My Story

Intro

Unemployment and Underemployment is the biggest problem for youth in India and any developing/under developed countries. It is due to the lack of positive employment that the youth are moving towards anti-social activities. The only way to come out of this scenario is provide self-employment opportunities to youth through promotion of entrepreneurship and Anirban, Nidhi and Arindam are just doing that.

About Us

Anirban
During my bachelors in economics and my higher studies in Rural Management from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar; economic development and well-being of the people had slowly become my passion.

After my studies I initially took a campus placement in a reputed development sector organization, however I was very restless about the fact that young people like us with management degrees were waiting for the government and others to create jobs for us or to initiate and implement the changes we wanted in the society and economy of our country. I became an entrepreneur to live my dream and to motivate/instigate hundreds and thousands of other young people to their dreams and create a better world.

I wanted to do it myself in whatsoever small way I could make a change in the system, in people’s mindsets and the country’s future. I wanted to reach out to the youth in my country in the villages and in cities to share my dream of an entrepreneurial and economically robust nation state and I became an entrepreneur to do the same.

About Nidhi
I am Nidhi Arora, born & brought up in New Delhi, India. I went to school in Delhi in Tagore International School and graduated in commerce from Lady Shri Ram College (LSR), Delhi University. Further, I went on to do my Business Management with specialization in Finance & HR from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, India. After graduation I worked briefly in the corporate sector with GE India as part of the prestigious Financial Management Programme and then in the social sector with Dastkar, a society for crafts and craftspeople.

I am a restless person who keeps searching for something constructive to do. During my years of education, I was involved with a variety of activities from academics to arts to representation in student bodies and I got a chance to explore the spirit of experimentation within me. It was here I decided that one day I would be an entrepreneur, that I would rather work for myself and give employment to many other people than doing one such job forever. I did take up campus placement only to realize very soon that I wanted to be on my own…soon!

Apart from being an entrepreneur and promoting many more entrepreneurs, I enjoy travelling to new, undiscovered places, discovering new cultures, & learning new languages. I love music and dance makes me feel happy in lowest of times. I am an ardent admirer of indigenous crafts and dream of bringing exquisite & rare handcrafts to the modern urban centers. Another entrepreneurial idea that I eat & breathe.
I have always been fascinated with the idea of creating something new, something original. With Dhriiti, I have moved closer to my fascination. However, I am still a young girl who wakes up everyday eager to paint a new picture in her sketchbook!

About Arindam
I am Arindam Dasgupta and my dream is to take the fruits of development to every corner and citizen of India. I want to make every underprivileged youth of India independent and confident by turning them into successful entrepreneurs. I aim to spread numerous micro enterprises across the landscape of India.

I was born in a middle class family in Jamshedpur and did my schooling from Loyola School, Jamshedpur. I moved on to Delhi for my graduation and studied commerce from the premier institute of Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC). Though I was very passionate about working for the upliftment of my country since childhood yet during my years in SRCC I got interested in locating my work in the rural areas of India. After my graduation I worked as an executive trainee in Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in their exports department. After one year in CII I joined Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) for my post graduation. In IRMA I not only learned the discipline of management but also got to see rural India very closely. I decided to work in the eastern parts of India and took a job with Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI) and got posted at Guwahati. Thereafter some of us friends came together and formed our own organization named “Dhriiti – The Courage Within” and have been promoting entrepreneurship and micro enterprises in various formats since then.

I do not like to accept the status quo without testing it. Just because the societal trend is towards a certain direction I won’t follow it. That attitude in me has made me an entrepreneur which gives me the freedom to try out new things in the society and give them better solutions for todays problems. I like to work outdoors and am not interested in a 9 to 5 desk job. My strength is the ability to visualize things very differently and have the courage to give shape to that visualization. My weakness is that I don’t prefer to come in limelight. I like to handle the whole show from backstage.

I am quite an unconventional person with an unique stream of thoughts and ways of working. Ultimately I want become a politician because that is the highest form of social entrepreneurship where you can really change the lives of millions of people.

Our Venture

We started Dhriiti to not wait for someone else create the change that we visualized. Dhriiti - The Courage Within has tjhe mission is “to stimulate a culture and attitude of enterprise and entrepreneurship, by creating a pool of next generation entrepreneurs, promoting and developing micro enterprises and increasing the efficiency of existing small scale industries leading towards a better condition of life and living”.

Dhriiti works towards its objectives by undertaking activities through its 3 divisions. The Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC) builds the capacity of youth so that they can be future entrepreneurs. EDC implements separate entrepreneurship development programme for the youth from underprivileged sections of the society, studying in undergraduate colleges and young adults in schools. Info-media activities like e-journal, entrepreneurship film festivals are also done in order to take entrepreneurship awareness to a greater level. The Research and Facilitation Cell (RFC), provides value added services to existing SMEs and other promoting/enabling organizations and also addresses the internal research needs of the organization. The Micro Enterprise Development and Management (MEDM) division of Dhriiti works to promote and develop micro and small enterprises in rural and semi urban areas.

If we look at unemployment and underemployment as a disease, EDC acts as preventive medicine, orienting the future generation (youth) with the tools of entrepreneurship to look at it as a respectable and viable career option. MEDM acts as curative medicine, creating micro enterprise value chains to provide livelihood options for currently unemployed and underemployment youth. And RFC works for creation of a suitable environment for entrepreneurs and enterprises to prosper.