Working in India

Although this blog is probably going to be mostly photos, I figured I should probably spend one post telling you more about why I’m moving in India and what I’ll be doing. In college, I studied International Studies – think, world politics, economics, development issues, human rights, etc. I spent four years learning in depth about the worlds problems, and how they came to be. After school I was pretty burnt out on talking about big problems, so I went to San Francisco, not only because I heard it had good weather, but because I knew it was a city where there were tons of smart people working on building solutions. Although the problems were much smaller than the sex slave trade, or land degradation in Africa, I learned how to focus on an issue and tackle it quickly with a small team. I became really inspired by the ability tech has to change lives, and realized how important it is for there to be support for small companies that are tackling problems creatively.

Fast forward 2.5 years and I am now combining my academic and professional experience to work with small start-ups that are working on the worlds biggest problems. I was accepted into a fellowship program called Frontier Market Scouts in Fall 2013, and attended a two week intensive training program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in January. There, practitioners in the field each spent two days with us, discussing social entrepreneurship and impact investing. After meeting some great people, and truly gaining a better understanding of the field, I left with a job as an Associate at Village Capital. I will be working in Ahmedabad, India to help set up an accelerator program for start-ups that are working on last mile distribution solutions in India. In regular speak, that’s companies that are providing products and services (like energy and healthcare) to rural populations. I will be there for the next 6-9 months and hope to leave with a better understanding of the problems in India, and how companies are successfully tackling them.

I’ll give more info as I go, but hopefully that is sufficient for now. Back to packing my defense mechanisms for the unavoidable and tenacious Delhi Belly.