Satyam Darmora, CEO & Founder, i2e1
Born and brought up in rural Himalayas with no roads and electricity, Satyam brings along diverse exposure and a passion to solve for information asymmetry in society
Podcast
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Overview
“A very large section of the society is not even able to see dreams because they don’t even know about what exists out there”- Satyam Darmora
In this episode, Ashutosh Garg engages in an insightful conversation with Satyam Darmora, Founder and CEO, i2e1 (Information To Everyone), a company that aims to provide free internet to over three million people across 10,000 locations in India. Satyam, an alumnus of IIT-D and IIM-A, is a highly successful professional and entrepreneur. Satyam shares the story of his humble beginning from a remote village. He talks about his first job in Japan and the cultural shift. He proceeds to talk about the revolutionary idea of i2e1 and the methodology. Half the population of India doesn’t have access to the internet. He explains how he plans to improve the availability of information by making the internet free-for-all. He talks about the partnership with Facebook and the progress made so far. He states what it is like to work with the new-age bureaucrats. He elucidates how the millennials and Gen-Z react to the internet.
Profile
Born and brought up in rural Himalayas with no roads and electricity, Satyam brings along diverse exposure and a passion to solve for information asymmetry in society. In 2015, he set up i2e1 (Information To Every One), a technology and analytics company, to create a model to provide Free Internet to masses. i2e1 has provided free internet to more than 3 million people across 10,000 + locations. Today, i2e1 is one of the largest companies in the space and the only technology company partnered by Facebook to solve for the problem of connectivity in India.
Satyam is an IIT Delhi and IIM Bangalore graduate with a terrific record working with large corporations and scaling up new businesses. At a young age of 32, he was one of the youngest Directors at Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. He also served as the constituent member of CGAP (Consultative Group Against Poverty), a World Bank entity. In the year 2014, he was appointed on the Project Approval Committee (PAC) of National Skill Development Corporation, a nodal agency for skill development in India.
Academic:
- B. Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
- Management from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
- Executive education program in Leadership from Harvard Business School
Professional Experience:
- American Express International Pvt. Ltd. – Various positions; part of the in-house risk consulting team and worked in markets like Japan, Hong Kong & Germany
- Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Director, Head of Financial Services and Skill training portfolio at the Foundation managing a 100 M + portfolio of companies and global organisations
