Happy 77th Republic Day! A perfect time to share the 2025 Year Report with all of you given all of our collective efforts are to bring to life the ideals that laid the foundation of this great Republic.

In the updates below, you will find how WHEELS’ unique institutional assets (a global network of 500,000+ alumni, 23 IITs, IIT brand power, ecosystem of 120+ partners, portfolio of curated 50+ innovations) are enabling impact at-scale across India (along with opportunistic scaling globally) across all of six domains that define WHEELS. Contributions of time, talent, treasure and network pervade all these stories. Financial support from our wide network (Trustees, Board members, Executive Council leaders, and most importantly both IIT and non-IIT professionals at-large) underpins all these efforts in many shades: building innovative program designs, negotiating win-win public-private partnerships, field visits for monitoring, capacity augmentation of our on-the-ground implementation partners, and operational infrastructure.

Year 2025 showed strong progress in WHEELS establishing its rightful impact place in the IIT ecosystem: complementary 3rd leg of the stool. While the 1st leg – network of 23 IITs produces a stream of innovations to address rapidly evolving societal challenges, and the 2nd leg – 500,000+ strong alumni community translating that prized education to unparalleled business execution & scaling expertise, WHEELS – the 3rd leg – integrates two capabilities to make it count for 800 million+ rural/underserved masses. During onsite working sessions with Directors, Deans and senior researcher-professors at six IITs (Madras, Delhi, Kharagpur, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Bombay) in last quarter, dozens of near-ready innovations were brought in across water, health, livelihoods, renewable energy, environment – all having gone through proof-of-concepts / limited pilots while in academic boundaries, and now ready for hand-off to the vast network of several thousand field entities called NGOs. A hand-off that is only practical through an aggregation and scale-enabling entity like WHEELS.

WHEELS and PanIIT collaborated for several firsts at PanIIT Conference (PIWOT) in Mumbai in January 2025 – WHEELS brought its 20 ecosystem partners showcasing their innovations under Rural Transformation Pavilion; WHEELS extending PIWOT to six IIT campuses (Ropar, Gandhinagar, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Tirupati, and Guwahati). Further, WHEELS joined PanIIT to reciprocating Government of Maharashtra’s platinum sponsorship of PIWOT with a proposal for more than a dozen rural transformation initiatives in the State.

Building on the momentum of 2024, we have expanded our footprint across India and globally, deepened partnerships with IITs, NGOs, and CSR leaders, and launched new initiatives that reaffirm our mission: technology-enabled solutions at scale to transform 20% of Rurban India by 2030. This year, WGF has not only consolidated its role as PanIIT’s social impact platform but also emerged as a trusted partner for governments, reputed CSRs, and NGOs. Some of the highlights you will see further details on next pages:

♦ At the recently concluded Gala2025, a joyful celebration of both the journey taken and the opportunity forward together. It was a success with sold-out capacity of phenomenal attendee diversity, along with solid fundraising.

♦ Our strategic relationships with several Fortune 100 CSR entities for national-scale initiatives.

♦ Rapidly growing portfolio of curated initiatives and pan-India NGO ecosystem that enables WHEELS to establish full relevance to every giving-minded alumni & professional, as well as giving WHEELS the unique ability to build a very quick coalition for any type and any scale challenge.

♦ Our national-scale Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN) Health Initiative, which finished a successful first phase in M.P. State (the 2nd largest State in India), and is on track to impact the lives of several million babies and mothers in the State. The program is now running in six States, with a growing funding base of CSRs and HNIs.

I hope all of you WHEELS members and supporters will find plenty that resonates with you and excites you to play your important part in our journey of impact at scale. Visit Get Involved and Donate pages for dozens of options to support.

Read the Complete PDF Version of the Year 2024 Update