Food is a basic human need. However, we don't think twice when we are wasting food, especially in those extravagant marriages. Jaskiran Kaur, our feature today, identified this problem in her city and decided to do something about. She started the Feeding India Ludhiana Chapter. Most times they would get calls from hotels and marriage halls around 12.oo AM to 4.oo AM in the morning. She would often give up on her sleep, and CAT prep time, to make the cause successful. Her drive to "do good" and the initiative to "give back to the community" placed her in the list of InsideIIM's Best 50 - India's Most Employable Graduates for the class of 2018-20. Read more about her story in the article below!
The following is Jaskiran Kaur's set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-50 most employable MBA graduates of the Class of 2020. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated by the Founder of InsideIIM-Kampus Konversations, Jaskiran's story and profile stood out. Here's her story in her words.
"I would describe myself as a goal-driven person, who is ready to go the extra mile to achieve success. Once I set my goals, I would make sure to exhibit boundless energy and passion in achieving them. From bagging first position in every class in school, being a gold medalist in college, securing a seat in IIM Indore to establishing a successful social venture in Ludhiana, I was determined to push forward my limits. Apart from academics, I love doing trekking, scuba diving, reading literature, gyming and bhangra."
Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life.
"As you all are well aware of, around 9 million people die of hunger every year, way more than the number of people who die due to AIDS, Malaria and TB combined. On the other hand, the value of wasted food globally is more than $1 trillion. Such an irony! Being brought up in Ludhiana, notorious for extravagant marriages, I have noticed tons of food being wasted and dumped in open bins. Distressed by seeing such sights, I along with 9 other people started a social entrepreneurial initiative ‘Feeding India – Ludhiana Chapter’. The aim of this organisation was to end the food wastage by redistributing the excess food from hotels & restaurants after proper food quality checks to the needy ones. I was worried about managing this along with my studies as I was preparing for CAT and other competitive exams. However, in the end with proper planning and management, I succeeded in balancing both. We dreamt of making this organisation a huge and successful one and started with dividing people into different departments. I was made the head of the Talent Management department, where I was responsible for recruiting people for our organisation, expanding it and spreading the awareness. We began with conducting seminars in colleges & schools, events such as ‘Raahgiri’ and tying with different hotels and restaurants. We identified various areas and started distributing food with the help of our various members called ‘Hunger Heroes’. We were usually called at midnight around 4 am from various places to collect the food, but we were so determined that sleep didn’t matter us at that point in time. We were successful in expanding our organisation from 10 to 173 members and tying up with more than 20 hotels & restaurants. Now we even have food-collecting van known as ‘Magic Van’, engaged in collecting food 24*7 and have installed ‘Happy fridge’ in various parts of the city. After fulfilling all my duties and responsibilities, I would come back to study for CAT and other exams. Managing both the studies and ‘Feeding India’ was hectic and required a lot of efforts, but at the end, I would say ‘What starts well ends well’."
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
"I always wanted to share my knowledge and experience with others, if that helps them even a little bit to achieve their goals. When I was done with my first year in IIM Indore, I used to help newcomer students in making their resumes and providing them guidance related to placements. I felt so elated when one of the students came to me after getting the summer placement and said, “Di, thank you and it was because of you that I got it”. After getting through the whole ordeal of getting the final placement, I helped as much as I could in preparing others about structuring case interviews and sharing my experience with them. The satisfaction you get after seeing them getting through the interviews and their dream companies cannot be described in words."
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
"Agreements and disagreements are a part of life. Without any disagreement with an opinion, idea or decision, one couldn’t reach a better solution. I will quote an instance from my internship with EY. I was involved with my team in doing the valuation of a company. While we were on it, I had a different view on the treatment of particular thing whereas there was a defined way of doing that. I was first worried regarding whether I should highlight my opinion with my team and manager or accept their of way doing, I finally decided to first back my opinion with considerable data and research so as to properly explain them with useful insights. I checked with my team members first and they showed interest in listening to my views. I offered them another perspective and backed it with a reasonable explanation. After listening to their apprehensions, I asked to buy some more time for further research. After going through the whole research and telling them about it, they were intrigued by the findings and told me to tell it to the manager. I wasn’t worried whether my manager would like it or not, but I was happy that my team members heard me and showed their interest. Instead of jumping to tell them about how I disagree with their views or directly telling it to the manager, I did thorough research and analysis. So whenever one is disagreeing with pre-defined practices or decisions, instead of directly showing them to the world, one should have done proper research and respect the hierarchy that is already in place."
What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative which has led you to do deep work in that field?
"Talking about the expertise in a particular field, I would talk here about my NGO venture i.e. ‘Feeding India – Ludhiana Chapter’. I, along with my team of 9 members have toiled hard to make it successful from scratch. We deeply studied the economics of Ludhiana region, identified different regions based on poverty lines, potential targets such as hotels, restaurants, marriage palaces, target people who would be willing to join the organisation and collected necessary funds required to begin the operations. To manage the work efficiently and avoid overlaps and confusion, we organised our team into different departments, i.e. finance, operations, marketing and human resources (Talent management). It was further segregated into 2 different sub-departments i.e. hunger heroes and superheroes. The responsibilities of each department were laid down and everyone was made clear about it. As I was made head of the TMT department, I and my team started with recognising our potential target group and the mediums to reach them. We started with colleges, as firstly we wanted to target people in the age group of 18 – 25 years. We conducted seminars, events in order to make them aware and make them know the worth of such NGO. After getting applications of more than 500 people, we took interviews to identify suitable people. We then started attracting people of other age groups once our organisation started doing well. It is a never-ending learning and every passing day enrich my expertise more in this field."
If 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?
"I have always taken inspiration from Anand Kumar, founder of ‘Super 30’, an Indian education program started in Patna. Helping underprivileged people by donation or providing them with necessary things is not a sustainable solution in providing them with a good standard of living. The ultimate solution would be to do something that raises their self-esteem and education is one of the ways by which it could be done. By getting the necessary education, they can compete for suitable jobs and there would not be any need to depend on others. So, if I would be given 10 million dollars, I would utilise such funds in the opening study and coaching centres for preparing underprivileged students for various competitive exams such as SSC, Bank PO, UPSC and etc. To make this sustainable in the long term, minimal fees would be charged from students and opportunities would be given to them to teach other students. The aim is to provide those students fair chance to compete for those exams and not to demotivate them even for appearing because of exorbitant fees charged by present coaching centres."
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