Nikhil Kamath, Sujeet Kumar, Ankit Nagori pledge to give away 25 per cent wealth to charity

A bunch of leaders from India’s start-up ecosystem are pledging to give away at least 25 per cent of their fortunes to philanthropic causes. 

The voluntary group working under the name ‘Young Indian Philanthropic Pledge (YIPP)’ includes Nikhil Kamath, Founder of Zerodha and True Beacon; Prashanth Prakash of Accel; Sujeet Kumar, Founder of Udaan; Ravi Pai, Founder of Century real estate; Arjun Santhanakrishnan, Group CEO, GS Global, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, executive chairperson of Biocon, and Ankit Nagori, Founder, Curefoods. 

“We have found a bunch of young people, most of whom are in Bangalore who have done very well in the start-up ecosystem. We came together to decide what projects we can do. Along the way we also decided that we won’t wait till people are 60 years old, we will start giving away wealth in the thirties itself. Everybody who’s part of it will give away 25 per cent of their wealth. Most will give a lot more, but the idea is to give a minimum of 25 per cent,” Kamath told Business Today. 

Members of the group have pledged 25 per cent or more their wealth to be donated over their lifetime with a minimum spend of Rs 1 crore per year. 

“We are very small, under 10 members.  The idea is to make it really larger. If these 10 can inspire the next 10, and they can inspire the next 10, this can become a really large group. A rather unique case here is that it is not an NGO. We don’t take money from anyone. There is no management fee. People directly donate, there is no cost to run this charity, its all of us volunteering, so it makes it a lot more efficient than any other charity out there,” he added. 

The first initiative of YIPP is a public project that aims to impart quality education to students in rural communities. The group, in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has collectively raised Rs 40 crore for the project.  In total, it will provide funding of Rs 50 crore over a period of three years, half of which will be contributed by Gates Foundation.

YIPP has signed a 3-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), Government of Karnataka, as part of the Karnataka Model Schools Pathways Programme (KMSPP) for the initiative. 

The program will undertake the task of incorporating advancements from leading ed-tech companies to utilize their techniques beyond urban areas to be more socially accessible for rural communities impacting learning outcomes, enrollment, and retention of students by building capacities of teachers, augmenting physical and digital school infrastructure, holistic learning, employment readiness skills and community engagement across Government schools. “We are keeping it very simple. It could be as simple as building toilets, having one or two smart classrooms, training teachers, renovating schools. We have come to realize that these tiny differences that you make have an incremental impact on how many kids end up going to school,” Kamath said. 

The program aims to transform 105 schools and its co-located anganwadis/preschools as “Model Schools” in 4 districts (Haveri (50), Tumkur (25), Yadgir (25), Davangere (5) by 2025 in Karnataka. 

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