Arghyam was founded in 2005 to support sustainable water and sanitation solutions. We are a public charitable foundation based in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Our work rests upon a personal endowment from Rohini Nilekani.
ENABLING SOLUTIONS AT SCALE
The word "Arghyam" means "offering" in Sanskrit. Our vision of 'safe, sustainable water all' is achieved by funding and partnering with like-minded individuals and organizations to design and implement transformative solutions. Over the last 13 years, we have built our presence in 22 states to address the issue of water security for vulnerable communities.
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Our solutions are designed to empower communities to take decisions backed by science and evidence. There have been various successful solutions to ensure water security at reasonable scales. Yet, the problems constantly seem to outpace the solutions. There is an urgent need to look beyond our current processes and scale. We at Arghyam, believe technology is an enabler for scaling solutions and creating sustainable impacts. ForWater is a platform that re-imagines solution building and community empowerment, using the levers of knowledge and data.
Board And Advisors
Rohini Nilekani
Founder and Former Charirperson
Sunita Nadhamuni
Chairperson
Dr. Janhavi Nilekani
Trustee
Dr. Sonalde Desai
Trustee
Dr. C. Shambu Prasad
Trustee
Kiran Anandampillai
Trustee
Neelima Khetan
Trustee
Our Team
Meet the wonderful people at Arghyam who are working towards ensuring safe water and sanitation for all.
View AllA career at Arghyam
If you are driven to make a difference to the world, working at Arghyam can be a hugely enriching experience.
Email your resume to us at jobs@arghyam.org
Rohini Nilekani
Founder and Former Charirperson
Rohini Nilekani is the Founder-Chairperson of Arghyam. She set up the foundation with a private endowment, to work on water and sanitation issues in India. She is also the Founder-Chairperson of Pratham Books, a charitable trust which seeks to put "A book in every child's hand." An ex-journalist, author and philanthropist, Rohini has been deeply involved with development issues and is currently a member of the Audit Advisory Board of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. She sits on the Boards of many non-profits, notably ATREE (the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment) and Sanghamithra Rural Financial Services. Rohini has authored a novel “Stillborn” and also a nonfiction account of dialogues she moderated between social and corporate leaders in a book titled "Uncommon Ground".
Sunita Nadhamuni
Chairperson
Sunita Nadhamuni is Chairperson Arghyam and Director at the Center for Transformational Innovations at EMC, India. CeTI is working with partners to develop technology-enabled solutions for addressing healthcare challenges in emerging economies. Prior to her role as Director, CeTI, she was founder-CEO of Arghyam and also served on Arghyam’s board as Trustee. She was also with the Asia Pacific Water Forum in several capacities networking with regional players from APJ countries. She has more than a decade of IT experience in the Silicon Valley at companies like Sun Microsystems, SGI and Healtheon/ WebMD and a decade of development sector experience in India leading initiatives with significant public impact. Sunita has an MS in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in NY and a BE degree from Andhra University in India. She is a former TED India Fellow, member of several national and international committees on water, founder of two voluntary initiatives in education and rural development, and has authored two books based on her work.
Dr. Janhavi Nilekani
Trustee
Dr. Janhavi Nilekani is the Founder and Chairperson of Aastrika, a public health organization that envisions a future in which "every woman is treated with respect and dignity during childbirth, and the right treatment is provided at the right time." She is a development economist by training with a background in academic research in environmental and development economics, with a particular focus on air pollution. Janhavi is a 2018 alumna of Harvard where she completed her PhD in Public Policy, and holds a 2010 BA, cum laude, in Economics and International Studies from Yale.
Dr. Sonalde Desai
Trustee
Sonalde is a demographer whose work deals primarily with social inequalities in developing countries with a particular focus on gender and class inequalities. She studies inequalities in education, employment and maternal and child health outcomes by locating them within the political economy of the region. While much of her research focuses on South Asia, she has also engaged in comparative studies across Asia, Latin America and Sub Saharan Africa. She has published articles in a wide range of sociological and demographic journals including American Sociological Review, Demography, Population and Development Review and Feminist Studies.
Dr. C. Shambu Prasad
Trustee
Dr. C Shambu Prasad is a Professor of General Management (Strategy and Policy) at the Institute of Rural Management, Anand(IRMA). At IRMA he coordinates the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Enterprises (CSEE) and the Verghese Kurien Centre of Excellence (VKCOE). He has been involved in promoting social entrepreneurship and instrumental in setting up IRMA’s incubator, ISEED (Incubator for Social Enterprises and Entrepreneurs for Development).His expertise is in science and innovation policy and his education has been multidisciplinary with a basic training in mechanical engineering, a Masters in Industrial Management with specialisation in science policy (both at IIT Madras) and a doctorate in science, technology and society studies from IIT Delhi. Dr Shambu Prasad was awarded the Villgro-CSIE award for ‘Academic Contribution to the Field of Social Entrepreneurship’ in April 2013 and was the Fulbright Nehru Senior Research Fellow attached to Cornell University pursuing a long term study on the System of Rice Intensification or SRI. His research interests are in in understanding innovation at the margins, managing sustainable transitions and the sociology and politics of knowledge. His work seeks to create innovation spaces and learning alliances to foster knowledge dialogues between practitioners, academics and policy makers.This has included coordinating a consortium of institutions (Livelihoods MANTHAN) to work on rural livelihoods and an ongoing, decade-long engagement with understanding social innovations that enable sustainable transitions through the example of the System of Rice Intensification or SRI. He has been a member of a Sub Group on Upscaling Innovative Technologies in agriculture for the 12th Five Year Plan. He has taught courses on social entrepreneurship, managing collectives, ecosystem and sustainability management, public policies and public systems management, innovation management and rural livelihoods.
Kiran Anandampillai
Trustee
Kiran Anandampillai is currently the Advisor -Technology at the National Health Authority (NHA). He supports NHA to create digital public goods under India’s two large digital health initiatives - The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) and Ayushman Bharath (PMJAY). Kiran is a telecom engineer by training and was a founding member of OnMobile, where he helped build it to become a public company. He was a volunteer with UIDAI for the Aadhaar program and is currently a volunteer with the iSPIRT foundation where he works on the Health Stack. He dedicates his time to driving impact in healthcare. He is the founder and CEO of iDrishti, which delivers high quality eyecare from a district capital to the village level. iDrishti currently manages 12 eye hospitals across Karnataka, India.
Neelima Khetan
Trustee
Neelima Khetan is a CSR and Social Sector expert. She has over 3 decades of experience in this space, having worked with leading for-profit and non-profit organizations in the country. Her current affiliations include Visiting Fellow with the Centre for Social and Economic Progress and Partner, Nous Consultants. Earlier, Neelima has been the Group CSR Head for Vedanta, Vice President CSR at Hindustan Zinc and Director, CSR and Sustainability for Coca Cola India and South-West Asia. Neelima has long experience of the social sector, having held leadership positions like –India Country Director of the American India Foundation and Chief Executive of Seva Mandir in Udaipur. In between, she was also the Acting Director of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). Neelima holds a Master’s in Rural Management from IRMA and a Bachelor’s in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.