About Us - DR. K.R. Shroff Foundation

“Wealthy are the trustees of their wealth for larger good of the society”

Mahatma Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi’s idea really resonates with me. What belongs to us, is the right to an honorable livelihood, and comfortable living. Also, one individual cannot create billions of rupees or dollars without the involvement of an entire societal ecosystem. Therefore, the wealthy have a moral obligation to act as trustees of their wealth and ensure that the majority of their wealth flows back to the society for its betterment.

I have come to firmly believe that education is the most effective tool for solving the world’s greatest challenges like poverty, environmental degradation and inequality. Literacy has the power to uplift communities and mitigate critical problems. By focusing on maturing it, we can help children define their place in the world, with not only a secure future but a fulfilling one.

Further, as Gandhiji said:” real India lives in villages”. For sustainable future, it is imperative that we create self-sufficient and self-sustainable communities in villages. If we are able to create self-employment in villages, then dire need to migrate to cities will cease. This creates an all around WIN WIN for everyone – be it economic independence for communities, air & water pollution, city congestion, breakdown of infrastructure, or more sustainable climate conditions. Therefore, we endeavor to create & promote development entrepreneurs with our partner organizations so that millions of families in rural India are positively impacted with higher income generation while positively impacting the environment. At the same time, we believe that it is very essential to conserve natural resources – be it water or forests that would help humanity with climate control.

5,00,000+

Lives impacted

3,00,000+

Children reached

1200+

Villages

800+

Grassroot workers

Over the years, with valuable contributions from our networks and partners, we have developed a strong strategy to greatly expand our reach and spread the impact of our work. We are focused on facilitating the system-level adoption of our initiatives by continuing to deliver high-quality programs at village level to help communities succeed.

On a final note, I’d like to just thank all our changemakers, partners and the people who have contributed to our cause. I am confident that by continuing on our mission, we will eventually ensure that All children can pursue a quality education that make positive change in their families, communities and the world, and all communities become self-sufficient and self-reliant to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world.

The Path chosen

KRSF is run professionally like a company with clearly defined OKRs bringing in laser focus, discipline, and therefore, very visible, measurable and quantifiable results in everything that we do. We focus on ‘what’ and ‘how’ with quantification and measurement.

Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation’s overarching vision is to deploy wealth for uplifting marginalized people to build a better world for tomorrow. The Foundation’s core concept is to build self- sufficiency in individuals and make them self-reliant contributors to the nation’s economic development. KRSF has directed its efforts towards fostering self-sufficiency in individuals through various initiatives in education, healthcare, climate change, advocacy, social entrepreneurship and other measures aimed at uplifting rural economy.

Our vision is to cultivate and empower leaders capable of fostering self-sufficiency within communities through groundbreaking initiatives.

The key mantra we believe in is: “Measure What Matters”. Thus, we are laser focused on making everything we do QUANTIFIABLE AND MEASURABLE in time bound manner. Speed & Scale are close to our hearts and in all our endeavours we aim to have scalability with measurable outcomes in a given time frame.

3,00,000+

Students

EDUCATION

Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation (KRSF) is actively engaged in transforming education in tribal areas of Gujarat through partnerships with nearly 733 government schools. With a dedicated field team of approximately 800+ teachers and leaders, KRSF has developed a sustainable and scalable model involving stakeholders like the state education department, school staff, parents, and the community. Our holistic approach encompasses initiatives ranging from foundational learning in schools to higher education in colleges. Through the use of innovative tools like animated videos and our SAAS software package, “Serving Society Through Technology” (S2T2), we have been able to deliver excellent academic results for our students.

ADVOCACY

India is a vast country with a large population, many of whom live in poverty. The government has many schemes to help the poor, but many people are unaware of them or unable to enroll. KRSF is actively engaged at the grassroots level, facilitating the enrollment of local residents in various government schemes. In the last two years, we have registered 30,000 individuals for various government initiatives.

We realize that the foundation’s team may not be able to help all the people all the time for these government schemes. Still, we aspire to make huge strides in this direction in the coming years. For that, we are laying a solid foundation of very capable leadership that will transform our vision into reality by creating awareness among the people; so that they are able to speak for themselves and take appropriate steps to avail benefits of the schemes on their own.

30,000+

Individuals Enrolled

2000

Social Entrepreneurs

₹5 Crore

Interest-free Loan

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation empowers individuals through social entrepreneurship programs. As part of the Swavlamban Initiative with VSSM, we provide financial assistance to address the challenges faced by nomadic families in securing a dignified livelihood. Through the program, we offer interest-free loans to individuals and families belonging to nomadic communities who are eager to establish their own self-sustaining ventures. In the last 2 years, loans exceeding Rs. 5 Crore have been disbursed to over 2000 individuals.

KRSF has also collaborated with The Buddha Institute to cultivate the next generation of Developmental social entrepreneurs who create viable small businesses in the village communities. Their enterprises will generate meaningful employment in rural communities. We estimate that each development entrepreneur will create employment and impact anywhere from 5,000-10,000 families in rural areas. Together with Buddha institute, our goal is to foster the development of 125 Developmental social entrepreneurs by the year 2025 and further expand our impact by nurturing a total of 1000 Developmental social entrepreneurs by 2028. Through these efforts, we aim to generate 1,00,000 jobs and positively impact the lives of 5 million families.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation is deeply committed to addressing the urgent challenges of climate change through its diverse initiatives. Prioritizing environmental conservation and water management, the foundation collaborates with local organizations to rejuvenate water resources in North and South Gujarat, positively impacting both agricultural productivity and community well-being. To date, KRSF has conducted de-silting and excavation operations on approximately 30 lakes in partnership with VSSM and repaired 6 checkdams, positively influencing the lives of 80,000 individuals.

Through projects like “One Child, One Tree” initiative and collaborations with organizations such as VSSM and Acacia Eco, the foundation has successfully planted over 3,00,000 trees, fostering a sense of responsibility towards nature among the younger generation.

Lakes Excavated

3,00,000+

Trees Planted

HEALTHCARE

Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation, established to uphold the healthcare legacy of Dr. K. R. Shroff, engages in impactful philanthropy within the healthcare sector. Collaborations with entities like Dr Jivraj Mehta Smarak Health Foundation, Sadvichar Parivar, Gram Seva Trust and Gujarat Cancer Society showcase the foundation’s commitment to improving healthcare facilities and services.

Key Differentiators

Creating better leaders for tomorrow's self-sufficient society

With a vision to create a self-sufficient society, we identify raw and unemployed talent in the community that we serve. And then, we nurture and train them to become proficient educators and professionals. They play the role of a life-coach, leader and facilitator for the children as well as community in which they operate. By doing this, we are creating an ecosystem of self-reliant leaders and enablers, who will ultimately help communities become self-sufficient.

Very extensive Internal Training Programs

The foundation very strongly believes in taking raw talent and shaping & moulding it for individual’s personal growth as well as professional growth. Therefore, we invest very heavily in nurturing and training our staff continuously. We continuously add new programs for training our people, including life lessons, to bring in self-awareness and self-motivation in their working and teaching methodologies.

Robust recruitment processes

We have rigorous recruitment process, encompassing various stages such as written exams, psychometric tests, and personal interviews. While we value qualifications and experience, we place high emphasis on recruiting candidates who exhibit a strong sense of ownership, hunger, fire and sense of belonging to the society.

Measure what Matters

We believe whatever you measure, it improves. We ensure that every individual is clearly aware of his/her goals and how to achieve that goal. Based on the common organizational objective, every team member writes his/her yearly and monthly objectives which gets reviewed from the project head on monthly basis. This brings synergy, focus, discipline and clarity in the team at every level.

Building phenomenal team work with Government eco-system to make everybody win

India, with a population of 1.4 billion people, faces formidable societal challenges. Addressing these issues is a daunting task, and no single entity can tackle them alone. Achieving success requires scalable collaboration among all stakeholders. We have built our systems with this in mind and work very closely with Government to address the challenges through our collaborative efforts. Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation works in partnership with the government on education, climate change, advocacy, and healthcare initiatives. By aligning efforts, we amplify impact and address societal challenges cohesively. Our shared commitment focuses on creating a sustainable, equitable future for everyone.

Shri Pratul Shroff is a pioneering and serial entrepreneur who has led multiple organizations in the last three decades, both in USA and India. More recently, he has been an active philanthropist and venture investor.

In his last stint as an entrepreneur, he founded eInfochips in 1994 and grew the company from 1 person to about 2000 engineers in 2018. eInfochips was acquired by Arrow Electronics in 2018 for several hundred million dollars. Way back in 1995, he instituted stock options in eInfochips, a path-breaking move to promote employee morale and wealth creation, which finally culminated in approximately $ 80 million going to eInfochips employees at the time of its sale. eInfochips also pioneered in Gujarat product design and engineering services in electronics systems design and chip design, despite the absence of an enabling ecosystem in the state. His leadership has been exemplary and instrumental in building the technology services ecosystem in Gujarat, including embedded systems and chip design systems. The eInfochips employees that he mentored and inspired have gone on to found over 60 companies in various spheres.

Before founding eInfochips, Pratul spent over 10 years in Silicon Valley working for Intel and Daisy Systems. He was a founding engineer at Daisy Systems and helped the company reach $125 million in sales and 1200 employees in 5 years of its founding. Pratul also co-founded Contech Systems, India.

Pratul was awarded the ‘Outstanding IT Entrepreneur of the Year by Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy, (Chairman, Infosys) at an Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) event in 2004. In June 2014, he was awarded for Visionary Leadership in the ICT Sector by GESIA. . Electronics Maker Magazine honoured him with the “Man of Innovation Award – 2016”. He also won “Gujarat Ratna” award in 2016, followed by “Hercules Award” from Government of Gujarat in 2018.

Pratul has served on several industry and government bodies, as well as on academic councils and boards of leading institutes. Pratul holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani (India) and a master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Cornell, USA. He also earned an executive MBA from IIM Ahmedabad (India).

After exiting eInfochips. Pratul has focused on his trust, Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation (KRSF), that he founded in 2011. Today, the foundation is focused on Education, Healthcare, Climate Change, Advocacy and Social Entrepreneurship.

Uday Desai completed his engineering from Regional Engineering College, Surat in 1983 and has a wide experience of more than 35 years in the field of designing and deployment of projects in the field of IT, Telecommunication and Networking.

He was associated with Gujarat State Wide Area Network (GSWAN) project, eGovernance infrastructure of Gujarat Government for several years where his major responsibility was Network planning, deployment and monitoring the performance of entire IT infrastructure, Data Centers and eGovernance applications in the state.

In 2012, he joined Dr K. R. Shroff Foundation and launched ‘Project VIKAS’, aimed at providing high-quality, value-based education to rural and tribal schools. The foundation, under his leadership, has scaled from 5 people to a dedicated team of over 700 full-time team members. These individuals are committed to delivering quality education to more than 50,000 students across 600+ tribal and rural government schools in 14 talukas in Gujarat.

Uday has played an active role in collaborating with the Government of Gujarat on various initiatives. He has closely worked with the Education Department, to establish the prestigious Vidhya Samiksha Kendra (VSK) in Gandhinagar. Additionally, he has worked with GCERT (Gujarat Council of Educational Research and Training) and the SSA (Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan) for projects related to digital education, training, and assessment.

Uday firmly believes that teaching practical skills through vocational education is essential for creating jobs for young people. He emphasizes that this approach helps individuals gain hands-on abilities, making them better prepared for today’s workforce.

Uday currently serves as the President of the Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation, where he spearheads diverse initiatives focused on education, healthcare, and fostering partnerships.