President's Blog - March 2019 - WHEELS Global Foundation

Philanthropic endeavors by nature are a calling, a work of passion, and a commitment to serve the communities which have nurtured us and offered an opportunity to raise our families and lead productive lives. The WHEELS ‘family’ of volunteers, donors, recipients, well-wishers, and supporters are an inspiration for continuing to live by our tag line for scaling philanthropy by applying technology solutions to the most pressing problems for clean, potable water, affordable healthcare, education, energy, rural livelihoods, and sustainability.

Our periodic gatherings are akin to ‘stakeholders meetings’ where we get an opportunity to not only showcase the work we have achieved together, such as the progress made by the Wheels India Niswarth (WIN) Foundation launched in 2017 or the many projects completed together with our partner organizations like Sevak, Spoke Tutorials and Pukar, but also explore the road ahead. It is an opportunity for the many volunteers and leaders to get your feedback and input and learn from each other. That is why we hosted a “conference” on Leveraging technology to find solutions for Rare Diseases, on Policy and Governance, and a Women’s Forum addressing the many challenges they face for education, livelihoods, prenatal care, etc. We hope such dialog and exchanges will translate to a larger impact for every ‘philanthropic dollar’ and activity. We are also proud to publish an open framework for “Smart Village” authored by Ambassador Pradeep Kapur and Dr. Kavita Kapur in association with WIN Foundation, IEEE, and WHEELS Charitable Foundation (India) with inputs from several other NGOs.

I wish to thank everyone for their time and participation and also to those who are unable to join us but offered their support throughout the year to make our mission to find ‘Technology Enabled Solutions’ achievable. I wish to thank the active collaboration by the many Indian Institutes of Technology in the projects undertaken by us. Finally, thanks to our donors, sponsors, and for the countless hours put in by our board members, volunteers, and event Chairs to make this endeavor event possible. I am looking forward to our continued association and engagement in the coming year.

Suresh Shenoy
President, WHEELS Global Foundation