Arghyam was founded in 2005 to support sustainable water and sanitation solutions. We are a public charitable foundation based in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Our work rests upon a personal endowment from Rohini Nilekani.
ENABLING SOLUTIONS AT SCALE
The word "Arghyam" means "offering" in Sanskrit. Our vision of 'safe, sustainable water all' is achieved by funding and partnering with like-minded individuals and organizations to design and implement transformative solutions. Over the last 13 years, we have built our presence in 22 states to address the issue of water security for vulnerable communities.
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Our solutions are designed to empower communities to take decisions backed by science and evidence. There have been various successful solutions to ensure water security at reasonable scales. Yet, the problems constantly seem to outpace the solutions. There is an urgent need to look beyond our current processes and scale. We at Arghyam, believe technology is an enabler for scaling solutions and creating sustainable impacts. ForWater is a platform that re-imagines solution building and community empowerment, using the levers of knowledge and data.
Board And Advisors
Rohini Nilekani
Chairperson
Ananth Narayanan
Trustee
Janhavi Nilekani
Trustee
Sonalde Desai
Trustee
Dr. Shiv Someshwar
Trustee
Sunita Nadhamuni
Trustee
Our Team
Meet the wonderful people at Arghyam who are working towards ensuring safe water and sanitation for all.
View AllA career at Arghyam
If you are driven to make a difference to the world, working at Arghyam can be a hugely enriching experience.
Email your resume to us at jobs@arghyam.org
Rohini Nilekani
Chairperson
Rohini Nilekani is the Founder-Chairperson of Arghyam. She set up the foundation with a private endowment, to work on water and sanitation issues in India. She is also the Founder-Chairperson of Pratham Books, a charitable trust which seeks to put "A book in every child's hand." An ex-journalist, author and philanthropist, Rohini has been deeply involved with development issues and is currently a member of the Audit Advisory Board of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. She sits on the Boards of many non-profits, notably ATREE (the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment) and Sanghamithra Rural Financial Services. Rohini has authored a novel “Stillborn” and also a nonfiction account of dialogues she moderated between social and corporate leaders in a book titled "Uncommon Ground".
Ananth Narayanan
Trustee
Ananth Narayanan is the Chief Executive Officer of Myntra and Jabong, the country’s largest online platforms for fashion and lifestyle products. He leads the team with a dedicated mission to disrupt and transform the way fashion is sold and consumed in the country. His aim is to make Myntra the first profitable ecommerce company in India. Under his leadership, Myntra has made several strategic acquisitions including Jabong from Global Fashion Group; making it India’s biggest fashion shopping destination. Featured as one of “India’s Hottest 40 under 40 Business Leaders” in 2014, Ananth has deep expertise in driving performance improvement and product development. Prior to joining Myntra, Ananth was a Director at Mckinsey & Company for 15 years and has worked across four offices (Chicago, Shanghai, Taipei and Chennai). His role entailed leading the Product Development practice in Asia and working with companies on strategy and operations. Ananth serves as an Independent Director on the Board of Marico and is an active member of YPO, the global community of young leaders and chief executives. He is a part of the Champions of Change, Transformation Conclave set up by Niti Aayog, under the aegis of the Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India. He leverages his vast experience and knowledge from years in consultancy and managing operations to mentor start-ups and has helped them to create systems and processes, build stakeholder communities, effectively reach out to markets and scale up their business. He regularly speaks at various summits organized by premier institutes such as The Economist, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, University of Michigan among others. Ananth has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Madras and a Masters from the University of Michigan, in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He is an active member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and is also on the Industry Advisory Board of the University of Michigan.
Janhavi Nilekani
Trustee
Janhavi is a Ph.D. Student in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is interested in sustainable development and energy policies in developing countries, particularly India. She graduated from Yale University in 2010 with a B.A. in Economics and in International Studies.
Sonalde Desai
Trustee
Sonalde is a demographer whose work deals primarily with social inequalities in developing countries with a particular focus on gender and class inequalities. She studies inequalities in education, employment and maternal and child health outcomes by locating them within the political economy of the region. While much of her research focuses on South Asia, she has also engaged in comparative studies across Asia, Latin America and Sub Saharan Africa. She has published articles in a wide range of sociological and demographic journals including American Sociological Review, Demography, Population and Development Review and Feminist Studies.
Dr. Shiv Someshwar
Trustee
Dr. Shiv Someshwar is a research faculty at Columbia University, New York. At the Earth Institute, he is the Director for Climate Policy in the Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development, and the Senior Advisor for Regional Programmes at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. An expert on climate and development policy, Shiv has led numerous multidisciplinary projects that build resilience to climate risks in developing countries. He advises governments on identifying and implementing climate action priorities, and served as an advisor to UNDP’s Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery to integrate climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction efforts. He has helped develop Columbia University’s graduate program in Climate and Society. Previously, he was at the Rockefeller Foundation and has also worked at the World Bank. Shiv received his Ph.D. in environment and public policy from the University of California, Los Angeles, and was a MacArthur Bell fellow at Harvard University.
Sunita Nadhamuni
Trustee
Sunita Nadhamuni is Director at the Center for Transformational Innovations at EMC, India. CeTI is working with partners to develop technology-enabled solutions for addressing healthcare challenges in emerging economies. Prior to that, she was founder-CEO of Arghyam. She was also with the Asia Pacific Water Forum in several capacities networking with regional players from APJ countries. She has more than a decade of IT experience in the Silicon Valley at companies like Sun Microsystems, SGI and Healtheon/ WebMD and a decade of development sector experience in India leading initiatives with significant public impact. Sunita has an MS in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in NY and a BE degree from Andhra University in India. She is a former TED India Fellow, member of several national and international committees on water, founder of two voluntary initiatives in education and rural development, and has authored two books based on her work.