BENGALURU: For 18 months starting July, the Karnataka government will partner with 11 professionals from the private sector, as part of an Administrative Fellowship. The 18-month fellowship will see corporate leaders work alongside senior IAS officers in various government departments, to provide solutions to India’s development problems. Deemed a ‘pioneer initiative’ in PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model, the first cohort of the Indian Administrative Fellowship was announced on Monday jointly by The/Nudge Foundation and the Government of Karnataka.
Eleven professionals have been chosen from about 2,000 applicants for the fellowship. Founder of PushEngage Ravi Trivedi, co-founder and CEO of YCook India Dr Gayathri Swahar, CEO of Greycaps Giri Balasubramaniam, Board member and CFO at Fidelity Investments R Balasubramanya, CEO and board member at Jubilant Motorworks Rohit Malhotra, Director at HP Vani Narayan, head of engineering at KVP Business Solutions Sreenivasa Madenhally, founder of Yushu Consulting Ramachandran Narayanaswamy, co-founder and CEO of SheCommerz Aruna Sampige, finance head of Bosch Sunil Kumar Vaya, and founder of Jalmitra Shobha Ananda Reddy will work alongside IAS officers.
These professionals will work in the departments of agriculture, education, administrative reforms committee, rural development, e-governance, planning and statistics, women and child welfare, Planning Commission, entrepreneurship and livelihood and Panchayat Raj.
Former Karnataka Chief Secretary TM Vijaya Bhaskar has been roped in to work with R Balasubramanya on the administrative reforms committee. “The Indian Administrative Fellowship is a novel opportunity for citizens to create catalytic change by becoming collaborators with the government,” said Minister for Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics Narayana Gowda. The initiative is part of Karnataka’s push to emerge to the forefront of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) leadership board.
“IAF Fellowship provided me with an opportunity to make an impact on our state. I had exited my last global company to devote the rest of my career towards nation-building, and this was the best opportunity to make an impact at scale. Agriculture, which I got selected for, as a sector, holds the key to build food security, come out of poverty and provide better livelihood to millions of fellow citizens. This sector can benefit from technology innovations, which have helped other sectors,” said Ravi Trivedi, founder of PushEngage.