Shridhar Venkat, CEO, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, World’s largest NGO for school meals
- Shridhar Venkat serves as the CEO of The Akshaya Patra Foundation.
Podcast
Overview
The motive of the Mid-day meal was to provide a dense nutrition lunch to all the students studying in Government schools. The initiative took place looking at the poor diet of a few students, and according to the parents of those students, they didn’t have enough money to provide the best. Know more about the same from Shridhar Venkat, CEO, of The Akshaya Patra Foundation, the World’s largest NGO for school meals.
00:35- About Shridhar Venkat
- Shridhar Venkat serves as the CEO of The Akshaya Patra Foundation.
- He has over 30 years of experience with leading multinationals like Philips, ABB, and Webex Communications India (CISCO). An Eisenhower Fellow 2014 for innovation, Shridhar has been working with Akshaya Patra for the past 16 years.
- Prior to that, he was the Vice-President Of sales of Webex Communications India (CISCO). Shridhar holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Marketing Management, NMIMS Mumbai.
About The Akshaya Patra Foundation
- Akshaya Patra Foundation is a not-for-profit organization with the vision: ‘No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger and mission to feed 5 million children every day by 2025.
- Akshaya Patra is the world’s largest NGO-run school meal program, feeding over 1.8 million children every day in 60 kitchens across 14 States & 2 Union Territories of India The Global Journal of Geneva has ranked the organization 23rd among the top 100 NGOs in the world.
01:01- What made you give up the corporate sector and select the social sector?
- I had no plans to get into the social sector, but I used to be inquisitive about things like what is the purpose of life.
- Being an ambitious guy, I wanted to lead an organization by the age of 40.
- I was in the midst of a transition from one organization to another and at the time I used to volunteer with The Akshaya Patra Foundation.
- The Chairman of The Akshaya Patra Foundation asked me why are you building empires for others. Why don’t you build for these children? That was like a moment of calling for me.
03:38- About the mission
- From a challenge, perspective growth is not a challenge.
- Sustainably growing is a challenge.
- For every million children, I add to the system, we need to raise about one crore rupees a day.
- Financial sustainability is one of the challenges.
- We do scratch cooking, so every day local pellet is given to children, and the hot cooked meal is given to children.
07:39- What are some nutrition challenges our children face?
- Malnutrition has been a challenge in our country.
- 10 years back 40 percent of our children were malnourished. Thanks to the efforts of the government not for profits and civil society has come down to 30 percent in the last 10 years.
- We are also thinking of should we introduce a breakfast program.
Profile
- Shridhar Venkat serves as the CEO of The Akshaya Patra Foundation.
- He has over 30 years of experience with leading multinationals like Philips, ABB, and Webex Communications India (CISCO). An Eisenhower Fellow 2014 for innovation, Shridhar has been working with Akshaya Patra for the past 16 years.
- Prior to that, he was the Vice-President Of sales of Webex Communications India (CISCO). Shridhar holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Marketing Management, NMIMS Mumbai.
