In this episode, Khushboo Awasthi reflects on her leadership journey, the discomfort that led her to start ShikshaLokam and Mantra4Change, and her evolving relationship with scale. She unpacks the mindset shifts that shaped her as a leader and System Orchestrator while sharing candid insights on champions, conflict, and Goa!About the speaker:Khushboo Awasthi is the co-founder and COO of ShikshaLokam. She is also the co-founder and director of Mantra4Change, an organisation that works with national and state government institutions to co-design large-scale, sustainable school improvement programs. She is a member of the National Mission for Mentoring's working committee, where she explores agency, systems thinking, and the role of technology in social movements. Khushboo is a recipient of the Women Transforming India Award by NITI Aayog, a Schwab Social Innovator, and an Ashoka Fellow.About ShikshaLokam:Founded in 2017, ShikshaLokam is an Education Leadership Catalyst under the aegis of Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiative. It is a manifestation of Societal Platform thinking, a systemic method to resolve complex societal challenges with speed, at scale, sustainably. As a catalyst for education leadership, ShikshaLokam co-creates different solutions with Government Functionaries, Civil Society Organisations and Academic Bodies to address the Education Leadership challenges.Keeping the Societal Platform construct, ShikshaLokam works towards distributing the ability to solve the gaps that exist in the education leadership development space and improving the agency of actors in the ecosystem to drive large-scale educational change programs.Additional reads:

• Read more about Societal Thinking: https://societalthinking.org/
• ShikshaGraha: https://shikshagraha.org/
• Leading is like living in Goa: https://shikshalokam.org/leading-is-like-living-in-goa/
• Micro-improvements: https://shikshalokam.org/micro-improvements-mega-impact-part-1-change-is-natural-when-garbed-as-micro-improvements/
• Building beyond: https://societalthinking.org/blog/dont-build-again-build-beyond/
• Scale and mindset shifts: https://societalthinking.org/blog/scale-is-a-journey-of-mindset-shifts-khushboo-awasthi-reflects/
• Micro-improvements in ECCE: https://societalthinking.org/blog/micro-improvements-in-early-education-for-exponential-change/

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What does it take to tackle extreme poverty in a world where systems often work against the poorest?

In this episode, we step inside BRAC’s Graduation Approach (UPGI), a model that has lifted millions out of extreme poverty.

Stephanie explores how BRAC International reimagines coaching, livelihoods, and confidence-building to create lasting transformation in diverse geographies in diverse ways.

The conversation dives into government partnerships, system redesign, and what it takes to deliver impact at scale.

A story of iteration, ambition, and the willingness to reimagine what “graduation” truly means.

About BRAC:

BRAC is a development organisation dedicated to alleviating poverty by empowering the poor and helping them to bring about positive changes in their lives by creating opportunities. The organisation's priorities are: focus on women, grassroots empowerment, health and education, farmers' empowerment, inclusive financial services and self-sustaining solutions.

About BRAC International:

BRAC International empowers people and communities in situations of poverty, illiteracy, disease and social injustice. Their work combines social development with market-based solutions, like microfinance and social entrepreneurship. We achieve large-scale, transformative change by working with individuals, especially women, and their families and communities to overcome poverty and become self-reliant and resilient.

About the speaker:

Stephanie is the Director for Programme Design and Impact at BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI).

She leads an international team of graduation and governance experts who, in partnership with our country teams, provide technical advice and support to our Government partners designing and implementing large-scale, quality graduation programmes. Through this work, she is leading efforts to distil lessons and key insights from across contexts on how Governments design and implement graduation programmes for scale.

Stephanie is a social policy and governance specialist with extensive experience in designing and implementing policy reform and poverty reduction programmes across Africa and Asia. Before joining BRAC, Stephanie led Oxford Policy Management (OPM)’s work in Poverty and Social Protection and was the Country Director for OPM in South Africa.

She holds an MPhil in Comparative Government and a BA in History and Politics, both from the University of Oxford.

Additional resources:

BRAC International: https://www.bracinternational.org/

BRAC: https://www.brac.net/

BRAC's UPGI: https://societalthinking.org/blog/the-transformative-power-of-rituals-bracs-upg-ultra-poor-graduation-programme/

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When Anand Rajan began building Apurva AI, his question wasn’t “How smart can AI get?” but “How deeply can it understand communities?” In this episode, he reflects on what it means to listen at scale, learn, and act with technology in service of collective change. And how agency, curiosity, and reflection can reshape the way we design for complexity. This is a story of emergence that asks: What if the future with AI is more human than we imagined?

About Apurva AI: Apurva AI is a unique platform leveraging exponential technologies to help social change leaders solve large, complex societal problems with the power of collective wisdom to create impact at scale. Deeply rooted in Trust, Inclusion and Emergence, it helps amplify the voice of communities, the power of conversations, and institutional knowledge across various domains and geographies through multiple languages.

About the speaker: Passionate about innovation, Anand thrives at the intersection of problems, solutions, technology, and society, where scale meets purpose. He loves reimagining and envisioning new ways to solve existing challenges. Inspired by the concept of Collective Wisdom as a Sense-Making Infrastructure—rooted in the voices of communities and representing the ecosystem—he founded Apurva.ai. Beyond Apurva.ai, he has a deep passion for farming, a pursuit that humbles him with its immense opportunities and challenges, instilling profound respect for farmers worldwide and the obstacles they face. (Source: Apurva AI website)

Additional resources:Learn more about Apurva AI website: https://apurva.ai/

Learn more about Societal Thinking: https://societalthinking.org/

Bell Curve: https://taggd.in/hr-glossary/bell-curve/

Grace Matlhape, CEO of SmartStart, discusses how South Africa is reimagining Early Childhood Education and Development through collaboration, evidence, and empathy. Through moving stories of transformation – from women finding purpose to children gaining access to opportunity – this conversation explores what’s possible when a society chooses to start early.

About the speaker: Grace Matlhape is the CEO of SmartStart NPC, an early learning social franchise in South Africa. She is involved in and responsible for developing strategies and leading SmartStart’s strategic implementation across the country.

Before joining SmartStart, she was the CEO of LoveLife, a large-scale, comprehensive national youth leadership development and risk reduction organisation in South Africa. She has extensive experience working in the social justice and development field in South Africa, with a particular interest in working with youth.

Additional resources:

• SmartStart South Africa's website: http://www.smartstart.org.za/
• SmartStart(ing) Early Childhood Development: https://societalthinking.org/blog/smartstarting-early-childhood-development/

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From information asymmetry to systemic change, Aniket Doegar, CEO of Haqdarshak, shares how trust, technology, and bold ideas can reimagine access to welfare at scale. Discover his journey, mission, and mindset shifts that drive exponential change to tackle generational poverty for a billion Indians.

About the speaker: An alumnus of SRCC, Aniket has been a Teach for India, Acumen and Unreasonable fellow. He was on the advisory board of Teach for India for 2 years and is also currently a Board of Trustee for the YP foundation. He was awarded the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia in 2019.

Additional resources:

• Enabling welfare scheme discovery, at scale: https://societalthinking.org/blog/welfare-scheme-discoverability-at-scale/
• Haqdarshak’s 7 year p(itch) to revolutionise welfare access: https://societalthinking.org/blog/haqdarshaks-7-year-pitch-to-revolutionise-welfare-access/

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From losing a passport in India to restoring the agency of farmers in Kenya, Sriram Bharatam explores how "unlearning to scale" helped him drive exponential change. Learn how technology, mindset shifts, and an abundance mindset have the potential to transform Africa’s rural agricultural landscape.

About the speaker: Sriram Bharatam, a leading serial and social entrepreneur, is the Founder and Chief Mentor at KUZA. He is committed to supporting youth, women, and small businesses from low-middle-income countries (LMIC) by helping them to learn-connect-grow at scale on their own terms and pace, using digital technologies.

Sri is an alumnus of MIT, a nominee of the Ernst & Young ‘Entrepreneur of the Year Award’, a winner of ‘The Kauffman Award for Social Entrepreneurship’, and the ‘EO Global Citizen of the Year Award’.Additional resources:

• Unlearning to scale (blog): https://societalthinking.org/blog/unlearning-to-scale-the-reimagination-journey-of-kuza-to-empowering-a-billion-people/
• Think Scale: https://societalthinking.org/books/
• What's really changing: https://societalthinking.org/blog/whats-really-changing/
• Kuza Biashara: https://www.kuza.one/
• C4EC Website: https://centreforexponentialchange.org/
• Kuza Leadership Academy (app): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kuza.academy.app

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• LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/company/centre-for-exponential-change
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