Born and raised in a middle income household in Ahmedabad, Sudha pursued her education largely on scholarships leading up to the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. After 17 years in the technology/IT leading business operations, strategic planning and engineering across Intel, Verizon, Credit Suisse & Infosys, Sudha joined The/Nudge Foundation in 2016 with the purpose to alleviate poverty sustainably and scalably.

 

As the CEO of The/Nudge Centre for Social Innovation (formerly known as N/Core), Sudha nurtures top talent in India to solve developmental challenges at scale through 6 different programs which, since 2017, has reached 9 million people across India.

 

Launchpad: provision of grant (INR 50,000 to INR 2,00,000 i.e. 613 USD to 2450 USD approx.) and mentorship to idea-stage non- profits.

Incubator: provision of seed grants (INR 15,00,000 to INR 20,00,000 i.e. 18400 USD to 24500 USD approx.), mentorship and access to philanthropic capital to 20-25 high-potential, early-stage non-profits with a minimum viable product.

Accelerator: provision of growth (INR 50,00,000 i.e. 60000 USD approx.) and scale grants (INR 1,50,00,000 - INR 2,00,00,000 i.e. 184,000 USD to 245,000 USD approx.), mentorship and access to philanthropic capital to 5-10 high-potential, early-stage non-profits that are poised for growth and scale.

Indian Administrative Fellowship (IAF): India’s first of its kind fellowship in partnership with LBSNAA, targeted at 150 CXO level professionals over the next 5 years to work with bureaucrats (secretaries and above) to solve developmental challenges at scale for the most vulnerable communities.

The/Prize: first-of-its-kind inducement prize in India to challenge the country’s brightest minds to come up with innovative solutions for increasing farmers’ income.

Collective Impact Initiative: Under Sudha’s leadership, The/Nudge CSI leads the one-of-its- kind collective impact project in Bangalore to improve the quality of 25,000 waste picker families by anchoring a coalition of 8 partners.

 

CSI is the only exclusive non-profit incubator in India and is a special purpose vehicle with NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission.

 

Representation of women:

Out of 90 non-profits incubated in 3 years, 55% of all nonprofits have at least one woman as founder/co-founder. 50% of the team at The/Nudge CSI team led by Sudha are women from both the development and private sector.

 

Enabling women entrepreneurship:

 

• The/Nudge CSI has directly contributed to creating a thriving nonprofit ecosystem for women entrepreneurs in the country and has incubated high growth women-led nonprofits including but not limited to
  
  
• Anthill Creations
• Peepul
• Shakti - the Empathy project
• Aaroogya
• Intelehealth
• Tech4Good
• Mitti Cafe
• Thrive Foundation
• LevelUP
• Madhi

Pragati - accelerator program exclusively for women

In 2020, The/Nudge CSI launched Pragati in partnership with Facebook - an accelerator exclusively for women entrepreneurs furthering the cause of gender inclusivity. This program funds nonprofit startups, and will collectively reach 1,00,00,000 (10 million) Indian women.

 

In a span of 3 years, Sudha has been successful in making developmental work aspirational which in turn has raised donor interest in venture philanthropy. She continues to influence a mindset change, growth and scale in the sector. Sudha believes that this is important to see large-scale transformation in the lives of India’s most vulnerable within our generation.