80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India
18 Oct 2021
Full Episode
Hi listeners, this is the 80,000 Hours podcast, where we have unusually in-depth conversations about the world's most pressing problems, what you can do to solve them, and how a bit of gossip can save a life. I'm Rob Woodland, head of research at 80,000 Hours. Most of us have at some point read about a randomized trial showing that some product or service really helps people out.
Maybe exercise programs for mental health or free vapes in order to help people quit smoking or electric cook stoves to reduce indoor air pollution and premature death. Sometimes those studies suggest the intervention is incredibly cost effective, offering huge benefits relative to their cost. And other times they might look too expensive to be a high priority.
But either way, we look at a summary of the study, think, huh, that's cool, and close our browser tab and never to think about it again. I mean, what are you going to do? Start an electric cookstove business? Well, today's guest, Varsha Vinugopal, decided to quit her job, roll up her sleeves, and do the equivalent of starting an electric cookstove business.
Except it isn't air pollution she's been trying to fix, it's young children going unvaccinated, just because their parents didn't make it a top priority to get them back to the doctor's office on time. We talk about a lot of big, high-level ideas in this show, and of course I totally love that stuff.
But none of those ideas matter if nobody figures out how to convert them into something that someone can actually do. 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.
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