Technology-driven transformation of India’s 20% of “Rurban” population by 2030, i.e., 160m+ people
Wheels Global Foundation was created by the global alumni community representing all the IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) in 2006 inspired by a challenge from the visiting late President Abdul Kalam to “Solve the big problems in the world.” It was incorporated in 2013 as a 501C(3) entity in the USA, and as a Sec. 12 entity in Pune, India in 2017. Its six areas of focus are Water, Health, Education, Energy, Livelihoods, and Sustainability. From its humble beginnings of a handful of projects mostly across India and a few passionate individuals, it has expanded to an ecosystem inclusive of professionals from medical, public service & policy, law, and others, and an institution with a community of change-makers and thought-leaders working through the structure of Councils, Committees, and Chapters across India & USA, and strong partnerships with PanIIT-USA, PanIIT-India and other entities.
It is striving to achieve its simple mission of “Technology-driven Impact Solutions at Scale to Transform 20% of Rurban India by 2030” by partnering with curated on-the-ground social impact entities / NGOs and helping them get to a much bigger impact scale by leveraging full power of IIT & extended ecosystem (technology & innovations, expertise, Corporate resources, funds) and initiating new development projects through the same ecosystem as needed.
WHEELS Global Foundation to become the go-to Giving-back Platform for rank-and-file Pan-IIT alumni for transformation of rural India and other communities.
Transform 20% of Rurban India by 2030 by harnessing full potential of the technology heritage & massive ecosystem of highly regarded IIT system & its well-resourced alumni community & aligned professionals.
WHEELS started as the “Giving Back”/Philanthropy initiative of PanIIT to drive country-scale transformation (especially of rural India) commensurate with the power & brand of global IIT alumni & ecosystem.
Individual IITs have created their respective foundations to help fund on-campus activities and capital improvements. However, most alumni (save few with large enough wealth to create their own non-profit foundations) who wish to ‘give back’ to their additional causes & communities of interest find it difficult. From searching for matching (to their cause & location) non-profits to assessing their credibility to monitoring their performance become all too overwhelming, resulting in the intent often stopping short of action. WGF was created to remove that barrier and provide an easy ‘giving’ platform, and along the way also collaborate with their fraternity of fellow IITians and institutes.
WHEELS Global Foundation (WGF) was formally incorporated as a 501C(3) organization in the United States, at the behest of late President Abdul Kalam, as a simple enabling platform for the 400,000+ alumni to ‘give back’ to not only their country by birth but also to their country ‘by adoption’. WGF strives to offer technology-enabled solutions to the six major challenges faced by people all over the world: clean potable drinking Water, scale Healthcare delivery, renewable energy, access to Education, rural Livelihood, and Sustainability. As alumni of the IIT system, we adopted the tag line: Applying Technology to Scale impact of Philanthropy. Our goal is to work collaboratively with other NGOs with feet-on-the-ground to become their technology partners and to help them scale their promising solutions with huge growth & impact runway. Where new solutions must be developed, we will work with the IITs to sponsor research and development.
From its origins of IIT ecosystem roots, WGF has further grown by welcoming participation from professionals and experts with shared passion and expertise relevant to its mission & priorities (e.g., professionals from medical, legal, and public services).
Every year, over 13 million in the world children under the age of 5 years die from illnesses
775 million adults – approximately 12% of the world’s population – are considered functionally illiterate
1 billion people in the world practice open defecation, nine out of ten in rural areas.
1 billion people in the world — live in informal settlements and self-built homes
