Pratyay Prakhar | VIVARTANA
I had faith in the power of the internet and it hasn’t let me down.
Varun Sheth is the co-founder and CEO of Ketto, an online crowdfunding platform for social causes. Since its inception in 2012, Ketto has gone on to become Asia’s most visited crowdfunding platform, changing countless lives through the years.
Born and brought up in Mumbai, Varun Sheth studied at Jamnabai Narsee School and graduated with a degree in Commerce from Narsee Monjee. Having always been interested in finance, Sheth took a few financial programs, including Chartered Financial Analysis and Financial Risk Management. He worked as an Interest Swap Dealer with ICAP, the world’s largest broking house for derivatives and fixed income products. He was very good at his job, notching up deals worth over a thousand crores, but the monotony of the job got to him. He felt like he was not contributing to society at his job , and he had to break free or he’d be stuck there forever.
It was then that he came up with the concept of Ketto, a website that could be used by people to raise money for social, creative, and personal causes, from a large number of people. He quit his job to pursue this idea, despite the lack of approval from his friends and family.
In its first year, Ketto raised 4.5 million rupees for eighteen different campaigns. It has played a major role in raising funds for disaster relief, during crises like the Jammu and Kashmir floods and the Nepal earthquake.
Varun Sheth’s story illustrates the power of social media, and its effectiveness in mobilizing mass support for worthy causes. The word Ketto means “Key to Tomorrow”. It offers people a chance to make lives better. This opportunity has been put to use with amazing results. Ketto shows us that problems in society can be solved when society itself decides to work together to do so.
Volunteers at Manipal 
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