Deshpande Foundation to set up India's largest skill development centre

The skill development centre will offer eleven different courses

Alnoor Peermohamed  |  Bengaluru February 12, 2017 Last Updated at 18:26 IST

The Deshpande Foundation, the decade-long philanthropic effort of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Gururaj ‘Desh’ Deshpande, is setting up India’s largest skill development centre in the North Karnataka town of Hubbali that will open its doors in April this year.

Nestled on a seven-acre piece of land that’s on either side of Indian IT giant Infosys’ new Hubballi campus, the centre will be able to train over 5,000 people a year with the ability to accommodate 2,500 students at any given point of time. The three lakh square feet campus is almost complete and will begin dry runs by the end of February.

The Deshpande Foundation will use the facility to carry out its 4-6 month residential training programmes through which it has so far trained over 4,000 people already.

“We see this as a game changer for the people and their families, as most of them come from rural areas and never earn more than Rs 5,000. Now these kids are getting paid Rs 10,000 or Rs 15,000 and what we’ve noticed is that they are getting a chance to break that glass ceiling,” said Naveen Jha, CEO of the Deshpande Foundation in India.

The skill development centre will offer eleven different courses, with the foundation adding or replacing between 4-5 courses each year based on the industry requirements that exist. Rather than sticking to any curriculum, the centre comes up with its own activities that help students in areas such as vocational training to entrepreneurship.

Since the start of the skill development centre in mid-2008, the Deshpande Foundation says it has been able to place nearly 90% of the graduates. The remainder of the 10% it says look to become entrepreneurs, starting their own ventures and in some cases seeking incubation out of the foundation’s Sandbox incubator.

“In the past 7-8 years, we have decoded how to design the training for kids coming from smaller towns or rural backgrounds. We also don’t believe in these 10, 20, 30-hour training programmes. That may be okay to brush up the skills of an expert, but not for someone who knows nothing,” added Jha.

A majority of the $20 million that will go into the skill development centre has come from Deshpande himself or corporate sponsors who contribute through CSR. So far over half that amount has been ploughed into the construction, with plans to significantly increase the size of the training staff to cater to those many students.

The Deshpande Foundation is also looking to open India’s largest startup incubator on the same grounds as the skill development centre in September. The project will attract Rs 30 crore in the facility that will be able to seat 1,200 people at any given point of time

http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/deshpande-foundation-to-set-up-india-s-largest-skill-development-centre-117021200558_1.html

How a Nutritional Program Became a Life-saver For This Malnourished Child

We tried consulting doctors to help Pooja gain weight. The doctors prescribed medicines to help, but in vain. She could take only milk; and would vomit if she were to be fed anything else,” says Prema Nanapur, mother of four-year-old Pooja at their home in Navalgund, north Karnataka. Pooja’s parents own a three-acre barren land in the region and are forced to work as labourers to make a living.

In impoverished communities, malnutrition stems mainly from the lack of education and awareness about nutritional requirements. Beneficiary communities are reluctant to accept the suggestions of program facilitators. The need for change in diets, feeding habits of children, hygiene requirements and medical care in case of patients, are ignored. Moreover, the communities are rife with superstitions and regressive customs that decides their eating habit and prevent them from eating healthy.

Prema gave birth to Pooja at the end of a difficult pregnancy. Her husband was a drunkard and this made Prema miserable. Owing to her marital woes, Prema remained depressed, which added to her weak health. As a result, the newborn and the mother were both weak postpartum. The Magu Nagu facilitators met Prema and Pooja in 2013, during a customary house survey to assess the nutrition levels of children aged below six, in below poverty line (BPL) families in Dharwad. They recorded Pooja’s health parameters such as height, weight, mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) among others. “Pooja was close to five months when the team first visited us. They told us that she weighed nearly 5 kgs and needed to gain more weight,” says Prema.

The malnutrition-free program intervenes at multiple levels, screening the children through health checkups, intervening through medical and nutritional counselling and a sanitation program; all of which are closely followed-up through continual reviews. Though directed at children, the program involves the caretakers and parents of children, pregnant mothers (to avoid prenatal malnourishment) and women in households.

The team offered Prema a set of therapeutic, nutritional supplements such as Spiruline (nutrient mix) capsule, eezee paste (custom-made sweet mix of powdered peanut, milk solids, with minerals, vitamins) and dry banana to nourish the baby. “My daughter loved the dry banana. Since the first day of the team’s visit, we fed her two spoons of eezee paste. We also started feeding her other supplements. This improved her appetite. Gradually, Pooja started to eat mashed rice and dal,” says Prema. For Prema, the team included her in the periodic meets meant for mothers and caretakers. The topics for the sessions were mostly around nutrition, hygiene needs and even sleep patterns of children.

Within a year and nine months of Magu Nagu intervention, Pooja’s weight improved to 7.3 kg. Within three years, her weight touched 8.65 kgs; however, she was still under the severe acute malnourished category. Recent records show that she weighs 12.5 kgs. She is still considered in the SAM category. The team has been working to conduct health camps, awareness sessions involving caretakers of children and even teachers to ensure that their interventions deliver the desired results. “Roping in many stakeholder’s help ensure that our advices are thoroughly followed through,” says Rajabali Mangalgi, program manager at Magu Nagu.

Three years since its launch, the malnutrition eradication program run by the Deshpande Foundation has put the smile back on the faces of many malnourished children and their families across three talukas in Dharwad through simple, systematic measures. It combines technology and vigor to eradicate the root causes of malnutrition and to transform lifestyles around healthy diets, hygiene habits and vital medical care. Magu Nagu is a collaboration between the Women and Child Development Department, Child Academy, Dharwad, and Tata Marcopolo along with Deshpande Foundation.

https://yourstory.com/2017/02/60560d2a66-how-a-nutritional-program-became-a-life-saver-for-this-malnourished-child/

Marathon 5k_Run_at Hubli to support  'A Million Steps for Entrepreneurship' and had please to meet the Iron the #Ironman #Shrikanth Deshpande on 05.12.2016.

           To DF co-founder Desh, the importance of leadership at any level of an organisation cannot be emphasised enough. He notes that non-profit organisations are typically headed by strong leaders but severely limited by weak middle management. While many in the social sector come from reputable academic backgrounds, they lack the professional skills and experience required to effectively manage an organisation.

       The Deshpande Fellowship Programme (DFP) was therefore created to cultivate middle managers who can serve as a facilitator between a non-profit’s founders and its grassroots beneficiaries. The rigorous programme, which draws 23-28 year-old graduates and postgraduates interested in social development sector, covers 28 diverse modules using a hands-on approach to equip participants with skills to communicate effectively, analyse project needs and manage team operations.
In addition to DFP, Sandbox has developed a holistic range of training programmes, each designed to nurture various members of the workforce:

• Deshpande Koutilya Fellowship (DKF): A 5-month programme to help individuals translate academic qualifications into practical skills needed in fields such as accounting, banking, finance in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India (defined respectively as populations between 50,000 to 99,999 for Tier 2 & 20,000 to 49,999 for Tier 3).
• Deshpande Susandhi Fellowship (DSF): A 4-month residential programme to build leadership skills, entrepreneurship & high work ethics to boost employability.
• Susandhi Krishi Chetana (SKC): A 4-month intensive residential course that prepares young agriculturalists for future challenges. Participants are educated on better cultivation methods and trained to take up management responsibilities. The programme also aims to support the agricultural industry by training facilitation officers who can effectively liaise between farmers, agricultural companies and governments.

Sandbox Hubli-Dharwad’s experiences are shared through the Development Dialogues, the Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) and the Champions Programme. ^[15] In particular, the Development Dialogue is a strong example of how local experiences can be shared outside of Hubli-Dharwad, annually gathering approximately 2,000 diverse practitioners, professionals, entrepreneurs and college students for a 3-day conference to discuss the potential of entrepreneurial initiatives in nurturing solutions for development. ^[16] By drawing external parties into the region, Sandbox presents its organisations with greater exposure to other innovative ventures and approaches to pressing social problems both within and outside of Sandbox. The sheer magnitude of the conference works to create enthusiasm around Sandbox’s activities, inspire its own entrepreneurs, and promote the region as a leading center for social innovation.

Engaging leadership potential of youth

Fostering the next generation of regional leaders lies at the heart of Deshpande’s many training programmes. One such initiative is Deshpande’s LEaders Accelerating Development (LEAD) programme, which encourages students from universities located in the Sandbox region to select social issues they care about in their local communities and implement their own creative solutions. Guided by mentors and LEAD alumnus, these students are required to immerse themselves in fieldwork and grassroots operations to gain hands-on experience.
LEAD’s sample has created a case for entrepreneurship in a community in which many parents and school administrators valued academics over extra-curricular activities. It has since inspired a younger generation of social workers by presenting them the opportunity to get in touch with business practicalities while making an active contribution to society. By 2015, the programme had received an overwhelming 50,000 student participants from more than 100+ different colleges and universities within the Sandbox region.^[17]
LEAD’s success prompted DF to integrate with the Sandbox Startup programme to encourage more students to adopt an entrepreneurial approach to social development issues. Through the Sandbox Startup programme, DF was able to partner with local universities to formally integrate the practice of entrepreneurship into school curriculums by introducing courses on its practical applicability in society. ^[18]

Enabling social entrepreneurs

Desh insists on supporting experimental approaches to social innovation to maintain Sandbox’s status as “a place where individuals and organizations with innovative solutions to pressing social needs could experiment and build their organizations to scale without fear of failure.” ^[19]

Under the Enable stream (see image above), Sandbox supports entrepreneurs across various sectors of the economy through the Navodyami, Entrepreneurs-in-Residence programme (now known as Sandbox Startups) and traditional grant making. Navodyami operates in five districts in North Karnataka and enables rural entrepreneurs earning 5,000-10,000 INR (US$77 – 153)^[20] a month to scale their enterprises. By 2014, “out of the 120 Navodyami graduates, 43 have grown by three to four times successfully incubated in the programme and are in various stages of scaling up.”^[21]

In addition to this, the incubator programme Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) (renamed Sandbox Startups in 2015), proudly serves as a “ready living laboratory” for committed individuals to test and scale their innovative ideas in Tier 2 & 3 cities in India.  Sandbox Startups invests in adept leaders and ideas with significant potential to improve the welfare of local communities in areas of agriculture, education, health and livelihoods.  Sandbox selects its partners in tri-annual cycles and supports a range of organisations at various stages of growth in a 200 km radius around Sandbox.

Throughout its engagement, Sandbox Startups provides the organisation with assistance in the forms of mentorship, physical space, seed funding, networking opportunities and event exposure.

The incubation process begins with piloting new ideas. Sustainable interventions that yield significant returns during its testing stage will then undergo plans for scaling. These successful innovations will receive referrals from Deshpande Foundation to other potential partners, including state/government organisations, private investors, individual entrepreneurs and other community actors.

http://avpn.asia/2015/11/05/

      We are very glad to invite you to our Ninth Development Dialogue (DD) to be held on February 6 & 7, 2016. The Development Dialogue is one of the biggest social entrepreneurship ecosystem conferences organized in Hubbali, Karnataka in India.

We will be most honoured if you could accept out invite to participate in the dialogue on both or one of the days - February 6 & 7 - of the event.  The keynote speakers for the Development Dialogue in the previous years included the likes of Ratan Tata, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mr. Kailash Satyarthi, Narayana Murthy  and  R Mashelkar and Ms. Sudha Murty & Dr. Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande and  several other prominent leaders.

Hubballi is accessible by road and train from Bangalore and Mumbai, or by air via Bangalore.

       Since 2008, the Development Dialogue has become a crucial platform to showcase innovation, to discuss out-of-the box ideas and, most importantly, to deliberate on issues that are driven by practice and nuances of getting the prototypes off-the-ground. Here is a glimpse of the discussion happened in the previous dialogues.

        Every year, a theme which is in sync with the current trends in the development sector as well as a reflection of Deshpande Foundation’s own journey in building and evolving the Sandbox ecosystem drives the dialogue.

This year, the theme of the Development Dialogue (DD-2016) is Innovate Globally, Execute Locally’.

            We live in a connected world and where glimpses of innovation can be seen everywhere. Innovators are compassionate and would like to help the impoverished communities by solving their problems with their innovative solutions. However, very few innovations impact the world in meaningful ways.

Four things need to come together to have an impact:

1.      Innovations that are relevant and co-created with the people who need it

2.      Execution capacity - Ability to absorb innovation and having the human resources to roll out the solution.

3.      Appropriate infrastructure

4.      Government involvement, and the right policies and support

With this premise we invite you and other important stakeholders to participate and help us deliver a meaningful dialogue.  Please get in touch with me on my phone +91 9972515976 or through email if you have any queries.

The Deshpande Foundation  Founded by global business leader and philanthropist Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande and Jaishree Deshpande, the Foundation has operations in India, Canada and the US.  “Social Innovation Sandbox”in Hubbali was set up to create an ecosystem similar to the Silicon Valley with a focus on Social Entrepreneurship.  Over the last nine years, the ‘Sandbox’ has achieved remarkable success having worked with over 100 organizations and six million people enabling them to find contextual solutions for local problems.

With its grantmaking and incubation programs implemented through the Sandbox, the Foundation has churned out over two dozen ideas that have scaled and sustained as enterprises. The Foundation’s own commitment to create entrepreneurs /intrapruneurs has led to one of the finest Skilling program in India that graduates over 1200+ highly capable human resources, enabling social enterprises to succeed in tier-II cities and rural areas.

The success of the ‘Sandbox’ concept has led to its replication by other proactive philanthropists in Telangana and Varanasi. 

Here is a video coverage by NDTV, one of India’s leading news channels, capturing some of our work. Please visit our website for more information about the Foundation’s work.

Dear All,

Welcome to the Development Dialogue, 2015!

“The Development Dialogue is an event that you keep coming back to; for inspiration, connection and to immerse in transforming work at the grassroots which is typical to Hubli and the Sandbox Ecosystem,” were the words of one of our delegates at our last dialogue. Last year’s Dialogue led to the emergence of a THIRD Sandbox in Uttar Pradesh which is called “Ek Soch”. We are aware of the fact that our actions, although rooted locally, have an impact globally. With this awareness we invite you to be a part of our journey through the Sandbox Ecosystem and invite you to the Development Dialogue 2015!

We are exhilarated to share that the Nobel Peace Prize Winner of 2014, Mr. Kailash Satyarthi ; Padma Bhushan Awardee Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty will be with us at the Dialogue along with Mr. Narayana Murthy and Mr. Jairam Ramesh. We look forward to learn from each of their works, ideas and legacies. Legacies that have stood the test of time and scaled to transform the face of humanity!

Quite fittingly, the theme for 2015 is ‘Scaling by Proving!’ ‘Proving’ as a necessary precedence to scaling really underlines the fact that relevant ideas implemented effectively are highly likely to scale. With an enviable list of speakers and audience alike we look forward to seeing you in Hubli in February (7-8), 2015. Please register before 5th December. Kindly check our website for queries and updated lists of speakers and agenda.

Warmly,
Rajabali K Mangalgi 
Project Manager of DCMF Project 
Deshpande Foundation, Hubli 
rajabalimudbul@gmail.com

Objective:

 Professional and gainful position in the non-profit sector that serves global, national, and local needs by way education of appropriate, potential advocates. Position that will in result drive to allow parlay of demonstrated conceptual frame work, program management &organization.

Profile:

Goal –oriented, passionate professional with having three years’ experience working for non-profit Organizations as a staff. Talent for motivating youth to engage in community service and Energizing adults to continue involvement in various capacities’. Resourceful in innovative in training people, managing program, recruiting and public relations opportunities. Attentive and hard-working when handling sensitive, confidential records. Self –motivated and ambitious – explores opportunities for professional growth. Proactive in recognizing limitations and challenges in order to identify potential opportunities for effective change and growth.

Education:

Bachelor Arts Degree                                                                   the year-2007-2010

Govt. First Grade Collage Chittapur (Gulbarga) with 76%

Master of Social Work, Gulbarga University (MSW)with 65%             in the year of 2011

Institute of Youth Development- 2011 (One month study)

Which is working for sustaining AIDS positive people and involved all activities in Kolar district

Accountability: Planning and implementation, Team co-ordination in Implementing Project,

Facilitate to team, Monitoring and Evaluation of the project   

National Seminar and Workshop:

•     Madras School of Social Work Chennai”, 2days National seminar, sponsored by UGC about Social work research; Challenges and Perspectives
•     P.G Department of social work Don Bosco arts & Science Collage, Angadikkadavu 2days National, conference “On Critical Reflections on Social work” (7 & 8 october 2010)
•     Pondicherry University (a central university) school of Education- 2days National conference on Education for Society and Economically Deprived". (March -12th &13th- 2010), Pondicherry

Languages Knows :

                         (Spoken& written English, Hindi and Kannada),

Address :

Rajabali K. Mangalg:

Email: rajabalimudbul@gmail.com

At-Mudbul, Post-Margol, Tq-Chittapur, Dist-Gulbarga, Karnataka-585211