Tag: Collaborative Initiatives

At ACT, we believe that technology has a role to play in solving some of the most complex social and environmental challenges we face today. Over the last three years, we’ve had the privilege of interacting with 1500+ social entrepreneurs and supporting 50+ organizations through a combination of grant capital and access to network connections and collaborative platforms. We’ve helped founders identify growth pathways, unearthing business models that serve as proof points that technology can enable high quality, sustainable social impact at scale.

At the same time, we know we need many more passionate and talented founders to solve these systemic, complex problem statements. But building tech-first and impact-first is tough. One critical gap is the lack of early-stage capital for innovators to build and test contextual solutions, and the absence of build funding means founders also struggle to attract high quality tech talent during the early stages.

Hence, we’re piloting a different approach to our business as usual – we are looking to partner with aspiring social entrepreneurs to translate innovative ideas into scalable solutions. 

1. You must be a full-time founder with a legally incorporated entity in India.
2. You must be impact first and aim to create measurable impact across one of the below areas:
   1. Focus on Bharat as target audience: Solutions targeting underserved communities (households with monthly incomes below INR 25,000) to boost education, livelihood, health or gender outcomes.
   2. Focus on decarbonisation and/or water security: Solutions aimed at enabling India’s progress across both these goals by addressing the issue at source for outsized environmental impact.
   3. Focus on enabling the social impact ecosystem: Technology-driven initiatives that enable and build the capacity of social enterprises, NGOs, and other impact-first organizations, thereby strengthening the broader ecosystem for social change.
3. You should have a clear problem statement based on user research and a tech-first approach as a solution to the problem statement.
4. You should have a clear roadmap to develop software technology (standalone or integrated within a hardware product). We are not looking for deployment ready solutions here.

If this is you, please reach out to us with some details by filling out this form, and if there is alignment, ACT will provide support in the form of: 

1. Capital for technology build: Up to INR 30 lakh grant support over a 6-month period
2. Tech guidance: Dedicated tech advisory aligned to your journey towards building a minimum viable prototype (MVP)
3. Fundraising and business model refinement: Targeted mentor connections on fundraising and business model strategy 

Hosted by ACT, UnHerd brings you the unheard stories of individuals who are challenging conventional principles to disrupt the social impact landscape. From social entrepreneurs to venture philanthropists, dive into real-world conversations on what they’ve experienced and learned about changing the status quo.

Our seventh episode welcomes Mohit Bhatnagar (MD, Peak XV and Board Member, ACT) who, in conversation with Aakanksha Gulati (CEO, ACT), shares his learnings on what it takes to catalyse social change through collective action and his insights on the importance of founders building for Bharat.

Listen to this episode on our Spotify channel or watch the conversation on YouTube.

Aakanksha: Hello folks and welcome to the seventh episode of UnHerd, a podcast hosted by ACT that delves into the extraordinary stories of individuals who are challenging conventional principles to disrupt India’s social impact landscape. 

Our guest today is a pioneer in the Indian venture capital space. He’s a Managing Director at PeakXV, formerly known as Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia – one of the largest venture capital firms globally.

Mohit has helped catalyse some incredible founders and has led investments in companies that you might have heard of – like Zomato, Freshworks, OYO, Meesho, and Cars24 amongst many others. He started out as an engineer at Ericsson, soon after which he co-founded a mobile startup called Brightpod. He then returned to India from the U.S. to join Bharti Airtel in 2002, helping scale it to the first 100 million users.

Armed with sharp insight on how the internet and technology could disrupt India in the coming decades, and with a deep desire to be part of India’s growing entrepreneurial energy, Mohit transitioned into the venture capital space where he’s played a significant role in leading India’s journey towards becoming a global startup hub. How I know Mohit, however, is as a philanthropist with a big and bold vision – a vision somewhat different from what we’ve seen in the philanthropic space in India over the last many decades and we’d love to deep dive into that more today. 

Welcome to UnHerd, Mohit!

Mohit: Thanks, Aakanksha! You’ve done me proud with that introduction.

Aakanksha: I think that was just a short version of everything you’ve done over the years! But getting right to it, Mohit, I’ve heard you describe yourself as an accidental VC, but as someone who’s looking from the outside, even when I connect the dots backwards – to me, your professional journey makes a lot of sense. A young engineer and failed startup founder with immense learning. Then a professional who led an internet mobile juggernaut’s growth in its early years. So it’s no surprise that you were able to channel all that knowledge into leading India’s tech startup boom from the forefront. But connect the dots for us a bit on your philanthropic journey. How did your interest in social impact come about? Were the seeds planted in your early years or was this a gradual evolution?  

The Spark That Lit The Fire: Catalysing a bias for ACTion, the startup way 

Mohit: So Aakanksha, I became a VC all the way back in 2006 and one of my early investments was in Ujjivan Microfinance, and it allowed me to see how you could create a very successful commercial public small bank while also alleviating poverty. I saw the double bottom line impact that, in this case, venture capital could provide – where you were basically not just creating a very well run, profitable enterprise, but you also did good for the communities that nurtured that company. I saw that same trend play out when Zomato gave birth to Feeding India and to Robin Hood Army, where it was all about creating a business around food, but it also meant you could actually feed the hungry and the not-so-privileged. At Freshworks, creating programs that allowed Computer Engineering and Science to be offered to folks who did not have access to it, to helping women come back to work after a break. So I just found all these different entrepreneurs who were building very exciting businesses, but while they were doing that, they had somehow found this ability to actually nurture and give back to the community; to the communities that were sort of giving birth to them.

Mohit: I think it is firmly established for me that founders are very unique human beings. They have this uncanny ability to go long, to be relentless in their pursuit of trying to achieve something that creates a large company, but also solves a really hard-to-solve problem. And so, if they can build these massively successful companies, they can definitely also lay the foundations for a better world. And I think that’s where it all began to come together.

Aakanksha: Let’s get a little bit more personal, Mohit, because I think as you started noticing this in your professional journey, I know you also started dabbling as a donor, you were starting to sit on some not-for-profit boards. And in particular, I know there’s a plan that was made on the back of a napkin with Ashish Dhawan. So share a bit more about that? How did all of this culminate into you saying, hey, actually, I’m someone who also wants to become a philanthropist?

Mohit: Given that I was convinced that founders can create massive change, I started writing grant checks in an individual capacity to some small businesses. I remember this one particular founder who came to me looking for a consulting gig. He had unfortunately gone blind during the course of a very successful career. And I told him, instead of giving you a consulting gig which will get over in six months, why don’t you actually create a company that can actually help blind people navigate their mobile phones more efficiently because you seem to be doing it quite well. You just arrived for this meeting with an Uber!  

And so, Pramit created this software application called Louie that actually helps blind folks voice navigate multiple mobile phone screens. And I was going about this journey enjoying these kinds of creations, till I realised that they all suffer from the same common set of problems. They need their next round of capital, they need to hire world-class talent, especially on the engineering side, to build really world-class products. They need networks that can actually help them scale and get promoted across various state governments or various private enterprises. And it was with that thought that I sat down with Ashish (Dhawan) because he had obviously lived a private equity journey and had now started Ashoka and was giving back at scale.

And I think that’s the napkin you’re referring to, where we actually used the placemat at Amour Cafe at Malcha Marg to actually draw out a little bit of a picture that shows how we can have these different verticals around Health, Education and Environment where we can create a platform that allows them (founders) to get easier access to funding, easier access to people and easier access to government, when it makes sense. And I think that was the birth of the idea, at least in my head.

Aakanksha: So it seems like all of this was brewing, it was culminating into something that was drawn, and then COVID happened. And I think that’s when we saw a lot of this coming together in a big way Mohit, because ACT raised almost 600 crores during that time and deployed it to create great impact. I have always felt that it really brought your philanthropic aspirations and mission and vision to life in a big way. So share a little bit from that time? What did you learn about philanthropy, about impact in ACT’s first avatar, and maybe also, what did you learn about yourself?

Mohit: Yeah, it was a crazy time. I think COVID was the closest I’ve seen to war. As things were just failing all around us, each one of us looked inward, made sure our families were safe, made sure our firms, our companies, and our employees were safe. But it was at such a scale that I think it shook us all from inside. I remember a bunch of us investors and founders – Abhiraj (Bhal) from Urban Company, Mekin (Maheshwari), Prashanth (Prakash) and Shekhar (Kirani) from Accel, GV (Ravishankar) from Sequoia. We all got together and we were like, we’ve got to do something here. And I think what resulted was a very special period where literally on a daily basis, we were spending close to 10 to 12 hours reviewing ideas that could actually put a dent into this massive challenge that India was facing.

To pick one, I remember oxygen being by far the single biggest challenge – as to how we basically get all forms of oxygen into India and Indian hospitals quickly. And we had a group that was basically overnight learning all about PSAs or these oxygen plants. We put 106 of these machines, using startup ecosystem infrastructure. And we got them put into the smallest hospitals in the widest, most far-out states of India. We had to lift close to 30,000 plus oxygen concentrators from places like China and others. And we used the logistics infrastructure of the startup world, think Delhivery, think Flipkart, and imported these machines and then were able to distribute them. We used the balance sheets temporarily of many of our startup ecosystem players like Zomato and others to actually help place the orders for many of these oxygen tanks. So my single biggest learning was how everybody came together.

Mohit: But the reason it was working was just shared trust in the collective – that we were trying to do this in a much more purposeful way for the country. So the single biggest learning is doing this in a collective way is way better than trying to do this individually. 

Aakanksha: I remember I was watching it from the outside during that time. And I remember the word that kept coming in my mind was…it just felt magical. And you use the word ‘collective’, and I know many people since have spoken about how ACT was one of those really great examples of collective philanthropy and collective action. And I think for me, a few things that really stood out during that time was one, there was no full-time team. At the peak, there were 400 or 500 volunteers, and yet work streams were forming, great outcomes were being delivered, people were really creating their own seat at the table, building conviction about what was the need of the hour – they had a high bias for action, were using data and experts, and leveraging the ecosystem across the private, social and public sectors to really bring it all to life. But transitioning from that, what would be interesting is to share about how that evolved into ACT in its current avatar and how we describe ACT today is that we call ourselves a tech first venture philanthropy platform for social change in India. But embedded in that are at least three ideas, if not more. The first, around tech first solutions for social change. The second is around venture-like grant making. And the third, which you’ve spoken a little bit about already is this platform approach. So share a little bit about how that kind of evolution happened? What were the underlying insights and what really gave you hope that this would really be the next chapter that would be worthwhile?

Mohit: Like I said, COVID was a little bit of a wartime scenario. And when we all reflected as it was coming to an end, I think we all realised that we had all gained more than we had given. It was very fulfilling for a lot of us involved that we were able to think beyond our own personal needs and come together to do something a little larger and more purposeful. And so, there was this strong thought that we have to sort of keep the platform going because we don’t know when the next crisis is going to come, and we certainly feel like we can create impact, so this is something worth doing. 

There were two big challenges. First is, everyone made time for fighting COVID and then everybody went back to their day jobs. And so from 350 volunteers who were fighting COVID along with us on the ACT platform, we had to now quickly transform to a full-time team. And I think that’s one of the biggest wins that we’ve done collectively here with your help and your leadership, is to actually build a solid, high-quality team. 

The second thing I realised is health consumed us all during COVID, but a lot of folks in the startup ecosystem cared about other causes. Things like education, environment, equal rights for women were equally important causes for many folks in our ecosystem. And since this had to be a collective and a platform, it was important that it stood for the three or four largest purposes that folks cared about. So we broadened it from just Health to include Education, Environment, and Women as three new verticals. Each one of them having their own dedicated teams, each one of them having their own IC where ideas are brought up to the IC and grants are given. 

[It is] super important that we include people who know the most about the problem before we try and attempt to solve it with the tech-first approach. So If you look at our three ICs, we have an Education IC, an Environment IC, and a Health IC. On the ACT For Health IC, we have people like Nachiket (Mor), who actually spent decades thinking about how public health can be envisioned for India. People like Dr. Ajay (Nair) from Swasth, Sandeep (Singhal), who’s a venture capitalist. Similarly in ACT For Environment, we’ve got GV (Ravishankar) and Prashanth (Prakash), who try and filter through ideas to see where most change can happen. On ACT For Education, we work together with Ashish Dhawan, who has spent time at Central Square Foundation, creating a beautiful institution there. Mekin (Maheshwari), who’s ex Flipkart, but now spends all his time helping education through government initiatives. I think bringing in these cross-functional experts is one way that this platform comes alive for me. 

The second thing is solving common sets of challenges. It’s easy to say we should be tech-first. It’s really hard for us to expect our grantees to hire and access world-class tech talent. So if you see that as a common need, you can create a platform like Tech Advisors, where we go out to the startup ecosystem and say, we don’t need your money, we just need your time. If you’re a programmer and care about social causes, can you spend some time with our startups and actually help them create the right technology architectures? For example, how needle moving would it be for a grantee at ACT to get a 12 week access to a UI/ UX expert from Urban Company or an ex Google Engineer that actually spends a 12 weeks sprint with them and gets that thinking and process correct. 

And when you’re starting something as wide as gender parity, you need to come from a place of actually seeing what the current data is. And we can talk about this till we go blue in the face, but I love the team’s approach of saying, let’s make gender parity first come alive in our own startup ecosystem. And to that extent the WISER report – that has 200 startups participating and has McKinsey putting together the structure and then working with people like Udaiti to put together an annual research – is highly thoughtful and insightful around the current state of affairs. 

I think at this point now we have close to 40 grants given across these different verticals post-COVID. And close to 15-20% of them have got follow-on funding, which by the way, just to digress, is exactly the venture model. 

The venture capital model is that of the power law. Out of all the investments we make, close to 10% or 15 % of investments are the ones that really drive the mega returns of the fund. And I think that’s the new thinking that I hope ACT can bring to the world of venture philanthropy. I think what we want to try and catalyse here is moonshot ideas to solve really hard-to-solve problems that haven’t got solved. And it’s completely okay for 15% or 20% of the ideas that we give initial grants to be the ones that scale. Because these are hard problems and not every idea that we apply to it will work. And so this ability to think that risk is good, not everything has to work and it’s okay to fail so that you can come back stronger on your second idea and we collectively learn is the venture philanthropy model that I think we really want to try and underscore.

Traversing Tough Roads: Balancing risk and impact

Aakanksha: I want to double click on one thing you said Mohit, because this used to come up a lot in our early days, less so now. But you know, a lot of people would ask us that this is philanthropic capital. And some of the solutions are not going to make it, which has happened by the way. There are some incredible solutions that we backed, who unfortunately were not able to figure out a sustainable business model that worked for the Bharat audience, which we are very, very centred on. And so, that’s one of the things that comes up – how do you make peace with the fact that this is supposed to be money for impact, but you’re saying that we need to have a risk appetite. Would love to hear your take on that.

Mohit: Look, at the end of it, you’re solving for impact. Everything else is mere conversation to get that impact. I don’t think we benefit the world or India by becoming the 101st foundation that does it the same way. What we’re attempting to do is an experiment called venture philanthropy with this new approach of risk taking and moon shots. It may or may not work in itself, but we are willing to give it a go. And I think the answer is, as long as we hold the bar high on impact. So for example, let’s take a company like Rocket Learning that we’ve partnered with. When we first started with them, close to a third of their annual budget came from ACT. But today, less than 10% of their annual budget comes from ACT. So it’s an example of how we can catalyse others to start giving and participating in growing some of these social unicorns.

Rocket Learning has over 3 Mn learners across 10 states of India. They have finished an RCT with J-PAL that suggests quite carefully that anyone who goes through a Rocket Learning course is better prepared to succeed in school. Parents are changing behaviours to actually spending more time with their children to make them successful in school. I think it really doesn’t matter whether there are two other Rocket Learnings that did not work in order for Rocket Learning to work. It’s more important that the 3 Mn learners and that Rocket Learning scales to 30 Mn. 

Aakanksha: Very, very well put. So building on the Rocket point Mohit, what do you feel actually has been the most exciting part of the last three years given our current model of venture philanthropy? It has been a short span of time obviously, and like you keep reminding all of us, this is not a time to declare victory at all, far from it. But share a bit on what’s been exciting and fueling that energy for you?

First Principle Lens: Developing successful models of change for Bharat

Mohit: Yeah, I think it’s important to remember that nothing’s really done yet. It’s 1% done, if that, and we’ve got miles to go. I would say there are three things that are beginning to give me at least confidence that we’re on the right track. The first one is it’s hard to be a founder in the social impact sector. It’s super hard. It’s a frustratingly long time to be able to see the impact that you’re trying to see. It’s super hard to access capital for you to actually attract the best talent and then go long. It’s super hard to work with many other constituents and partners who actually ask more questions and ask for precise answers way before you’ve actually discovered what the answers can be.  

I think that, when we create a Rocket Learning, where someone like Azeez (Gupta) who graduated from Harvard and had so many other options in life that he could spend his career on, decides to become a social entrepreneur. Someone like ACT, along with the ecosystem, supports him. He then becomes a role model. He, Utsav (Kheria), the entire team, then become role models for the next set of founders who have a choice to either go into the for-profit commercial world or actually go in the social impact world. So I think we’ve helped create a few role models. I look at Karya, look at Rocket Learning, I look at many of our other founders. They’re beginning to demonstrate some of the characteristics and skills that inspire the next gen.

I think the second thing we’ve done is, outside the individual company, we’re beginning to establish a few new business models. For example, Karya uses this concept of, we’ll pay you well for the work you do. They actually use rural Indian women to help perfect the models, the AI models being created by the Valley companies. And you can ask anybody to upskill. Sometimes the benefit of upskilling and paying for that upskilling is not so obvious to the person, but not only are these women now earning, they’re actually gaining their confidence and now they’re going to be upskilling themselves because they want better lives for themselves and their families. So I think these are new business models that we will try and put into place, which again should help provide new frameworks for the next gen. 

And finally, capital is scarce in social impact, and I think when we provide this initial seed capital from ACT, it allows business models to get created. It allows companies to move the ball forward. Cloud Physician is one of these companies that ACT had partnered with during COVID time, when it was so hard to go face-to-face for medical reasons. Cloud Physician’s remote management of ICUs was a critical reason that ACT gave them a grant. Well, that business model has scaled and today is very relevant because now Cloud Physician now services over 200 hospitals across India in a for-profit manner and they have attracted venture capital funding for their next round. So giving rise to new business models that then catalyse further rounds of funding would be the third thing. So role models, new business models, and catalytic funding would be the three things I think that make me feel we’re on the right track.

Aakanksha: Love it. And so the flip side of that coin, what do you feel have been the biggest challenges or, even in the coming time, roadblocks that we might face? And I’ll share some candidly, which again, we do grapple with. I think the first big one is just this – the hope but also the peril of really betting on tech first solutions, right? I continue to believe that given the scale of our country and if we really want to see some big change in our lifetime, I feel technology is key and that both digital tech and deep tech are going to be critical enablers. Having said that, they do come with their own challenges, again, because of the (Bharat) audience that we’re working with. There are behavioural roadblocks, access roadblocks, affordability roadblocks that come in the way. So that’s one big one. 

Another one that we also hear about a lot is it is going to be hard for one solution to really be able to attack all of what is Bharat, right? It is just a very, very diverse population that varies across cultural context, language, again, economic layers and so much more. What do you see as the biggest challenges that ACT needs to be prepared for in the coming time and in being able to really double down on this tech-first venture philanthropy model?

Future Forward: The path ahead for social entrepreneurship

Mohit: I hope to see more founders and more capital. These two things would be the challenges that I would focus on. I feel with things like ACT and other foundations out there, we just don’t see India’s best talent stepping in to solve some of these hard problems. And I wish I could wave a magic wand to tell people that this is a more purposeful, better mission to follow in life. And if you can give your best years to solving hard problems in education and environment and healthcare, I think we’d all just be way better off. So attracting India’s best talent to these problems is probably statement number one. To that extent, I want us at ACT to try new experiments around incubation, where we actually pick some of these hard problems. So that would be one problem area. 

Second is, I hope eventually, if you go out and you become a $10 billion company, I would want you to give 1% and create a foundation of your company. If we can create a $100 million foundation across 10 companies, that’s a billion dollars of foundation (capital) that can emerge from the startup ecosystem.

Mohit: It’s not just the quantum of money, but those same founders will have a massive vision and ability to actually execute against that vision to use that money in a very catalytic way. So I want to attract more capital that comes not from things like CSR, which is a little bit of a tick box for many, but literally put a percent of your very valuable company into giving back to the communities that have actually nurtured you to be so successful. Capital and people.

Aakanksha: Thank you for surfacing both of those. I want to go back to founders because actually that’s been a theme, I think, in everything you’ve shared today – how your journey in the space began, what’s going to be really valuable in the coming decade as you just articulated. And so one thing again I’ve heard a lot of VCs talk about is – here are the traits of a successful founder, founders who are going to go on to build great companies, maximise shareholder value – these are their recognizable traits. Over the last four or five years, what do you feel are the traits of a successful social entrepreneur? What are the qualities you feel they exhibit, the skills they need to bring to the table to ultimately create what you said, the double bottom line?

Mohit: I think one common trait, whether you’re getting invested in by PeakXV or you’re getting a grant from ACT. Founders need to show up every day. And they need to do that for over a decade. If you really, really apply yourself to a problem for that long, you will find a way. You will crack it. And so this trait of going long, not taking short-term decisions, but knowing that you’ll be doing this and working on this problem 10 years later, just is a very different kind of human being who doesn’t flit or get distracted every time there’s a challenge that comes up. I think the one thing that’s different that I’ve noticed in our social impact entrepreneurs is you don’t need to be so sharp elbowed. For you to win, nobody has to lose. There’s the ability to be a whole lot more collaborative knowing that you have like-minded folks who are trying to solve the same problems and the ability for you to share. For example, India is such a great example of creating Digital Public Goods. I would want ACT to give a lot of grants to a startup who then creates digital public goods that are easily given and transferable for no cost to other startups so that they can keep building on top of that. So I think this collaborative nature is a core part of our entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Aakanksha: Couldn’t agree more. Mohit, you’ve seen a huge transformation in India, would say, maybe 2010 to 2020 with the startup economy and again, India becoming this hub of the largest number of unicorns only behind, I think, U.S. and China. What is your hope for India at large for the coming decade? Especially when it comes to the kind of social change or social movements you want to see in the country, what comes to mind?

Mohit: I think one of the biggest issues going on in the world right now is that the rich are getting richer. Globally, we’re seeing issues around immigration into rich countries and the set of social challenges it’s creating. I think given the size of India, it is hard to move the country as one together. There will be these pockets of acceleration across different parts of our population.

Unless we are able to constantly think of things like the digital divide, constantly think of how digital payments can allow for a more inclusive future, I think we risk seeing some of the frustration and then some of the negative elements of that. And so the dream I have at least is while we continue to measure our success in GDP and growth and so on and so forth, is this ability to measure our success in how many people are able to get a solid education up to 10th grade. How many people have access to basic and better than basic healthcare. The environment, I would say, continues to be a lower priority in India than it needs to be. It gets a lot of lip service, but we are getting more and more accustomed to living in dirty and polluted cities, that’s got to change. So I think India of the future is one where the quality of life, I would say the disparity is not as much.

Mohit:  I think it’s super important at this stage to create very successful role models that others can follow. India had its first set of IITs and they’ve become globally so successful and sought after. Ashish is trying that with Ashoka and you know, Ashoka’s success in itself will not change India, but Ashoka’s inspiration to so many other institutions getting created will transform education. So I feel like that’s the role we play at ACT. Our job is to create social unicorns, if you will, that really deliver an impact in education, in the environment, in health, in gender equality. And if we’re able to do that, not only will we see that one success in that one or two companies, but we should hopefully create a little bit of a snowball effect.  

Aakanksha: Superb. And I’d love to end with a call to action, Mohit. If you had to make a clarion call for the young people in India; folks who are in a position to lend their voice, to lend their time, to lend their money, what would be a big bold call to action that you would make?

Mohit: Look, honestly, this is not a ‘nice to have’. This is not a clarion call; I would say it’s each of our responsibilities to get involved and make yourself accountable to yourself that you need to not just pontificate and talk about these issues, but get involved to solve them. If you think the ACT way is a way to solve it, get involved with us, with your time, your money, or your voice. If you feel there’s a different way to do it, that’s fine too. But get involved. Don’t be a bystander passively to the set of challenges that India faces.

Aakanksha: Love it. Thank you so much, Mohit.

Mohit: Thank you Aakanksha, thanks for everything you and the team do.

Aakanksha Gulati: This brings us to the end of our seventh episode of UnHerd, a podcast presented by team ACT. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our Spotify and YouTube channels, where we’ll bring you more Unheard stories of people who are passionate about creating impact at scale in differential ways. People who truly stand apart from the herd. Follow us, like, subscribe and share!

 

I’m Rucha, and I recently completed the ACT Fellowship program as an ACT For Environment Fellow. My journey to learn more about sustainable food systems is what led me to this program and has been anything but typical! After six years as an architect and a regenerative landscape designer, my perspectives shifted by almost 360° when I joined ACT. Suddenly, I had to zoom out to look at climate challenges on a national scale and think BIG!

At ACT, I had to shift from focusing on the intricate details required for program/project design and implementation to viewing climate-resilient agriculture at a macro level and the journey was equal parts a rollercoaster ride and equal parts rewarding. Contributing towards reimagining ACT For Environment’s investment thesis within the agriculture domain was crucial in this journey because up until last year, the investment focus had broadly been on land rejuvenation, water security, waste management, energy transition and air quality. When the 2nd cohort of Fellows came on board, the two of us tagged to the environment vertical realized that we’d soon be working on realigning this thesis to the larger northstar of decarbonisation – with agriculture and food systems being one of the key focus areas within the framework.

And I took on the challenge! Before scouting the solutions landscape to ensure the thesis was relevant to an Indian context, I knew of limited solutions in the agriculture and food sector. Upon extensively exploring the ecosystem, I was exposed to many different kinds of innovative solutions – I had the opportunity to speak with founders, policymakers, investors, and other stakeholders to understand the challenges within the sector, identify their roles, and contributions, and figure out where ACT’s capital could be truly catalytic. These conversations just reinforced in my mind the need for collaboration in the development sector, where multiple stakeholders worked together to solve complex problems.

This process also allowed me to pursue my passion for food systems while leveraging my on-ground knowledge from working with NGOs. I realized how complex fixing Indian food systems is compared to other climate tech interventional areas. It requires balancing climate impact, food security, groundwater recharge, biodiversity, and farmer incomes. Developing an investment thesis helps in prioritizing problems and making informed decisions. Knowing that this thesis will guide ACT’s investments towards ‘fixing’ the Indian food systems in the next couple of years was incredibly fulfilling!

Overall, my journey from architecture to tackling food systems at ACT has been quite transformative. It was like going from sculpting a masterpiece to managing an entire art gallery—both require meticulous attention to detail, but one also needs to see the grander vision to succeed!

Applications for the 2024-25 cohort of the ACT Fellowship are now open! Click here to apply before the deadline of 13th August, 2024.

I’m someone who is very passionate about enabling livelihoods and at the time I applied for the ACT Fellowship Program, I was channelling my own social entrepreneurial energies as the co-founder of AeSha Foundation – a grassroots lab for increasing women’s proactive participation in public life through income-generating work, civic engagement, and meaningful social life in low-income settlements.

I was looking for perspective at the time; being a social entrepreneur is a challenging body of work and I felt the need to look at it from a different set of eyes in order to be able to build better, faster and stronger. During my time as an ACT For Health Fellow, I had the opportunity to spearhead the Implementer’s Network – a key strategic initiative that aims to facilitate the deployment of market ready health-tech innovations at the last mile through partnerships with grassroots NGOs, state governments and ecosystem partners. Simply put, it provides a testing ground for tech innovations to find product-market fit within some of India’s most rural, remote and underserved regions.

The network comprises over 20 organisations actively engaged in high-impact work at the last mile. Forging collaborations with these organisations helps achieve several objectives:
Generate evidence on the effectiveness of tech-solutions in improving critical health outcomes at the last mile
Provide startups with real world feedback and pathways to scale sustainably with government and NGO partners
Enable implementation partners to enhance programmatic outcomes by piloting and integrating innovative tech solutions

Working on the Implementer’s Network turned out to be a highly enriching experience for me. My responsibilities included onboarding partner organisations, fostering strategic collaborations between like-minded startups and partners, and co-designing and monitoring pilots to ensure sustained outcomes. My first task as part of this project was to organise a tech-showcase for two of our potential grantees and network partners. The tech-showcase is meant to introduce and demonstrate new, innovative solutions to all our network partners, gather feedback on the feasibility and relevance of the solution, and potentially explore collaborative opportunities for pilots. In this showcase, we demonstrated two innovations – one in mental health and an AI-based oral cancer screening solution – which garnered interest from 8 partners. By the end of the process, we were able to propose 3 pilots for the large-scale deployment of the oral cancer screening technology!

Over the following months, I saw the impact of these efforts firsthand as we successfully onboarded Atom360, an oral cancer screening innovation, as a grantee—something I had the privilege to lead and oversee. The opportunity to engage deeply in pilot design and monitoring was a highly enriching experience. In the last year, we activated a total of 9 pilots and committed close to 5 crores cumulatively for deployments. An illustrative example of this would be the cervical cancer screening pilots we had initiated with our grantee Periwinkle in collaboration with PATH, our implementation partner. I thoroughly enjoyed being involved in getting this initiative off the ground in 20+ primary health care centres across 3 states. My personal engagement spanned from co-designing the Monitoring and Evaluation framework to ensuring regular cadences to monitor progress, and of course, the occasional (or rather, more than just occasional) crisis calls are always the fun part of working on field deployment projects.

If I were to encapsulate my learnings as an ACT For Health Fellow, the following key takeaways come to mind:
Ensuring that we are “Partners” and not “Funders”: If I may take this opportunity to sprinkle some grains of honesty – for those who are tuned into the social sector, most funders tend to fall prey to the saviour complex. I genuinely believe this is one area where ACT truly distinguishes itself by being extremely founder-centric and grounded in its approach.

Holding the fort for the implementers as much as for innovators: This is a difficult one and requires a fine balance. While our core work demands us to be more startup and founder-centric, ACT as a platform requires us to display high-levels of empathy for the needs of the implementation partners. Ensuring that support is extended where needed, listening carefully to what they need to generate mutually beneficial outcomes and mobilising resources accordingly.

Patience (of all kinds) is the key: Can’t emphasise enough on how big a learning this has been for me. From patient capital to patience during setbacks and toward outcomes is a massive skill and value to embody in this journey.

Being close to the field: That’s where it all plays out and that’s from where one learns the most. A non-negotiable.

Finally, as I reflect on this journey, I take back immense learning moments with me, along with deep gratitude for all the wonderful organisations and people, including the team at ACT – for trusting me throughout, guiding my learning process, and letting me tag along in this journey filled with enrichment, challenges and tons of joy!

Applications for the 2024-25 cohort of the ACT Fellowship are now open! Click here to apply before the deadline of 13th August, 2024.

Before I joined the ACT Fellowship, I had spent my career first at McKinsey and later as the Business Head at Razorpay – I was an IIT Roorkee and an IIM Ahmedabad graduate whose professional career was on a steady upward trajectory and I could have chosen to continue on that path. But as an individual, I had begun to feel a strong need to play a part in addressing one of the biggest challenges of our time – climate change.

From a lens of purpose, I knew I wanted to pivot my career towards the climate action space but wasn’t entirely sure where to start or which interventional area to prioritise, and I realised that perhaps I needed the time and the space to first learn more before planning my path ahead. The ACT Fellowship helped me do just that; as an ACT For Environment Fellow, the past 9 months have helped me garner an in-depth understanding of the various nuances of environmental challenges but also the role that innovation and collective action can play in creating sustainable impact at scale.

Apart from being a venture philanthropy fund, ACT is also a platform for collective action – the organisation truly believes in the power of bringing the ecosystem together – and one of the most rewarding experiences during my Fellowship has been seeing the value of building collectives come alive through ACT’s partnership with the Avaana-Startup India Grand Challenge to discover high-potential climate-tech innovations.

It all started with a conversation with Anjali Bansal, the founding partner of Avaana Capital, at the Avaana climate conference on a Friday evening in Mumbai in January. I had heard the team announce the challenge during the event, and while talking to Anjali, we briefly discussed the overlap with ACT For Environment’s investment focus areas. We quickly got on a call together with ACT’s leadership team to discuss the possibilities and by Monday, I was already in touch with Avaana’s team to begin planning how ACT could collaborate on this initiative as a funding partner. ACT isn’t kidding when they say they have a bias for action and interestingly, I saw how that bias has the power to spur organic partnerships within the sector at a surprisingly rapid pace!

The Avaana and ACT For Environment team seamlessly worked together on evangelising the challenge, getting the jury panels onboarded and screening the applications. We even jointly designed the selection criteria and moderated the stream-wise juries to identify 10 finalists that presented before a grand jury, comprising senior leaders from the industry and government in Delhi. The challenge saw more than 15 partners join in different capacities such as funders, jury members, industry experts and researchers and as an ACT Fellow, it was my absolute privilege being at the frontlines.

The challenge was a great success, with more than 400+ applications across the different streams like energy, agriculture, industrial decarbonisation, circular economy, carbon capture/removal/storage and climate data reporting. Collaborating with Avaana definitely helped ACT For Environment identify promising startups that could be potential grantees but most importantly, play a collaborative role alongside the ecosystem in addressing climate change.

While I’ve worked on various different aspects of venture philanthropy and grant-making during my Fellowship (I’ve even successfully taken a climate startup to the IC!) – personally, learning how to collaborate with other organisations has been the most rewarding experience.

As I conclude my Fellowship, I’m now looking forward to building my journey ahead – no matter where I choose to be or what I specifically choose to do, I know that I’ll always be a catalyst of climate impact!

Applications for the 2024-25 cohort of the ACT Fellowship are now open! Click here to apply before the deadline of 13th August, 2024.

A chemical engineer from IIT Roorkee and an IIM Ahmedabad alumni, Sailee Rane had worked with organisations like Razorpay and McKinsey before deciding to pivot her career towards climate action. Over the past 9 months, as an ACT For Environment Fellow, she has worked closely with the vertical on finding and funding cutting edge climate-tech innovations, managing collaborative ecosystem initiatives and contributing towards the evolution of our investment thesis strategy. Armed with application-led learning, she now hopes to build her own startup as a clima-preneur.

Sailee is just one of many examples of individuals who’ve come into ACT as Fellows but walked out with a solid understanding of the social entrepreneurial ecosystem and how venture philanthropy plays a catalytic role in propelling social impact at scale. 

A nine-month apprenticeship program, the ACT Fellowship Program is an opportunity for young professionals to learn what it means to apply venture capital principles to philanthropy. Positioned at the cusp of the startup and venture capital ecosystems, it offers an experience-led insight into the nuances of impact investing and brings you face to face with inspiring social entrepreneurs who are solving some of India’s toughest social issues. The full-time intensive program is designed to build your understanding of what it takes to leverage collective action to create meaningful change and enables you to hone your own leadership skills and entrepreneurial abilities as a future change-maker for Bharat.

Each of the Fellows from the previous two cohorts have found tangible value in being at the centre of India’s social innovation landscape – across the realms of education, climate action, public healthcare and gender equity. Hailing from diverse backgrounds like law, political consulting, architecture and more, they’ve leveraged their Fellowship experience and learnings to successfully pivot their professional journeys into new and exciting arenas. 

A Masters in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics, Lakshay is the co-founder of AeSha Foundation – a non-profit organisation that works on public participation, civic engagement and livelihood opportunities for marginalised women. “I gained great exposure to diverse stakeholders and truly inspiring individuals, offering invaluable lessons in leadership and ecosystem building in public healthcare,” he reflects on his journey as a 2023-24 ACT For Health Fellow. Similarly Ananya Yerra from 2022-23 cohort is now pursuing a career in impact investing while Shazib Siddique and Gulam Sarwar joined ACT as full-time fund managers on the team post their Fellowship.

Each year, we select 5-6 highly mission-driven candidates for the Fellowship Program – ambitious go-getters who can think on their feet, are hungry to learn, enjoy taking on challenges and can work both independently and as part of a team. Sharp thinkers with a bias for action who deeply believe that innovation can accelerate social impact and are abreast of the latest technology trends in the impact space. But most importantly, aspiring change-makers who are genuinely interested in the social sector and want to catalyse meaningful change.

The minimum eligibility criteria to apply for the Fellowship is to be a resident Indian citizen, a graduate of any discipline from an accredited university in or outside India, have at least 2 years of full time work experience and based in or willing to relocate to either Bombay, Delhi or Bangalore for the duration of the program. While we welcome applications from across all professional backgrounds, prior experience as a founder or in strategy consulting / investment banking / impact investing / social sector will be a strong advantage.

The ACT Fellowship is not just a program; it’s a journey that empowers young professionals to become co-founders of social change. By offering a blend of practical experience, sectoral specialisation and a best-in-class mentor network, the Fellowship has proven to be the transformative experience that could meaningfully change the trajectory of your career.

Applications for the 2024-25 cohort of the ACT Fellowship are now open! Click here to apply before the deadline of 13th August, 2024.

On September 15th 2022, six of us walked into Sequoia Capital’s (now Peak XV Partners) office in New Delhi for our induction into ACT’s first-ever Fellowship program. After a two day deep-dive into ACT’s journey, their venture philanthropy model and their beliefs around collective action, we immersed ourselves into our work.

And it has been one INCREDIBLE journey. Over the past nine months, we have met inspiring social entrepreneurs who are hungry to create meaningful change; learned from VCs and industry experts on what it takes to build successful organisations that can create impact at scale; played a major role in several first-ever initiatives that ACT was building and most important of all – became invested in and committed to the larger purpose of our work here.

As our Fellowship comes to an end, we wanted to give everyone who is curious about what went behind the scenes a sneak peek into our experience!

What was the common expectation that we all had from the Fellowship?

Most of us were curious to witness how the venture philanthropy model works – how the grant-making process happens from behind the scenes – since it’s such a new and innovative way of approaching social impact. This experience exceeded our expectations for sure – we saw how grant proposals are evaluated, how due diligence is conducted, what we need to look for in social entrepreneurs but most importantly, how to leverage the ACT network for support and collaborate with the ecosystem at large.

What did a typical day for us, as ACT Fellows, look like?

A very typical day involved a fair mix of conversations between external stakeholders like social entrepreneurs and inspirational founders and brainstorms with the ACT team as well as due diligence/evaluation of tech/innovation led solutions being built by such social entrepreneurs. One key function that remained standard for all of us was staying abreast of the current trends in the sector along with sourcing working models of innovations that are solving problems at a large scale – which we recommended to the ACT team for further action.

What was the most enjoyable and exciting part of working at ACT as Fellows?

Being a part of the entire grant-making process – from initiating the initial interaction to guiding potential prospects through the Investment Committee discussions for funding approval. There is simply no greater joy than helping mission-driven social entrepreneurs in their transformative journey. We also enjoyed interacting with varied stakeholders ranging from founders, VCs, scientists, NGO leaders and other ecosystem partners. Moreover, it always helps to work with a purpose-driven team who are trying to solve the big social problems in our country.

What stood out to us while interacting with passionate social entrepreneurs?

The capacity to tackle intricate challenges amidst uncertainty, coupled with the ability to maintain a long-term perspective towards present actions – it has been inspiring to see the social entrepreneurial ecosystem for Bharat and it has been our privilege to meet and work with them. Another big learning for us has been that the pathway for innovation for social entrepreneurs needs a lot of support. For an innovation to create meaningful change, there is a lot of work that still to be done to create a conducive environment for social innovators and risk-takers.

Did the Fellowship give us any leadership opportunities?

ACT is built on the principle of collaboration which means that a lot of our work involves working with a diverse set of stakeholders and aligning all of them towards a common goal. As Fellows, we were able to take a lot of ownership of our work and we did get the opportunity to lead specific project initiatives – which has been a game changer.

What is one skill that we Fellows definitely gained during the Fellowship?

By evaluating tech solutions through primary and secondary research, we definitely picked up extensive industry knowledge and learnings, which are vital for any development professional. We also became more confident in our approach when dealing with senior experts (because we did so quite a lot!) and learnt the value of going into conversations well prepared. As we got to lead initiatives and work independently, we learnt to take risks, make course corrections, and grow through failures.

What was one new learning about the social impact sector after coming to ACT?

The complex nature of creating impact at scale requires one to be on top of their game and to be updated with the latest industry trends. For example, AI is revolutionising everything – this is exciting but also challenging and there’s something new to learn every day. Another key insight we’ve had is that inherent collaboration within the space and cross-learning among individuals is much needed and can lead to newer possibilities.

What is our understanding of the team culture at ACT?

Agility and a bias for action are fundamental tenets of the ACT culture. We say this because everyone is very action-oriented and always trying to leverage their networks to make progress. We have inherited this culture to keep things moving and are going forward with a keen emphasis on swift action and decision-making.

What are some attributes that we feel every Fellow should definitely have?

Fellows should be excited to take responsibility, curious to learn, and be ready to fail and grow through it.

How has our experience as ACT Fellows influenced our long-term career goals and aspirations?

At ACT, we’ve all experienced what the power of collective action could do. We will always look out for ways where aspects of collaboration and cross-learning can be incorporated. Our journey as Fellows has leveraged our common curiosity to know more about venture philanthropy and development financing, solidified our knowledge of the space and fuelled our interest to work deeper in the impact space.

While we may have concluded our Fellowship, we’ll always be a part of the ACT collective and will continue supporting the organisation. We all plan to continue working in the social development space in some way, shape or form while keeping impact at the centre of what we do.

Would we recommend the ACT Fellowship to young change-makers?

In short, YES! It is very different from other Fellowships and exposes you to how tech and innovation can create large-scale impact and how YOU can contribute to it. If you’re an aspiring social entrepreneur or someone who is keen to understand unique models of funding development, this is the place for you!

A note for the readers: all the responses are a culmination of the experiences of all Fellows. If you’d like to understand more, feel free to reach out to us on LinkedIn!

We hosted the first edition of the ACT Summit in New Delhi, where a diverse set of stakeholders deliberated upon how technology, innovation and collaboration can help India address some of its most complex social issues across public healthcare, gender, education and environment.

Over 150 participants, including social entrepreneurs, impact investors, CSR professionals and sector experts, agreed that technology, data and platforms, when backed by patient and purpose-driven capital, can create sustainable social impact that can reach billions of people.

The day-long Summit featured multiple sessions designed to encourage dialogue, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among participants, some of whom included Ashish Dhawan (The Convergence Foundation), Rizwan Koita (Koita Foundation), Sandeep Singhal (Nexus Venture Partners), Mohit Bhatnagar (Sequoia Capital), Abhiraj Bhal (Co-Founder, Urban Company), Prachi Windlass (Michael & Susan Dell Foundation), Lathika Pai (Microsoft VC & PE), Supriya Paul (Josh Talks), Divya Jain (Seekho), Naghma Mulla (EdelGive Foundation), Aditya Shankar (Doubtnut), Mekin Maheshwari (Udhyam Learning Foundation), Mahesh Yagnaraman (Acumen), Shaveta Sharma-Kukreja (Central Square Foundation), Suman Gopalan (Freshworks) and Vishal Thakur (Nasscom Foundation), among others.

Across participants, a resounding theme that emerged was that the persistence of social entrepreneurs accompanied by committed capital and the use of technology could pave the way for sustainable social change. Investing in capacity building at an organizational level, challenging conventional wisdom with regards to funding and forming strategic Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are critical steps required to accelerate the deployment of homegrown innovations and give rise to India’s next generation of social unicorns.

Key Insights

• Social entrepreneurs are an important part of the social change value chain, given their agility, bias for action and focus on innovation. But that ability to create change can become exponential through collective action. There are lots of deep-rooted beliefs in India’s social sector and they won’t change in our lifetime if we take only the traditional routes of change. When we bring innovation, challenge conventional wisdom and collaborate with each other, it can be a powerful catalyst for change.
• Technology has immense potential to achieve scale for social impact; it is the only thing that will help us reach millions and billions. But it needs both patient capital and impatient social entrepreneurs to drive it forward. Having a strong mix of traditional as well as impact investors can bring the required amount of capital to enable technology to deliver meaningful social outcomes.
• The integration of generative AI into ed-tech is one of the more recent global developments. But while it presents multiple possibilities for the growth of quality, affordable ed-tech, tailoring solutions to the individual and socio-linguistic needs of students is the need of the hour. A robust Open Digital Learning infrastructure can power diverse use cases, translation, and multilingual transliteration.
• Peer-to-peer learning between social entrepreneurs building solutions for climate action and healthcare as well as funders supporting them is imperative, since there are many intersectionalities between the two domains – such collaboration can have exponential outcomes and foster more innovation. It is imperative for stakeholders to : a) align on what success or impact would mean for them, b) facilitate peer-to-peer collaboration to improve outcomes, c) take a long-term approach towards funding and technology development.
• Increasing India’s Female Labour Force Participation can be made possible only if gaps in the existing data collection landscape are addressed. Currently, data on 80% of SDG indicators on gender don’t have any sources and while gender-related data is collected in the private sector, it is not published or used. The availability of exhaustive and pertinent data can drive informed decision-making and higher levels of accountability. The presence of granular meta-data will inform the policy-making process as well.
• Continued dialogue between social entrepreneurs and funders as well as the harnessing of patient capital are important to de-risk investments that are critical for bolstering R&D in healthcare solutions. There is also scope for philanthropy to help address the existing gaps in the healthcare value chain, like diagnostic care.
• The time is ripe for India to build more Digital Public Goods due to the rapid adoption of sophisticated open-source technology.
• The role of first generation startup founders is critical to reshape the ‘giving culture’ in India into something that goes beyond just funding and can truly help build the nation. Since most such founders have just begun their philanthropic journeys, it’ll be valuable for them to build their vision of a shared purpose by exploring collaboration avenues with the public sector; such pathways can potentially flow both ways.

The Summit also catalysed purposeful 1:1 conversations between promising social entrepreneurs within the ACT portfolio and funders looking to connect with founders building impactful tech-led solutions.

That every individual can be a co-founder of social change was the resounding message in each of the sessions and for Team ACT, the Summit’s big highlight was the meeting of many minds and ideas across such a diverse set of stakeholders. We’re inspired by all the areas of collaboration that have emerged and look forward to building these pathways further in our quest to catalyse meaningful change for Bharat!

When we first launched the Tech Advisors For Social Change program in 2022, we hoped for it to address a big gap that we had observed in the tech capabilities of social enterprises. Through our engagement with multiple such organisations, both in and outside of our portfolio, we realised that they often didn’t have the deep expertise needed to build a scalable tech architecture – something that hindered their ability to grow.

As an organisation that’s rooted at the cusp of the venture capital and startup ecosystems and deeply believes in the power of collective action, we instinctively knew that leveraging external tech experts could not only give social enterprises the advisory they needed, but also give such volunteers an opportunity to contribute towards creating social impact in a meaningful way.

It all started as a tweet by Mekin Maheshwari, our ACT For Education investing committee member, that invited fellow techies from his network to apply for the Tech Advisors For Social Change program – that single tweet catalysed 80+ tech experts to raise their hands and our journey began in the most serendipitous of ways!

Our first cohort had 8 senior tech experts, each of whom we matched to a social impact organisation in the education space that had identified a very specific tech challenge statement. The 3-4 month engagement saw these advisors collaborate with their respective matched organisations on areas that ranged from restructuring backend operations to influence scale or creating effective data dashboards to gain user insights.

Saraswati Chandra was one such Tech Advisor who helped Rocket Learning, an ed-tech non-profit working on early childhood education, create a product testing framework that gamified their Whatsapp based solution and accelerated the participating children’s engagement!

“Building products and technologies that work at scale is hard. Through my startup journey, I have benefited from advisors who inspired me to pay it forward. It was great to apply product-building concepts to solutions that are designed for Bharat,” she says.

Our experience with the first cohort bolstered our conviction in our approach and we focused on fine-tuning the program structure to enable a better experience for both sides involved. Our biggest takeaway was the need to foster a growing community of tech experts that could go beyond short-term 1:1 relationships to become universally accessible to social enterprises when they encountered challenges and needed custom-focused mentorship.

So this year, as we get the 2nd cohort in gear, we’ve fine-tuned our approach to match a resident advisor to each participating organisation as well as match a visiting advisor for specific use cases. We have also expanded the program to organisations within the healthcare and climate action spaces and are working with the social enterprises to hyper-define their tech challenge in a way that it’s realistically solvable within a 3 month time period.

Tech Advisors For Social Change 2.0 has greatly benefited from a strategic collaboration with Vidyasagar Bedida, who has helped us evaluate the submissions by social impact organisations on product scope, urgency of the problem statement as well as the founder’s vision. We’ve shortlisted a diverse group of 10 organisations solving crucial issues through telemedicine solutions, personalised learning platforms and renewable fuel production etc. that need support with optimising data architecture, building data analytical capability and improving the UX/UI of the platform.

Simultaneously, we leveraged ACT’s community to invite seasoned tech experts from the for-profit/startup world and received 90+ signups from folks across companies like Groww, Amazon, Google etc. They were invited to join demo sessions by participating social enterprises to give them an opportunity to understand the challenge statement with the founder and gain insight into its complexity. Finally, we facilitated the final matches based on the skill requirements for the project and the preferences indicated by the advisors.

We’re excited for the 2nd cohort to deep dive into their 12 week engagement and hope to build this program into a thriving community that takes ACTion!