In April 2021, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India broke the 1 million mark since the pandemic started. Government infrastructure was overwhelmed, and there were innumerable cases of information duplication, which added stress to a system on the brink of collapsing. The spike in COVID-19 cases created a severe resource crunch – oxygen, hospital beds, medicines, etc.
In this talk, Akshat shares his lessons in rethinking the concept of value creation in public service and overcoming a zero-sum game approach to policy making. Through a WhatApp and Discord community of 1,400 volunteers organized into thematic teams across India, the team battled a severe resource crunch, a misinformation “info-demic”, and mental fatigue (among volunteers and the public). An avid coffee brewer – Akshat, through advocacy, fund-raising, and his #coffeeforgood initiative, Kafkascup, mobilized nearly 100K USD worth of aid to help millions of vulnerable people in India. Investment themes included medical infrastructure in rural India, seed capital and financial literacy for small women enterprises impacted by Covid-19, and hunger relief in remote and tribal India.
The session discusses how policy professionals, governments, and businesses, can co-produce solutions and create value for all stakeholders.