About us

WHEELS is a social impact arm, initiated by but not limited to, PanIIT Community

Our Vision is to create a material impact on 20% of the “Rurban” population of India (~160M) by 2030

Improving the Lives in Rural India by Technology-enabled Solutions

Who We Are

An effort inspired by President APJ Abdul Kalam’s address to IIT alumni in 2006 to improve the lives of “Rurban” India. Almost simultaneously, the desire of recently successful US-based technology entrepreneurs created a perfect storm and an organization was created.
A leadership team of some of the most accomplished alumni of all IITs who are dedicating their time & resources to drive more than a dozen high impact initiatives in different parts of the country. All leaders not only work pro-bono volunteers, but also provide financial contributions.
An entity with recognition from, participation of, and in partnership with dozens of well-known public, private and non-profit institutions.
A diverse portfolio of projects and initiatives that each have impact & growth runway to reach millions, and reach in the hometowns of our global alumni & ecosystem community for the causes they care about.

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).

Unique value

Harnesses the power of the IIT ecosystem (23 IITs, their faculty and students, 400,000+ alumni, the leading enterprises – private, public, Government institutions -- they work for along with their research & innovations and products & solutions, etc.) to solve complex issues facing society.
Differentiated play relative to the scale and interest of any single institution or individual (e.g., ability to bring multiple IITs on a single opportunity, ability to leverage worldwide alumni from multiple IITs).
Additive to ‘IIT’ branding (e.g., contribute to ‘thought-leadership’).
A portfolio of high-impact projects with rapid national-scale potentials to impact millions.
Trust in the ‘WGF’ brand & team (a team of like-minded in intent & heritage) - all officers are volunteers, do not receive any compensation for their services, and also contribute to the cause. And, more than 95% of donor contributions go towards their identified cause.
Opportunity for alimni to work / interact with their alma mater, and with other alumni – socialization & fun with impact
WGF’s ability to address inherent downstream risks (e.g., through access to right levels in Govt machinery through its alumni, its vast alumni network and technologies and expertise therefrom)

Guiding Principles

Focus on the projects where both levers exist – (a) power of IIT ecosystem to drive technology-enabled impact at scale, (b) material involvement of an alumni, an IIT, or a WGF leader’s support in the project
Projects with demonstrable self-sustainability in their business models, especially beyond expected funding-support timeline
Projects where the work-on-the-ground (i.e., field execution) gets done by curated local entities with evidence of success proof-points, and WGF can achieve its value-add and desired impact outcomes via manageable this operational-layer of participation (e.g. advisory, supervision, advocacy, partnerships).
Projects that focus on rural and adjacent sub-urban populations

Focus

Our focus is on technology-enabled proven solutions that can be rapidly scaled to a national level for the benefit of the “Rurban” Indian population in the areas of:

Organization

WGF has built a robust structure to drive sustained engagement & participation of worldwide alumni & extended ecosystem community for rapid impact-at-scale. Below are the key elements of that structure.

Trustees

Select group of well-known alumni leaders in the IIT community who provide strategic oversight and direction to ensure WGF maintains its growth trajectory to achieve its stated vision. Typically, they have been at the apex of their professional and financial success and are deeply imbued with a sense of giving back with a pledge for multiple years and see WGF as a key organization in their endowment plans. They commit to bringing large sponsors to ensure WGF has a robust operational infrastructure and critical funds to drive its mission.

Board of Directors & President

They are global alumni leaders who have achieved commnedable professional success in their careers and have a deep passion for impact and believe in WGF’s mission and vision. They bring in a variety of needed skills, experiences, resources, and network access to help WGF execute its annual plans successfully. They are invited in to join the Board by existing WGF Trustees and/or officeholders.

Board of Advisors

WHEELS Global Foundation’s Advisors have a deep interest in Wheel’s mission, and impact initiatives and help WHEELS team with their deep network of resources, connections, and advice on a variety of initiatives. Typically these are impact-driven professionals and leaders who participate in various
meetings and initiatives on a need-basis and play a vital role in WGF’s growth of partners, projects, and access to resources.

Councils

Deliver the promised impact on the target population at the desired scale, via the chosen portfolio of projects supporting each council’s aspirations and overall WGF aspirations. Councils draw upon the resources and expertise residing in the Committees to drive their project activities. Councils are led by 1 to 2 leaders with requisite thought-leadership and recognition in the vertical domain to draw in and inspire the ecosystem (and guest members) to join and help execute their activities.

Below is the current list of Councils

Water – led by Ms. Gauri Kumar, Yogesh Andlay, Sushil Bhatia
Health – led by Dr. Raj Shah and Dr. Bindu Kansupada
Energy – led by Indrajit Chatterjee
Education – led by Prof Kannan Moudgalya
Livelihood & Sustainability – led by Pradeep Kapur, Smita Siddhanti, and Digvijay Choudhary

Regional WGF Chapters

Regional chapters represent a regional representation of the national WGF organization, and hence carry out most of the activities, albeit for the regional footprint. They help connect the global WGF entity to the grassroots of the ecosystem.

The following chapters exist:

Chapter Organization Convenor – Indrajit Chatterjee

India – East led by Sujata Roy
India – West led by Mahesh Vaidya
India – North led by Kishen Goenka, Surinder Makhija
India – South led by Ramnath S. Mani, Rajah Venkatraman
Australia led by Ravi Bhatia, Tirthankar Banerjee
USA led by Witty Bindra, Prashant Newaskar

Ambassadors

Our Ambassadors are here to be a part of the pioneering group of people helping young alumni leaders engage and contribute.

An Ambassador:

▶ Is typically a recent graduate from one of the IITs and has been involved in multiple impact initiatives

▶ Believes in and wants to support WHEELS’ vision (‘impacting 20% of Rurban India by 2030’) and mission

▶ Is committed to contributing in one or more ways (time, talent, expertise and funds), directly or through influencing 3rd parties, per his / her capacity and other obligations.

▶ Will represent WHEELS across the impact ecosystem and help enhance brand, visibility and awareness.

▶ Advocates the work of WHEELS in all forums and alumni groups (including batchmates)

▶ Brings opportunities to leverage WHEELS initiatives or external opportunities to leverage WHEELS’ initiatives.

▶ Attends WHEELS Ambassador meetings/forums

Committees

Committees act as horizontal resource/capacity pools that support project execution activities of all vertically organized WGF Councils. They develop a comprehensive charter of the activities that need to be driven in their domain for WGF’s overall success (i.e., long-term vision as well as current year goals).

Current list of Committees is as follows:

Project Sourcing, Selection & Support Committee. Led by: Ratan Agarwal, Inderjit Chatterjee
Fund-raising Committee: Led by: Himanshu Verma, Sushil Bhatia
Alumni & Ecosystem Engagement & Communications Committee. Led by: Digvijay Choudhary
Business Operations Committee: Sushil Shenoy, Pradip Nadkarni

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