During his own university experience at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Warangal, India, Kalyan Varma Kuchampudi saw many of his classmates struggle to keep up with rising tuition rates. Since the school increased its fees while Kalyan was there, many of his own classmates were looking at leaving the university due to their inability to adhere to the new rates. Instead, Kalyan decided to take action; he couldn't let his classmates leave without trying to do something.
Along with some of his friends and peers, Kalyan got to work, reaching out to alumni of NIT Warangal and explaining the situation, asking them to donate to a fund that would help support students who were planning on departing from the school. It took weeks of work and hundreds of calls, but eventually, the effort paid off and they were able to secure enough funding to ensure that none of their classmates dropped out that year. Over the next few years, they continued the process and provided scholarships to over 200 students in total.
After graduating, Kalyan started working at Goldman Sachs. Partnering with some of the brightest minds in the industry, he worked to develop trading algorithms and use technology to advance the firm's goals. However, it didn't take long to realize that the component of social good was missing from his day-to-day, and he needed to be doing work that made an impact.
Ambitious and inspired, Kalyan decided to go out on his own and start SocialHeart, an online marketplace that helped NGOs and social enterprises market their products along with the stories of the people that made them. The platform supported a range of different social enterprises and customers were eager to purchase products from organizations that made a difference in some way. After about 2 years since the organization's inception and even though the structure had begun to work well for social enterprises and customers alike, Kalyan and his team had to make the difficult decision to close down shop since they realized this wasn't proving to be a sustainable business model.
Not long after his first experience as a co-founder and CEO, Kalyan started a new endeavor, one that was largely inspired by the work he had done in college to connect with alumni and raise scholarship funds. In 2014, he founded Almabase, a software solution that uses technology to make education more affordable for everyone. It offers universities and K-12 schools proprietary software that makes engaging with alumni easier than ever. 20 years ago, an average university in the US was receiving donations from 18% of their alumni, but today, that number has dropped to a measly 9%.
Because universities have to connect with alumni differently than they used to - think, less social mixers on campus and more social media and digital outreach - institutions have struggled to adjust and keep past students engaged. However, when engaged properly using Almabase, alumni from educational institutions all over the country have begun to engage more with their universities. Examples of success are abundant, with multiple institutions increasing by over 500% of donations thanks to Almabase's peer-to-peer fundraising strategy. Archbishop Riordan High School and Scranton Preparatory School are just two examples of how the educational field has been impacted by Kalyan's technology.
Kalyan's mission is much larger than just bringing universities and high schools a way to connect with their alumni community more efficiently; it's about making education more affordable and accessible for all students. Inspired by Sonya Sotomayor's quote, "Until we get equality in education, we won't get an equal society," Kalyan's employment of technology for social good is making a major impact. The path to the future is paved by the innovation and determination of entrepreneurs and thought leaders like Kalyan. He left a highly sought-after job in a globally recognized company to take a chance and make a change - and he's doing just that.
