120+ organizations come together at ‘PRAYAAS’ to commit towards collective action for India’s youth

New Delhi, February 01, 2023: With the objective to unlock the potential of India’s youth, Udhyam Learning Foundation (Udhyam) organized ‘Prayaas – Young Minds, New Possibilities’ an invite-only conference held on January 31 in New Delhi. Prayaas aimed to stimulate a cohesive and collective understanding of the current issues and instil a sense of urgency towards building new pathways for the youth of our country. The event was supported by YuWaah and Amazon.

Some leaders including Mekin Maheshwari, Founder, of Udhyam Learning Foundation; Priya Agarwal, Co-Founder & Director, of Antarang Foundation; Akshay Saxena, Co-Founder, of Avanti Fellows; Raj Gilda, Co-Founder, of Lend A Hand India, and Aakash Sethi CEO, Quest Alliance addressed the media. Attending the event were change-makers, practitioners, and leaders from over 120 of India’s top organizations including The Nudge Institute, Magic Bus, J-PAL, Tech Mahindra Foundation, STIR education, Nalanda Way, India Literacy Project, Dream-A-Dream, Kshamtalaya, Aflatoun, ACT grants, IndusAction, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Omidyar, Veddis, Urban Company, Harappa, Sattva, Commutiny, LabourNet, Dalberg, Meghshala, Amazon, Head Held High, The Education Alliance, Reap Benefit, Kaivalya Education Foundation, StateStreet, Delhi government school students, teachers and other independent people passionate about youth.

Speaking at the event, Hon. Shri. Manish Sisodia, Education Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi said, “Indian youth holds the key to the nation’s advancement. Youth must be inspired and provided with opportunities to become life-long learners. Hear them and trust them as they will become the innovators who will change the world in the future. We as enablers, need to be more experimental in our approach and keep testing new models for educational transformation and bring them to scale for our country at large. Education needs to be a priority for policy, government and political leaders.”

“Prayaas is an effort to unite like-minded people and organizations who care deeply about the lack of opportunities and pathways for India’s youth to realize their potential. The goal is to build a thriving and supportive ecosystem, where every individual feels empowered to define their own path. At this event, we came together to reframe the issues relating to education, skilling, and employment and commit to creating opportunities for our young people collectively,” said Mr. Mekin Maheshwari, Founder, Udhyam Learning Foundation.” More than ever, we need to accelerate change at scale: impacting 20-30% of India’s youth, and do it NOW, before our demographic dividend goes away and turns into a demographic disaster,” he added.