Lead India to involve NRIs to bring the change

Rockville, Maryland: In a private ceremony in Rockville, Maryland, presided over by Bharat Ratna Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former president of India and Chief Mentor of Lead India 2020 and attended by luminaries of Indian origin today, noted philanthropist Hari Eppanapally, founding president of Lead India 2020 US Chapter unveiled an innovative framework to engage 25 Million NRIs to transform India as a developed nation by 2020. Often cited as the largest social change program in history, Li2020 aims to transform the lives of 540 Million children through an innovative, long term program that converts them into 'Change Agents'.

The 10-point program of Li2020 has already been implemented since 2004 and has benefited more than 1 million children in 5,000+ schools in Andhra Pradesh's Medak and Karimnagar Districts. Corporate sponsors like Infosys and GE as well as social service organizations like Lions Club fund the training of Trainers, with 100,000 trainers in 2013 alone. These Trainers are responsible for 5 schools each with about 500 children, and remain with the students from 6th to 12th grades, training and coordinating field work. Initially focusing to train in 10 schools in each Mandal (Taluk), and Andra Pradesh alone has 1004 Mandals across 23 districts.

In order to grow this program to cover all 540 Million Indian youth by the year 2020, the Lead India 2020 Foundation (USA) Organization has been formed. Li2020 proposes to equip each trainer with a Laptop, Projector and Camera with a roaming internet connection and pay for training and field expeditions by all children as they implement the Li2020 program in their lives, their homes and their communities. Recognizing that transparency and metrics are crucial to assure donors their funds are being used efficiently, Li2020 is setting up parallel structures in India and USA. All the coordinators in the US and in India would be volunteers who are passionate about the Change.

Mr. Hari Eppanapally, President of the US Chapter shared the vision, and the roadmap to achieve the mission of the organization which is to see a developed India by the year 2020, with great enthusiasm, he said, 'We have a great support from the NRI community, however, our goal is to engage our 25 million NRI's residing globally, and this would require greater efforts'. Mr. Eppanapally appealed to the NRI community to join this great movement. Currently, organization has successfully expanded into five states and eight districts, and in process to have additional presence in central and northern Indian States. Moreover, Mr. Eppanapally was excited to share that the US Chapter has been collaborating with various NGOs for promoting the Lead India initiatives and PURA (Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas), and also working with major universities in US for summer internships and youth exchange programs.

Further, Mr. Eppanapally stated, if any is interested to participate in this program to visit www.Li2020.org and signup for any of the coordinator positions for State, District and Taluq/Mandal to coordinate the Li2020 Leadership training, and several opportunities for youth to coordinate the social media and Li2020 events to promote the activities of the organization in US and India.

Dr. Kalam appreciated the Li2020 global model and finalized the phase-I states to roll out the Li2002 training would be Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra. He was introduced to State coordinators Vinson Palathingal (Kerala), Venkatesh Sadogopan (Tamil Nadu) and Rajan Marathe (Maharashtra). Li2020 Vice President Srinivas Ganagoni appealed to NRIs everywhere to come forward and take up a coordinator position to offer the 'Aap Badho Desh Ko Badhao' training program in the schools. Li2020 Secretary Chaya Pamula said that this was a historic opportunity to give back to your state and impact the minds of children at their most formative so that the next generation could be imbued with lasting values. Treasurer Hart Singh wanted to assure donors that Li2020's policies, software and structures would ensure transparency and continuously track key metrics to show measurable impact of each dollar spent.

Youth Chair Pooja Eppanapally and Anusha Pamula led a vibrant dialog and Q&A session between young Li2020 members and Dr. Kalam where the former President and India's first true 'Rocket Scientist' asked for the sharing of experiences from middle school all the way through successful entrepreneurship so that the young Indian minds would be more job creators than job seekers.