Kuldeep Dantewadia, was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship, in 2013. He is the co-founder and CEO of Reap Benefit. He has assembled a structure to get students directly in contact with environmental concerns, and develop pragmatic solutions to them.
Mr. Dantewadia believes that cultivating a sense of applied empathy involves regular low cost problem solving skills, from simple solutions to progressive developments. Reap Benefit makes local data available to the public, holds campaigns to examine possible solutions, and co-ordinates with the local government.
Reap Benefit has worked with over 15,000 young people. The participants have achieved to save about 1,450 kilo units of electricity, and 19 million litres of water. With India’s young population, the initiative aims to have a considerable number of ‘solve squads’, with provisions provided to manifest ideas.
The team recently launched an app ‘Solve Ninja’ to enable efficient local problem solving. Reap Benefit already has over 20,000 Solve Ninjas who over the last 6 years have saved 32 million liters of water, built 50 low-cost solutions, and helped 300 schools add water-less urinals etc.
Volunteers at Manipal 