It is often said that when you educate a girl, you educate a nation. Katalyst India, an NGO established in 2007, was founded with this very belief. The organisation was born out of Third Sector Partners, a firm specialising in leadership hiring for the social sector. “Believing strongly in the power of educating girls, the founders (Shital Mehra, Sunit Mehra and Harkirat Singh) decided to focus on young women’s education. While several organisations were already working in the areas of primary education and vocational training, there was very little being done at the higher education level — the critical end of the value chain where future leadership is shaped,” shares Poorvi Shah, CEO, Katalyst India.
Amar Babu, president, Lenovo Asia Pacific |
Recognising the lack of women in leadership roles, they decided to focus their efforts on addressing this gap. That commitment led to the founding of Katalyst India (KI) in 2007. KI’s vision is to empower women by creating equality in opportunities and leadership. To achieve this, the organisation implements various developmental interventions and strives to create an enabling environment where young women can build their self-belief and strengthen their leadership abilities.
Katalyst India operates in Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Delhi |
“The programmes specifically focus on girls from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds who are pursuing professional education in STEM fields,” shares Shah, who joined KI in 2015. They work with young women who have just begun their undergraduate degree programmes. “Our engagement starts in their first year, where we conduct outreach through colleges and introduce the programme through orientation sessions. Interested students then apply for enrolment and we support them for four years,” she shares.
The programme offers a unique blend of interventions, including a 600-hour curriculum spread over the four years. Each student is paired with a mentor for one-on-one guidance, with most mentors remaining with their mentees throughout the four-year journey. In addition to academic support, the programme includes exposure visits such as outbound team-building activities, yoga retreats, an annual convention, and a convocation ceremony for final-year students.
This comprehensive approach combines various forms of intervention and has evolved over time to adopt a hybrid learning model. Students participate in virtual classrooms through their online platform and benefit from personalised learning pathways developed through partnerships with Udemy and IMS Learning Solutions.
“In addition to these learning opportunities, participants receive practical benefits such as medical insurance for themselves and their mothers. They are also provided with laptops at subsidised rates and receive financial payouts,” says Shah.
Amar Babu, President, Lenovo Asia Pacific, shares, “Katalyst India has been doing phenomenal work, and their efforts are truly significant. If you look at the current landscape, there is still a noticeable shortage of women entering STEM fields and progressing into leadership roles. Their focused approach towards empowering women in STEM is a commendable step, especially as companies within these sectors are actively seeking to hire more women. The work they are doing deserves recognition.”
