Decoding Impact with Rathish Balakrishnan

With the recent Union Budget announcement allocating ₹1.48 lakh crore to education, employment, and skilling, one question we continue to grapple with in the impact ecosystem, but in Education especially, is whether money is enough to really achieve the outcomes needed? Since Independence, Education has been the cornerstone of growth, development, and perhaps most importantly, hope for the nation. Yet, after so many decades of interventions, well-intentioned individual efforts, and the collective intent across philanthropy, the corporate sector, and government, why is Education in India still falling short of excellence? In this episode of Decoding Impact, through a rich and powerful discussion with expert guests from Avanti Fellows, Akshay Saxena, Co-founder & co-CEO, & Vandana Goyal, Managing Trustee & co-CEO, host Rathish Balakrishnan delves into challenges across scale, systems, and gender in Education today to understand what it will take to truly scale excellence in India's education system. Explore some of our SKI products related to this topic: • Decoding ASER for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Outcomes with Dr Rukmini Banerji • Decoding Mafias, National Heroes, and the role of Government in Education ft. Anil Swarup • Barriers to Breakthroughs: Encouraging Girls’ Participation in STEM Education Guests: Akshay Saxena & Vandana Goyal Host: Rathish Balakrishnan Producer: Meenakshi Iyer Produced by: Pickle Jar Media

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India is the third largest innovation ecosystem in the world. From India's transformational growth in the IT sector to her rapid digitisation, innovation is truly having its moment in India today. However, despite this promising outlook, social innovation continues to face challenges to scale. Faced by the perennial challenge that the problems for people and planet are running faster than the solutions being created to solve them, social innovation has a critical and lasting role to play in ensuring we break the cycle of creating poor solutions for the poor. In this episode of Decoding Impact, Rathish Balakrishnan and expert guest Manoj Kumar engage in a dialogue on social innovation that is not only helpful to understand the innovation landscape in India today, but to also numerous ideas and examples of what social innovation looks like. Through this discussion you will get insight into: • India's innovation landscape • The mental models for entrepreneurs to succeed • The architecture needed for social innovation to scale • How we need to look at unlocking diverse forms of capital from across CSR and Philanthropy Tune into this latest episode of Decoding Impact today! Manoj Kumar is the founder of Social Alpha, a multistage innovation curation and venture development platform that has supported over 300 startups under his leadership. Manoj is one of the pioneering forces in India's social innovation landscape, with a wealth of expertise and hands-on experience founding startups. Explore some of our SKI products related to this topic: • Decoding the Rupee for Rupee impact of blended finance ft. Ramraj Pai • Decoding the Role of Philanthropy in Blended Finance ft. Prachi Windlass • Guidebook: CSR and Corporate Philanthropy Towards Innovation Guest: Manoj Kumar Host: Rathish Balakrishnan Producer: Meenakshi Iyer Produced by: Pickle Jar Media

Worldwide, roads are increasingly seeing the presence of electric vehicles (EV) and India is expected to take 30% of the EV market worldwide. However, these tailwinds are attracting many players to the EV ecosystem, from suppliers to customers, to make EVs a reality on the road. In order to ease the challenges that these stakeholders could face in coming together, Digitial Public Infrastructure could have a key role to play and could help: • Reduce frictions • Enable greater customer experience • Drive better adoption for electrical vehicles in India, especially when it comes to the charging experience To learn more about India's burgeoning EV market and understand whether the promise of DPI can enable the EV market to solve some of its current challenges, in this episode of Decoding Impact Rathish Balakrishnan is joined by Akhil Jayaprakash, co-founder at Pulse Energy, and Arun Vinayak, co-founder at Exponent Energy. Through this discussion Akhil and Arun share their expertise to help us understand who the key stakeholders are in the EV market, what is the user experience when it comes to EV today in India, and what unification using DPI could look like in the EV market. Explore some of our SKI products related to this topic: • Decoding the Economics of MSMEs and why they should leverage Digital Public Infrastructure ft. Neelkanth Mishra • Decoding Account Aggregators with Shalini Gupta • Decoding India’s DPI Learnings for the Global South with Prof. S Rajagopalan • Decoding Digital Public Goods & Digital Public Infrastructure with Dr. Pramod Varma Guest: Akhil Jayaprakash and Arun Vinayak Host: Rathish Balakrishnan Producer: Meenakshi Iyer Produced by: Pickle Jar Media Chapters 00:00 - Precap 01:30 - Welcome 01:43 - Topic and Guest Intro 03:28 - Akhil & Arun's journey into the EV ecosystem 08:21 - The key players in EV 11:41 - What a vertically integrated stack looks like 12:32 - The EV Market 15:51 - Summarising insights on the EV market & players 17:07- Approaching the new world with an old world mental model 26:36 - Challenges in the charging EVs 30:22 - Access to EV for different vehicles 35:45 - Understanding the user experience of the EV charging infrastructure 41:13 - Moving past the obvious solutions 48:39 - Summary and further understanding of how to solve for charging anxiety 59:10 - Achieving unification through a DPI approach 01:06:58 - Where can unification unlock value 01:10:05 - Imagining the end game 01:16:31 - Wishlist for scaling EV infrastructure in India 01:20:29 - Summary & Thanks #ElectricVehicles #EVMarketIndia #EVCharging #DigitalInfrastructure #CustomerExperience #RapidCharging #SoftwareInteroperability #ChargingInfrastructure #ConsumerConcerns #GridChallenges #RealEstateChallenges #UnifiedEVInterface #UEI #GovernmentSupport #EVStandardization #EVAdoption #ProprietaryInnovation #OpenNetwork #ExponentEnergy #PulseEnergy #Entrepreneurs #SustainableMobility #GreenTechnology #EVRevolution #CleanEnergy #FutureOfTransportation

Get to know more about our latest guest featured on Decoding Impact, ⁠⁠Prachi Windlass, through this revealing rapid fire! Listen to the latest episode of Decoding Impact!: 🔴 ⁠⁠ Youtube⁠⁠⁠ 🟣 ⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcast⁠⁠⁠ 🔵 ⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠ 🔗 ⁠⁠⁠Website

Philanthropy plays a vital role in the development sector naturally, however, in India today philanthropy capital accounts for only 5% of the total funding, with 95% coming from the governments. Is there a way we can reimagine the development sector, as a market place, that can manage risk in the hope of certain returns and rewards? With blended finance there is an opportunity to change how capital fuels and enables scale of impact. Within the promise of blended finance, philanthropy could play a significant, catalytic role, and in this episode of Decoding Impact host Rathish Balakrishnan is joined by Prachi Windlass, a Senior Director and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, India, to discuss: • What does blended finance look like in India today? • How does philanthropic capital and other sources of capital come together to create a blended finance model? • The maturity curve for blended finance to come in • Tangible examples of how blended finance can enable impact With the challenge of a capital shortfall to meet the total annual funding required for India to achieve the promise of the Sustainable Developement Goals by 2030, Prachi lends her experience and expertise to illustrate the true value philanthropy can unlock to enable a sustainable transformation in India's impact ecosystem. Listen to the latest episode of Decoding Impact today on Youtube! Explore some of our SKI products related to this topic: • Decoding the Rupee for Rupee impact of blended finance ft. Ramraj Pai • Decoding Climate Finance with Varad Pande • Guidebook: CSR and Corporate Philanthropy Towards Innovation Guest: Prachi Windlass Host: Rathish Balakrishnan Producer: Meenakshi Iyer Produced by: Pickle Jar Media

Get to know more about our latest guest featured on Decoding Impact, Anil Swarup, through this revealing rapid fire! Listen to the latest episode of Decoding Impact!: 🔴 ⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠ 🟣 ⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcast⁠⁠⁠ 🔵 ⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠ 🔗 ⁠⁠⁠Website

"There are three types of people who work in education today: those who know the reality of a classroom, there are those who know the reality of grassroots, but there are very few who know the reality of how government looks at education." In this very special episode of Decoding Impact, host Rathish Balakrishnan is joined by Anil Swarup, Founder Chairman, Nexus of Good; Former Secretary, School Education (2016-18) & Coal (2014-16), and Author. Mr. Swarup joins us to help us decode the complex Education sector in India today and understand more about: • The visible and invisible challenges in Education • The role of the government between Delhi and the hinterlands • How to enable young adults thrive in the Indian Education system • Defining roles for different stakeholders in the Education sector Tune in to the latest episode of Decoding Impact today to understand more about the government's role in Education as well as some unique stories from Mr. Swarup's incredible Bhārat Yātra across the nation! Explore some of our SKI products related Education: • Promising Avenues: Landscape of School to Work Transition in India • Enabling Career Guidance and Mentorship for Smooth School-to-Work Transition • Advancing Gender Equality in Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) Education in India • Decoding ASER for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Outcomes with Dr Rukmini Banerji Guest: Anil Swarup Host: Rathish Balakrishnan Producer: Meenakshi Iyer Produced by: Pickle Jar Media Chapters 0:00 Precap 1:36 Welcome to Decoding Impact 1:50 Topic & Guest Introduction 03:12 Anil Swarup's journey into Education in India 06:44 The mafias in Education 14:58 Making Education politically salient 18:23 Anil Swarup's journey through education on the ground 24:31 Is Education enabling young adults in India today? 30:49 How to develop a winning aspiration for young people in India school systems 34:13 From policy to implementation 36:55 Addressing the government's mistrust in the private sector 39:58 Bringing in role clarity in school systems 44:23 Reflecting on the role of the facilitator and counselling 47:00 Understanding the role of different stakeholders in relation to the government 49:12 Who should play what role 52:10 State vs. central government capacity 54:00 Whose accountable for state outcomes? 56:30 Summary and thanks 58:11 General outro

Get to know more about our latest guest featured on Decoding Impact, ⁠Neelkanth Mishra, through this revealing rapid fire! Listen to the latest episode of Decoding Impact!: 🔴 ⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠ 🟣 ⁠⁠Apple Podcast⁠⁠ 🔵 ⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠ 🔗 ⁠⁠Website

The story of a digitised India being catalysed through Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is all around us through examples like UPI and Aadhaar, but they have an equally critical role to play in enabling the economic powerhouse that are MSMEs. MSMEs are a popular topic, and one we have discussed a few times on Decoding Impact itself, but in this episode of we are trying to understand the role DPIs can play in enabling greater and more effective access to capital for MSMEs. To share his expert inputs on the podcast, host Rathish Balakrishnan speaks to Mr. Neelkanth Mishra, Chief Economist, Axis Bank and Head of Global Research, Axis Capital. Mr. Mishra helps us understand: • The context of MSMEs in India today • The existing capital access and supporting infrastructure, including global examples • The key tailwinds that can enable MSMEs to grow, like DPI Through out Mr. Mishra shares tangible examples for how MSMEs operate, can scale, and their challenges. Tune in to the latest episode of Decoding Impact today! Explore some of our SKI products related to this topic: • SKI Content on Digital Public Infrastructure and Goods • Decoding Digital Public Goods & Digital Public Infrastructure with Dr. Pramod Varma • Decoding India’s DPI Learnings for the Global South with Prof. S Rajagopalan • Decoding Account Aggregators with Shalini Gupta Guest: Neelkanth Mishra Host: Rathish Balakrishnan Producer: Meenakshi Iyer Produced by: Pickle Jar Media Chapters: 00:00 - Precap 01:21 - Welcome 01:31 - Topic and Guest Intro 03:04 - Neelkanth Mishra's journey from engineer to economist 05:42 - How will MSMEs contribute to India's 2047 vision? 08:44 - Understanding the role of micro enterprises amongst MSMEs 11:36 - Enabling MSMEs to flourish 15:22 - The mix of micro, small, and medium enterprises 20:15 - MSME's current access to capital & challenges 26:22 - Does India have the plumbing to enable small & growing businesses? 30:10 - The debt capital needed for MSMEs 34:31 - How countries have funded MSMEs traditionally 44:21 - How India is enabling MSMEs through technology 48:44 - Three key areas to unlock value for MSMEs through DPIs 58:34 - Solving for the MSME access to capital problem at scale 01:02:10 - What is the promise of DPI moving forward? 01:05:08 - Summary and thanks