MEET THE FELLOWS

In 2020, we have awarded eight fellowships. These cover a range of focus areas like data ownership platform for gig workers, meso and community based insurance, MSME clusters, technology based credit assessment of rural micro enterprises, self-employment of women in rural India, and investigations into FPOs as a channel of farmers’ inclusion.

Understanding and Debundling Financial Risks of Small and Marginal Farmers in Farmer Producer Organisations

Formal institutional credit still remains out of bounds for the small and marginal farmers (beneficiaries) due to their inability to produce a financial history or give collateral. Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) can be an effective vehicle to reach out to the beneficiaries. The purpose of this study is to understand the means to mitigate financial risks associated with the beneficiaries by being a part of FPOs and develop well-informed use cases that can assist an FPO to become an agent of financial inclusion for the marginalize

Dr. Gayathri Aaditya Eranki

Associate Professor and Head of Planning Department, NITTE School of Architecture

Dr. Pramod Khadilkar

Department of Technology, Management and Economics, TU Denmark

Rohitkumar Pillai

Co-founder, Rural Caravan Pvt. Ltd.

Mobiles for Mobilisation - Are Mobiles the Solution for Rural Women’s Entrepreneurship?

Can digital inclusion bolster the empowerment of rural women and facilitate their increased participation in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of rural India? Our study is aimed at identifying use cases of smartphones, feature phones and mobile applications in the mobilisation of rural women into self-employment and entrepreneurship.

Nalini Srinivasan

Independent ICT Consultant

Shruti Sheopurkar

Data Analyst, 60 Decibels

Perception and Impact of Open Banking Products on Financial Inclusion Consumer Segment of India

Proposed study is aimed to understand the perception and map needs of FI segment customers towards upcoming open banking products

Abhinav Gupta

Deputy Manager - Innovations, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

Mayur Singhal

Consultant - Digital Banking & Payments

Disentangling the Growth of MSMEs

This is a study of the lives of entrepreneurs in industrial clusters in Tamil Nadu around Chennai, Vellore, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Tirunelveli. The study will use journalistic tools to understand the challenges facing entrepreneurs in these clusters and tell their stories through six deep-dive case studies, and an essay that explores the differences and the common threads.

Ramnath N S

Senior Writer, Founding Fuel

How can Community-Based Insurance be Scaled-Up to Build Resilient Communities

Given India’s low insurance penetration, community-based insurance holds great potential. This study provides an update on the state of mutual and community insurance in India, the impediments to its growth and presents a blueprint for developing a scalable and sustainable mutual insurance model for India.

Payal Agarwal

Uplift Development Solutions and Services (UDSS)

Dr. Shariq Nisar

Uplift Development Solutions and Services (UDSS)

Kumar Shailabh

Uplift Development Solutions and Services (UDSS)

Scoping Meso Level Insurance in Agriculture Sector in India

The agricultural insurance sector in India has largely focused at the level of micro insurance (individual farmers as policy holders), through highly subsidized central schemes such as PMFBY. This study seeks to explore the potential and feasibility of agricultural insurance at the meso-level, which covers “risk-aggregators” including banks, MFIs, or agribusinesses.

Sabina Yasmin

Research Fellow, LEAD at Krea University

Vinith Kurian

Senior Research Associate, LEAD at Krea University

Data Ownership and the Gig Worker in the Gig Economy

Fintech in its current form is largely focused on payments data for digital interactions. However, financial interactions and identity in itself is not always digital. There needs to be a connecting layer between offline and online financial interactions. Structurally, it needs to be linked to the identity of the people doing economic transactions too. The study explores how a new generation of financial technology products can be built by connecting identity, economic interactions and skills of individuals across the nation on a unified data layer powered by a blockchain.

Joel John

Research Analyst, Outlier Ventures

Moses Sam Paul

Head consultant - Growth, Heptagon.in.

How can Technology Enable better Credit Access for Micro and Small Enterprises?

The MSME sector contributes about 1/3rd to India’s GDP and they are expected to be the driving force for the economic recovery out of the current unprecedented times. However, MSMEs, especially in rural areas, have been plagued with difficulties of credit access. The study focuses on developing technology led credit access to rural MSME to provide impetus for their growth.

Nagachethan S M

Senior Vice President, Navi Finserve Private Limited

Vamsee Yalamanchi

General Manager-Product, Navi Finserve Private Limited

Nitin Chandrakant Zagade

Sr. Product Manager, Navi Finserve Private Limited

Chinmay Joshi

Product Manager, Navi Finserve Private Limited