My Story

Intro

More and more companies are looking at the bottom billion, the million of poor people, worldwide as customers for the products and services. Not many however, look at the poor as pool of talented yet underdeveloped employee pool as Manoj does.

About Me

I was born in 1984 in Vishakhapatnam, India. After graduating from BITS Pilani in 2006, I joined IBM Corporation as a Software Engineer. After returning from a 3-month onsite project visit to Austin, TX, I felt that my role in IBM was getting stagnant. It was a vibrant and exciting office environment, but the work wasn’t challenging.

I had spent four years in Pilani where world-class engineers were created, and it troubled me that in contrast, surrounding villages lived in abject poverty. My father was an army man and I had grown up in a house with a strong sense of public duty. This is why I often thought about creating a business that would make a difference to society. In 2007, I founded SourcePilani, a for-profit social enterprise employing skilled rural workers in the business process outsourcing (“BPO”) sector.

I am passionate about social change and entrepreneurship. What drives me is the vision of the future – a world of peace, prosperity and sustainability. I believe social entrepreneurs and enterprises have more power to impact society today than any time in history. I want to focus on activities that will help power to impact society today than any time in history. I want to focus on activities that will help alleviate poverty, fight disease, combat climate change and bridge the religious and racial divides through sustainable enterprises.

When I think about the world now and the world that I hope to leave for my children and grandchildren, I see a transition happening from a world that moves away from unequal, unstable and unsustainable interdependence, to a world that moves towards integrated communities both locally and globally. It is world where people share accessible opportunities, a sense of responsibility for the success of the common enterprise and a genuine sense of belonging. Being a catalyst of this transition is what matters to me most and this is what keeps me going every single day.
In my personal time, I enjoy go-kart racing, swimming and long distance running.  I love Asian cuisine particularly Chinese and Thai. I am a huge fan of Formula One racing and hope to watch the night race at Singapore live one day.

My Venture

Despite India’s many advances, there are eight million educated unemployed youth in India’s countryside. Underemployed youth is disenchanted and often finds meaning in drugs, violence and terrorism.  Harnessed youth is a powerful force. I decided to create a future for India’s rural youth by improving the employability situation in India’s rural hinterlands.

In 2007, I founded SourcePilani, a rural business process outsourcing company. Located in Rajasthan, India’s poorest state, SourcePilani is a for-profit social enterprise whose unique business model leverages low cost stable talent and inexpensive infrastructure, to create employment, empower women and bring rural India into the mainstream economy.

Rural India is semi-skilled, poorly trained and has terrible infrastructure. The BPO sector has never been interested in setting up offices in such locations. SourcePilani has changed the paradigm by focusing on service verticals such as medical transcription, internet & social media marketing, regional language voice services and bank transaction processing, where rural people can compete.

SourcePilani is creating a sea-change in the way India thinks about the service industry potential of India’s small towns and villages. SourcePilani is a small company but had a cascading psychological effect on the Pilani rural landscape in the form of creating alternate livelihoods, reverse migration, and increased employment opportunities for women. It is a great case for sustainable rural development and could transform India’s countryside in ways yet unimagined.

The impact on the community has been phenomenal. Urmila Maan, a housewife with two kids now transcribes dictation from US doctors. She is one of many women at SourcePilani who makes up to $120 per month. In an area where husbands work on farms for a dollar a day, this is a significant sum. SourcePilani is giving these rural women social status and people are taking note.

Future plans include expanding the company to several locations across rural India. Simultaneously, I will raise the company’s profile internationally by evangelizing the rural BPO.