Vivek Agrawal has always wanted to give back. As a product manager he is uniquely placed to make a difference not only locally, but globally. This ability has led him to help design modern day solutions to age old problems. As the world continues to change and progress, the need for forward thinkers such as Vivek becomes ever more present.
Product managers are unique individuals. They are jacks of all trades, and masters of communication. Their role entails knowing every aspect of the job at hand and understanding how to get the best out of their group. This is exceptionally true of Vivek, an individual driven by his desire to affect actual change in the world.
Having lived in many countries around the world, the 33 year old from San Francisco counts himself as lucky “learning and assimilating into other cultures is an experience unlike any other.” Having taken a leap in his younger years he strayed away from the conventional path. Vivek’s first foray into the nonprofit world came in his home country of India where he says “I built a platform for public schools to collect real-time administrative data which was aggregated and used by policymakers for decision making and resource allocation.” His app was used by over 20,000 school teachers in India and opened his eyes to the inspirational men and women who taught the next generation.
“I was inspired by the public school teachers working on the ground,” Vivek says, describing the catalyst for further exploration of his own. After his work in India, the young tech guru was looking to use his expertise to help elsewhere. After going through his options, Vivek ended up deciding to work with the Clinton Foundation in East Africa.
This change from local to global marked a switch in Vivek, from someone who was inspired to an individual willing to take drastic measures. “One of the biggest drawbacks historically in tracking malaria has been the cumbersome manual process,” he states, getting directly to the heart of one of the world’s biggest health issues. Vivek took the opportunity afforded to him by the Clinton Foundation and actively affected change.
“I was able to develop a mobile application that could be used by community health workers in the field for digitally recording data on a GPS interface,” he says, when discussing his impact. “This application was the first of its kind mobile application which had the ability to record data in real-time across multiple country protocols,” says the San Francisco resident, detailing the wide ranging positive effect it has had. “The application can work without internet connectivity and on very primitive electronic devices as well.” Vivek inherently understood the limitations of certain countries in the world.
It is the job of a product manager to not only understand the product but also the consumer. Vivek, embraces this holistic view fully, saying “we designed specifically for community health workers who are not tech savvy and have not used any smart device before.” The app was developed by Vivek to help target countries without the technological infrastructure to potentially eliminate up to 500,000 malaria related deaths a year. His work with the Clinton Foundation only furthered Vivek’s intent to help the people of the world.
Since last working in non profit, Vivek has spent time immersing himself in Artificial Intelligence (AI), and is sure to be crucial going forward. The 33 year old starts by saying, “there have been several technological advancements that governments in developing economies have made in terms of digitizing their infrastructure and collecting the right data.” This data in the right hands can be a great resource for affecting change, and Vivek is already looking for new applications.
“The next step would be to use this data to train predictive AI models and provide answers to basic questions which currently take administrators too long to figure out and take action on.” Being a step ahead of the problems would help governments take the correct course of action and avoid major problems of the past.
Beyond helping to predict future outcomes, Vivek believes that AI will help to consolidate the data which as he puts it “lies in siloed sources and several different platforms with very little to no consolidation. AI can help bridge that gap.”
For Vivek it is about pushing forward, and not being happy with the status quo. There are so many places in the world that have the infrastructure in place to help in more ways than one. “Countries like South Africa and Thailand, already have mature tech stacks and they are looking to build the next generation of applications,” he says with a glimmer in his eyes at his next adventure.
The possibilities for non-profit growth are endless. There is always potential to affect change and be part of making the world a better place. Vivek is intrigued by his own home country of India, “I think the Indian tech ecosystem is growing very quickly, I’d be open to working on AI related projects there in the near future.”
It is oftentimes the people that you don’t see that are most important in affecting change. This is especially true with Vivek Agrawal, an individual who has put the needs of the world first. Through his dedicated work in his home country of India, to his revolutionary app created during his time at the Clinton Foundation, Vivek continues to push the boundaries of what is possible. He stands out as a guiding light for others to follow, putting the needs of the many above all else.
