I am going to create.

I feel myself a completely different person then I was two years back. Now I understand the way I am performing any action. I can understand the problems in depth. I am more realistic in taking decisions. I am ambitious and practical at the same time. I am confident, the experience will help me to establish an enterprise in the near future which will contribute for the long term in making a world which is more equal and sensitive for a better future for all.

My name is Sivaram.M. I am from Tamil Nadu. I have done B.Sc (Ag.) and later did a PG Diploma in Rural Development Management. Worked in the development sector for 2 years. Having worked in the development sector, I did not experience the inner satisfaction of doing something tangible in the livelihoods of the marginal community. Hence to explore and work on my idea I have joined Transforming India Initiative fellowship, with a vision to start my own social enterprise and to carry out my mission. As a part of this course, I signed up for the practicum wherein I worked as a fellow cum consultant for the tribal women producer companies of Gondia district which was promoted by Access Livelihoods. The strategy that I had to make was to design and implement the desi poultry model as an additional livelihood for the members of the producer company.

As I started exploring the markets, community and the product, and along with the mentoring from the challenge buster team of Access Livelihoods Academy, the ideas shaped up and it is called as "Poultry Entrepreneur Model". One of the key objectives of this model is considering the farmers as an entrepreneur and not just a grower of the poultry thereby fetching maximum benefit to the farmers in the complete value chain of the poultry. Passing the hard realities of the implementation, we have started the poultry with 83 first mover farmers covering 4 tribal women producer companies. Also, we use to have the dialogue process with the members at every possible conversation to think on the future of their company and their livelihoods by taking this poultry portfolio as one of the tools and realizing the better economic stability and livelihoods.

My personal statement of what the experience means is "the rate of learning per unit time", likewise my learnings had been in TII. Each and every moment, there was a scope to practice whatever I learned as a theory. Especially the gap between thought and action had been narrowed, I would say. The sense of feeling the positive side of everything has been widened. I am a challenge loving person, as I always want to taste the victory of challenge, or even if it ends in failure, out of all my journey the aftertaste experience would be my learnings. A person who thought about a single stakeholder in the entire ecosystem and tried building an enterprise model, and now I would say that all the stakeholders are important for a better world, as now I think of the systems change and sustainability.

My name is Isha Bhattacharyya. I was born and brought up in Assam. After completing my engineering and working as a software professional for 3 years, I knew that my heart did not belong to the space. I was not very definite of what exactly I wanted to go ahead with in life.

In between those confusions, there was a realisation of the fact that the economy of Assam needed attention and strengthening and I wanted to work for it. And the only solution that appeared to me was ‘Social Entrepreneurship’. And amidst these I had a chance to take up this fellowship and I believed it would be an extremely beneficial training ground for me to venture my own enterprise in future. As a part of the program, I have completed a 6 months academic course where I have been exposed to diverse subjects like developmental challenges, inner engineering, project management, partnership with communities etc. Currently I am in the practicum, and I am associated with SAFA Society, an NGO based out of Hyderabad which works with women from the marginalised areas. My initiative is to connect these women to a sustainable livelihoods.

With intensive research in terms of the community, the businesses around and the market, me with my team at Access Livelihoods Consulting have figured out that the food industry can be the best fit for these women to have better income. Currently we are working on a premium food product so that it can help at least 25 women to earn their livelihood. This is in the implementation stage now, we are hoping to go live with the product by the end of this year. As I look back at these 15 months, it has been a phase of extremely intensive learning, physically, mentally, emotionally and most important soulfully. Hoping for an even exciting time ahead too!

Hi! I am Sharmila Ronanki. I am from Visakhapatnam, Andhra pradesh. I have a dual degree (Btech+Mtech) in computer science and information technology from Andhra University. I was born into a family where I had whatever I wanted. But there is an emptiness which was always there. I always wanted to do something in the line of clothing and lifestyle. So, post college I had started up with few friends of mine but still something felt left apart, there was still blankness somewhere deep. Could not really figure out what.

Through a friend of mine, I came across the ad of Transforming India Initiative fellowship. I have applied to it and got selected into it and joined the program with an idea to get the understanding and the knowledge of the social sector, trying to understand what that emptiness is about and to start up again post the program. As part of the program, I signed up for the practicumwherein I worked as a fellow cum consultant for an NGO called KRITI. The main initiative here at Kriti is to make the bags manufacturing at Kriti as a sustainable business and make a sales of 50Lakhs by the end of financial year 2019.

I am currently looking after the end to processes at KRITI, right from procurement, sampling, production, customer relations, marketing, sales. Trying to increase the sales as well as bringing in the systems in place. Till now my experience in KRITI has been a rollercoaster ride, understanding different stakeholders, think what is feasible for the organisation, brining in new customers have kept me on my feet. There is a lot to learn and there is a long way to go