{"id":43305,"date":"2025-07-02T17:47:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/02\/mekin-maheshwari-named-senior-ashoka-fellow-for-udhyam-learning-foundations-work-toward-making-bharat-entrepreneurial\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T17:47:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:17:22","slug":"mekin-maheshwari-named-senior-ashoka-fellow-for-udhyam-learning-foundations-work-toward-making-bharat-entrepreneurial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/02\/mekin-maheshwari-named-senior-ashoka-fellow-for-udhyam-learning-foundations-work-toward-making-bharat-entrepreneurial\/","title":{"rendered":"Mekin Maheshwari named Senior Ashoka Fellow for Udhyam Learning Foundation\u2019s work toward making Bharat entrepreneurial"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], July 2: <\/strong>Mekin Maheshwari, Founder and CEO of\u00a0Udhyam Learning Foundation<\/a>, has been elected as a\u00a0Senior Ashoka Fellow<\/a>, joining a global community of leading changemakers recognized for their exceptional contribution to social innovation and systemic transformation.<\/p>\n

This recognition by Ashoka, the world\u2019s largest network of social entrepreneurs (founded by Bill Drayton in 1980 and headquartered in Washington, D.C.), affirms Mekin\u2019s visionary leadership and pioneering work through Udhyam in building\u00a0entrepreneurial mindsets and 21st-century skills among underserved youth and micro-entrepreneurs across India. Established in 2017, Udhyam runs\u00a0two core programs \u2013 Shiksha and Vyapaar, partnering with governments, institutions, and ecosystem partners to drive large-scale, replicable, systemic change. Udhyam Shiksha integrates mandatory entrepreneurship education among grade 9-12 students in government schools, leveraging tech and teacher training, reaching over 3.9M learners through 40K educators across 9K+ schools\/ITIs in 12 states. Udhyam Vyapaar supports 6,100+ nano\/micro-entrepreneurs through mentorship (over 15,000 hours of training), enabling a $3.3 million income uplift.<\/p>\n

What is the Ashoka Senior Fellowship?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ashoka is the world\u2019s largest network of social entrepreneurs, advancing the vision that everyone can be a changemaker. For over four decades, Ashoka has identified and supported leading social innovators whose ideas create system-changing impact. With a presence in over 90 countries, Ashoka Fellows work across sectors to solve some of the world\u2019s most pressing challenges. Senior Fellows are seen as role models who bridge sectors and inspire the next generation of leaders. Through its fellowship, collaborative platforms, and youth programs, Ashoka empowers individuals and institutions to drive lasting social change.<\/p>\n

Dr. Shruti Nair, Diamond Leader, Ashoka Innovators for the Public, India, shared \u201cAt Ashoka, we believe that in today\u2019s rapidly changing world, it\u2019s not enough to prepare young people for the jobs that exist \u2014 we must empower them to create the solutions the world needs. Mekin\u2019s impact through Udhyam has already helped shift the mindset at a huge scale around the importance of young people growing up with an entrepreneurial outlook. He is one of roughly 20 social entrepreneurs elected as Senior Ashoka Fellows in India over the last few decades. We are thrilled to welcome Mekin into the Ashoka community. His values and co-leadership are critical to advancing our shared vision of India as an \u2018Everyone a Changemaker\u2019 society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the right environment, anyone can be a changemaker\u201d \u2013 Mekin Maheshwari<\/p>\n

Mekin Maheshwari, an early Flipkart leader \u2013 India\u2019s largest homegrown ecommerce brand that rivals Amazon, played diverse and critical roles, including Head of Technology and later Chief People Officer, where he helped shape the company\u2019s culture and scale its team of 350,000 employees.Despite his success, he felt unfulfilled and concerned about India\u2019s education system lagging behind its economic growth. Realizing that job creation couldn\u2019t match population growth, he identified the need for a mindset shift toward self-reliance. Taking a gap year, he traveled across India, meeting social innovators to deeply understand the challenge.<\/p>\n

Developing an entrepreneurial mindset builds personal agency and critical life skills, yet remains underutilized\u2014especially for youth in developing economies. Mekin Maheshwari observed that while India has a demographic advantage with 67% of its population in working age, unemployment and lack of opportunities keep low- to middle-income families in cycles of poverty. He realized that entrepreneurship education\u2014rooted in experiential learning and problem-solving\u2014could transform how young people make decisions for personal and societal progress. Notably, this mindset had never been introduced at scale in school systems serving underprivileged communities. To address this, Mekin founded Udhyam with the goal of embedding entrepreneurial thinking into mainstream education. By partnering with public education systems, Udhyam aims to make this approach scalable, relevant, and essential to growing up in India.<\/p>\n

Udhyam is not only enabling a shift in young people\u2019s mindsets, but also influencing how adults from low- to middle-income communities in India view their futures\u2014moving from job-seeking to job-creating. Through practical skilling and mentoring, the initiative empowers individuals to navigate uncertainty and build livelihoods on their own terms. This approach is helping youth develop agency early in life, while also supporting adults to grow sustainable micro-enterprises. Together, these efforts are building a culture of self-reliance, economic participation, and local problem-solving within communities often excluded from traditional opportunity pathways.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that every individual has the potential to thrive, if we create enabling environments. This fellowship is not just a personal honour but a recognition of the collective will at Udhyam to reimagine education, livelihoods, and dignity for all,\u201d said Mekin Maheshwari.<\/p>\n

This recognition of over 8 years of grassroots work by an ex-corporate leader is rare, most corporate leaders tend to transition into philanthropy or take on advisory roles with think tanks. Through this milestone, Ashoka and Udhyam aim to spark a broader dialogue: What if more corporate leaders brought their scale-oriented thinking to address the root causes of social challenges? Mekin\u2019s journey offers a powerful blueprint.<\/p>\n

If you object to the content of this press release, please notify us at pr.error.rectification@gmail.com. We will respond and rectify the situation within 24 hours.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], July 2: Mekin Maheshwari, Founder and CEO of\u00a0Udhyam Learning Foundation, has been elected as a\u00a0Senior Ashoka Fellow, joining a global community of leading changemakers recognized for their … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[448],"class_list":["post-43305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-business","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialtelegraph.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}