At TAPForum meet in Burlingame, Calif., (L-r): Navin Chaddha, Managing Director-Mayfield; David Marquart, Director-Checchi Capital Advisers; Kshitij Shah, CFO- Westbridge Capital; Dulari Amin, Board member-Beyond Capital & Co-Founder-Synergy Ventures; BV Jagadeesh, Managing Director-KAAJ Ventures.(All photos by Akshay Patra Foundation USA)

SAN FRANCISCO, November 14, 2019 – TAPForums was organized by The Akshaya Patra Foundation in the Bay Area to bring together solutions-oriented innovators and thought leaders from public, private and civil society sectors to align, act and invest to solve some of the most pressing challenges especially classroom hunger, education and women’s empowerment in an integrated way.

The speakers included Paraag Marathe, President-49ers Enterprise; Vivek Vaidya, Super {Set} Venture Studio; Saket Modi, Co-Founder & CEO at Lucideus; Ramamurthy Sivakumar (Siva), Co-founder Pragya Ventures; Pawan G. Patil, Founder InteliCare Solutions; Siva Sivaram, President- Western Digital; Shridhar Venkat, CEO- Akshaya Patra Foundation India; Navin Chaddha, Managing Director-Mayfield; David Marquart, Director-Checchi Capital Advisers; Kshitij Shah, CFO- Westbridge Capital; Dulari Amin, Board member-Beyond Capital & Co-Founder-Synergy Ventures; BV Jagadeesh, Managing Director-KAAJ Ventures; Srivatsan (Sri) Rajan, Partner-Bain & Company; Arjun Metre, Senior Managing Director- Sapinda & Co-founder- Pragya Ventures; Chad Bolick, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley Philanthropy Management Group and Vandana Tilak, CEO- Akshaya Patra Foundation USA.

At TAPForum meet in Burlingame, Calif., Paraag Marathe, President-49ers Enterprise. (All photos by Akshay Patra Foundation USA)

TAPForums was organized to build cutting edge solutions to Akshaya Patra’s next expansion phase and take a look at what success looks like through different lenses. It leveraged the experiences and outlook of the attendees to provide invaluable insight into the big question of where the organization should expand and how should it nurture that expansion. The attendees also looked at sustainable growth model for Akshaya Patra, including the Community Kitchen model.

The day started with Vandana Tilak, CEO- Akshaya Patra Foundation USA sharing what it means to serve 1.8 million children daily from an operational, organizational and impact perspective. She also shared the challenges and opportunities for future growth for an organization that is nearing 20 years and has never missed a day of providing hot lunches to children in over 16,000 schools. Shridhar Venkat, CEO, Akshaya Patra Foundation India commented “From a social impact side, you are impacting lives of about 5 million people when you feed 1.8 million children. The community kitchen model gives local employment to women and youth and the meal also serves a big instrument for social-economic investment. The economy of location changes when hot meal is provided”.

(L-r): Paraag Marathe, President-49ers Enterprise; Vivek Vaidya, Super {Set} Venture Studio; Saket Modi, Co-Founder & CEO at Lucideus; Prabhakar Kalavacherla (P K), Partner-KPMG; Ramamurthy Sivakumar (Siva), Co-founder Pragya Ventures.

Speaking on Investing in Social Impact, Dulari Amin, Co-founder of Synergy Ventures noted “Social Impact Investing is not a trend, it is the investing we all need to do for the future. For Impact Investors and capitalist doing philanthropy and combining it with investing is a great continuum as we need to be progressing from generosity to justice. So, it is important to not just resolve the symptoms of injustice through charity, but we need to invest in those businesses that are at the root of solving inequality.”

While discussing the trends in philanthropic giving and the importance of funding proven as well as new ideas, Chad Bolick, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley Philanthropy Management Group emphasized the importance of funding capacity building of people who are focused on innovation, marketing, fundraising and research & advocacy to amplify the impact of the organization.

(L-r): Vandana Tilak, CEO- Akshaya Patra Foundation USA; Shridhar Venkat, CEO-Akshaya Patra Foundation India; Chad Bolick, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley Philanthropy Management Group.

Talking about scaling innovation differently and how it extends to Akshaya Patra, Vivek Vaidya, Super{Set} Venure Studio mentioned, one of the things that worked for him was quantifying the principles and strategies that they wanted the companies to adopt as they are getting built. Extending the innovation model to Akshaya Patra, he suggested “It was evident from the discussion during the previous sessions that Akshaya Patra wants to foster innovation in food recipes, kitchens, water treatment, etc. There are impact based start-ups that are trying to work in these areas. Is there a way Akshaya Patra can facilitate in creation of funds that can invest in these ventures that are creating products that not only Akshaya Patra can use, but it can be used by other organizations that may need them?”

Following the breakout session, Pawan G. Patil, Founder InteliCare Solutions; Chairman, TAPForum discussed the Global view on Hunger and its effects on Economies. The day ended with Fireside chat moderated by Siva Sivaram, President, Western Digital where the attendees participated in the conversation with Shridhar to outline the challenges Akshaya Patra has, and provide inputs to come up with solutions. The idea of Financial sustainability was discussed as the organization feeds 1.8 million children every day and it is important to have an operating reserve to sustain the intervention. Vivek Vaidya suggested, “Venture Capitalists to pledge 1% of gains for impact investing and for non-profit organization by creating mechanisms at VC Partnership level or voluntary basis across all levels.”

(L-r): Pawan G. Patil, Founder InteliCare Solutions; Srivatsan Rajan(Sri), Partner-Bain & Company; Shridhar Venkat, CEO- Akshaya Patra Foundation India; Arjun Metre, Senior Managing Director- Sapinda & Co-founder- Pragya Ventures.

At the conclusion of the conference, The Akshaya Patra Foundation received resounding praise from all the attendees. The representative from Sarva Mangal Foundation congratulated the team by mentioning “Not all organizations, especially as large as Akshaya Patra Foundation, are open and humble to put themselves in vulnerable position to ask people for solutions”.

About The Akshaya Patra Foundation

The Akshaya Patra Foundation (Food for Education) operates one of the largest NGO-run midday school meal programs in the world; feeding freshly prepared, healthy, lunches to 1.8 million school children in over 16,856 government schools in India every day. Akshaya Patra operates 51 centralized kitchens through a public-private partnership, combines good management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver school lunches, at a cost of only $20 to feed a child for the entire school year. The organization is committed to unlocking children and their families from the vicious and perpetual cycle of poverty.

For more information about Akshaya Patra Foundation, readers are encouraged to reach out at (www.foodforeducation.org) and The TAPForum (www.tapforums.org ), please contact Chandani Punia: chandani@apusa.org