Ashwathy Venugopal

Ashwathy Venugopal is a TEDx Speaker, Social Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Avasarshala. She is the People’s Choice Awardee at Youth Co:Lab India 2020 (in partnership with Atal incubation Mission and UNDP India).

She is a Kectil International Youth Leader, Curator of Global Shaper Community- Trivandrum Hub (initiative of World Economic Forum), cohort member at Cherie Blair Foundation Mentoring Women in Business 2021, Indian Ambassador for Digital Grassroots Program, Wedu Changemakers Rising Star for 2020, Vital Voices GROW Fellow 2020, inSIG 2020 Fellow, Youth IGF India 2020 Fellow, a Member of Internet Society- Trivandrum Chapter, Headstart Volunteer, public speaker and a thought leader who wishes to guide young minds to make their life interesting- one day at a time. Ashwathy is the recipient of Eastern Bhoomika Iconic Women Awards 2020. Ashwathy was one of the chosen participants and an OpenSpace Speaker at ChangemakerXchange Collective Action Summit jointly hosted by Ashoka Foundation and Robert Bosch Stiftung. She had been a jury at WEmagine All Women B-Plan Competition, hosted by Enprendia an Erasmus Plus Program and KIIT-Technology Business Incubator.

Ashwathy runs a for profit Social Enterprise. She is the co-founder of Avasarshala. Avasarshala is a platform that connects students with aspirational opportunities – like Competitions, Scholarships, Olympiads, Leadership programs, Fellowships, Arts, Sports, Literary events and so on with regional, national and international scope. Avasarshala identifies the interests of the students and connects them to the right opportunities through a personalized recommendation engine based on their interests, age and location. Avasarshala aims to create an ecosystem for grassroot talent to pursue excellence through aspirational opportunities. The start-up has been recognized as a Top 10 technology driven innovation trends of 2020 by Bridge for Billions and Top 30 most inspiring digital innovations by Partos in 2020.

As an initiative under Avasarshala, she also runs WhizKids, an Educational Activity Platform that promotes child development and skill-based education (ages 6 to 13) by introducing an educational concept in the form of a Challenge per day along with prompts or micro-lessons which promotes learning by doing and acquiring key skills in the process. WhizKids is a program that is run virtually for groups of Parents and Students, and even as a Family Engagement Program for Corporate Clients and as an Exclusive Skill Camp for Schools.

What Ashwathy gained from the VV GROW Fellowship:

Ashwathy has gained immense knowledge on strategic planning and leadership skills, and hopes to pay it forward by transferring the knowledge she gains to other women in her community, further empowering them.

What Ashwathy can offer other fellows:

Ashwathy wants to share her entrepreneurial experience with other fellows. In particular, she can share her technical knowledge in running a business in a non-traditional sector.

Connect with Ashwathy on Social Media:

Website: https://www.avasarshala.com/

Instagram (personal): https://www.instagram.com/ashvnair/

LinkedIn (personal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashwathy-venugopal/

Twitter (personal): @AshVenu7