Tarun Cherukuri, a resident of Vijayawada and co-founder and CEO of New Delhi-based organisation Indus Action, has been selected as one of the 11 Ashoka Aspire-2023 cohorts. ASPIRe is a global initiative from Ashoka, exploring innovative ways in which social entrepreneurs can make systematic impact using platform thinking supported by technology.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Tarun is also an Obama Foundation Fellow and DRK Foundation Entrepreneur. He graduated from Harvard Kennedy School in 2013 with a master’s degree in public administration in international development and was a Fulbright and Joint Japan World Bank Scholar. After doing his undergraduation in Chemical Engineering from BITS-Pilani, he worked with Hindustan Unilever Limited in Supply Chain and TeachForIndia as a Fellow and Operations Director.
ASPIRe Fellows are carefully selected from Ashoka’s network of 4,000 social entrepreneurs, based on their commitment to creating impact at scale, openness to experiment and their potential to bring about significant change in society.
Realising that only 50% of public spending on basic services reaches the intended population, and over 60% of the country’s population continues to live under poverty, as a result of which one billion Indians are vulnerable to being stuck in poverty traps if current inequalities persist, Mr. Tarun, through Indus Action, started helping the most vulnerable Indian families access legislated benefits and also supporting the government in providing those benefits using simple, technology-powered solutions.
Till date, Indus Action has enabled the enrolment of 580,349 students, has connected 172,446 pregnant mothers to their maternity entitlements and has made it possible for almost 90,000 workers to receive benefits.