Rob Wiblin

A project that a real person can implement in this messy world of actual people, and then figure out how to scale it so they can go on and make a meaningful difference.

We haven't had so many episodes on that kind of thing lately, so I decided to go out looking for people on the sharp end of taking ideas about how to have a big impact and then executing on them.

Varsha stood out for the process she used to figure out what to do, the success of her and her team building a presence in India, and her ability to explain all of it.

Varsha and her colleagues are still in the thick of growing, so fortunately they haven't forgotten what things are really like.

I think everyone can get something out of this episode, but that's particularly the case if you want to start your own project or work in global health and development.

All right, without further ado, here's Varsha Venugopal.

Today, I'm speaking with Varsha Vinugopal.

Varsha started out her career studying urban and regional planning, then working as a local governance specialist at the World Bank for five years.

She then did a master's in development management at LSE before working at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, the global health nonprofit called Options Consultancy Services, and the International Governance and Risk Institute.

But in 2019, though, she made a big career change and co-founded the nonprofit Savita, which aims to ensure that every child in India gets all of their basic vaccinations, which is what we're going to talk about today.

So thanks for coming on the podcast, Varsha.

I hope we'll get to talk about the challenges of scaling up a new health nonprofit and what you've learned from being a nonprofit founder.

But first, as always, what are you working on at the moment and why do you think it's important?

Yeah, nice.

Okay, well, we'll come back to Suvita in just a second.

But first off, maybe let's quickly zoom out and consider the kind of broader context of the problem that you're working on.

So basically, how many kids are going unvaccinated around the world?

And I guess how many end up dying as a result?

So at their first birthday, they haven't received any or most of the vaccinations?

Or is it just that 19 million haven't done the full schedule that's recommended?