Akshay Roongta
I am an independent consultant and social entrepreneur.
I work with individuals and teams creating social and
environmental impact. I work with them to conduct
research, design programs and facilitate workshops.
Human-Centered Design
Popularised by the american firm IDEO, it is largely a set of tools, methods and mental models for working on problems in a hands-on, inclusive and iterative manner. All my work has these approaches at its core, with a specific focus on field research, sense making of research data and rapid prototyping and testing.
Strategy and Operations
It is my firm belief that while programmes or projects can be designed extremely well and with the best of intentions, the operational aspect is critical to its success. To that end, I work with teams to design projects, keeping the operations front and centre. All this is tied together by thinking through the core strategy and the manner in which that is realised.
Entrepreneurship
Social enterprises are an up and coming model for creating sustained social and developmental impact. Through my experience working on my own enterprise, I realised that it can be a potent tool for change. I am keen on working with entrepreneurs to apply design thinking and lessons from my experiences to helping them realise their goals.
Here are a few projects
that I've worked on recently
While I've worked in a number of different capacities over the last few years, below I have showcased some of the projects that best represent the kind of work I'd like to be doing in the future and some of the domains of interest namely water, sanitation, hygiene, education, social entrepreneurship amongst others.
Quest Alliance Alumni Engagement for Skills to Succeed
We consulted with the 'Skills to Succeed' team to help test ideas
and develop a clear plan for Alumni Engagement and Support
Quest Alliance Technology Roadmap for Anandshala
We worked closely with the Anandshala Program team to develop
a technology roadmap, and a small toolkit to understand their key stakeholders
M4ID Lab.Our Ward
In this project, I worked with the team to design the concept for a platform which would act as a dynamic knowlege repository for their service design concepts for better and more Labour wards across the world
See Project
M4ID Project Rise
In this short project, I supported the M4ID Rise team structure their first round of field research to inform their longer two year project around rituals related to maternal health of mothers and children
See Project
INREM Foundation Toolkit for Jhabua
My project with INREM was to help them document their work on fluorosis mitigation in Jhabua over the past decade, and then design the concept for a platform through which they can scale that out
See Project
Quest Alliance The Learnership Program
We worked with the Quest team to design and
execute a 4 month learning experience for employees
and partners to learn innovation methods
3.2.1. Education Foundation Product Roadmap
I briefly consulted with 3.2.1. to help them create a strategy and roadmap so that they could develop their then fledgling teacher training service called the 'Sustained Mastery Programme'
See Project
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Potty Project
This was a foundational research project where I worked as a researcher while employed at Quicksand, Delhi in which we attempted to understand the world of urban sanitation through the lens of communities and stakeholders
See Project
The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation Project Sammaan
A follow-up to the Potty Project, where as part of a
consortium Quicksand worked with the municipal bodies of
Bhubaneswar and Cuttack to build and deploy over a
hundred public and community sanitation facilities
Amrutdhara
Amrutdhara is a social enterprise that I co-founded. We were working towards
creating technologies and systems to ensure access to affordable
quality-assured drinking water in public spaces.
About my Collaborators
Abrar Burk
Designer and Developer
Abrar researches, strategizes, facilitates, communicates, designs, codes and does whatever else it takes to bring web & mobile applications to life.
Prachi Bhutada
Researcher and Designer
Prachi studies human behaviour, motivations, patterns and uses it to design strategies and systems. Her current interest lie in women empowerment and mental health.
You?
Get in touch!
I'm always interested in finding new people to collaborate with. So if some of my work has resonated drop me an email, and let's have a chat.
Ooloi is a social enterprise I have recently co-founded that works towards building products that aid teams working in the social sector scale their impact.
KNOW MORE
Participatory Learning Networks
The idea of the learning networks was built as part of research for the MA thesis at Aalto University in collaboration with Balaji and Nipa on a TATA Trusts project around behaviour change for WASH. The core of the idea is to use information communication technology tools to empower grassroots workers and middle managers in development projects to innovate in context. The goal is that through shifts in culture and better communication these individuals can localise solutions for better outcomes.
Read moreOngoing Work
One of the key products that Ooloi is building is to extend the idea of Learning Networks to enable social impact projects and organisations to scale better
Future Collaboration
Our goal is for our work to be accessible. To that end we are developing a system which will be online soon, and working in a hands-on manner with organisations who want to experiment with the idea in their own work. Get in touch if you think that is you!