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Manoj Vasudevan,, founded SourcePilani

More and more companies are looking at the bottom billion, the million of poor people,worldwide as customers for the products and services. Not many however, look at the poor aspool of talented yet underdeveloped employee pool as Manoj does.

Despite Indias many advances, there are eight million educated unemployed youth in Indiascountryside. Underemployed youth is disenchanted and often finds meaning in drugs, violenceand terrorism. Harnessed youth is a powerful force. I decided to create a future for Indias ruralyouth by improving the employability situation in Indias rural hinterlands.

In 2007, Manoj Vasudevan, 24 years old, founded SourcePilani, a rural

business process outsourcing company. Located in Rajasthan, Indias poorest state, SourcePilaniis a for-profit social enterprise whose unique business model leverages low cost stable talent andinexpensive infrastructure, to create employment, empower women and bring rural India into themainstream economy.

Rural India is semi-skilled, poorly trained and has terrible infrastructure. The BPO sector hasnever been interested in setting up offices in such locations. SourcePilani has changed theparadigm by focusing on service verticals such as medical transcription, internet & social media

marketing, regional language voice services and bank transaction processing, where rural peoplecan compete.

The basic model followed by SourcePilani includes identifying youthfrom various schools/colleges who are interested in taking up a BPO career. Since mostapplicants are from Hindi medium of instruction, they are put through an English training course

for a period of 3 months. Post this, the recruits are put on the job under the supervision of teamleaders who groom the new comers and make them able to handle the tough requirements of aBPO career. As an outcome of all of this, the youth of Pilani have been able to increase theirincome levels and over a period of time the economic spectrum of the town will also beenhanced. This is a wonderful way of executing inclusive growth and progress.

SourcePilani is creating a sea-change in the way India thinks about the service industry potentialof Indias small towns and villages. SourcePilani is a small company but had a cascading

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psychological effect on the Pilani rural landscape in the form of creating alternate livelihoods,reverse migration, and increased employment opportunities for women. It is a great case forsustainable rural development and could transform Indias countryside in ways yet unimagined.

The impact on the community has been phenomenal. Urmila Maan, a housewife with two kids

now transcribes dictation from US doctors. She is one of many women at SourcePilani whomakes up to $120 per month. In an area where husbands work on farms for a dollar a day, this isa significant sum. SourcePilani is giving these rural women social status and people are takingnote.

Future plans include expanding the company to several locations across rural India.Simultaneously, I will raise the companys profile internationally by evangelizing the rural BPO.