SIMRAN MULCHANDANI
Business Development, Technology
Simran is responsible for building the next generation mobile application, strategy and vision at Rangeet. He is a member of the Learning Sciences Exchange (LSX) Advisory Group and the HP Futures Council on Knowledge Economy Skills, as well as a Director of Generation Blue, a company whose mission is to catalyse an “Earth Positive” or regenerative economy.
He served on the board of Singaporean NGO, Global Mangrove Trust, that has built a peer to peer platform for Mangrove Restoration. Earlier, Simran was a Director at Lykke Corp, a Swiss Fintech company building a marketplace for blockchain assets including the first mangrove backed “TREE” coin. Through these engagements, positions and networks, Simran is involved in the current dialogue around tackling climate change and consequently translates this into methods and systems that build knowledge and agency amongst children.
He does this by collaborating with the curriculum team at Rangeet on the Ecology Umbrella which explains to children not just HOW to protect nature but WHY they should. Simran completed his B.Sc. in Computer Science from Brown University and worked at J.P. Morgan before setting up and running internationally acclaimed live music venture blueFROG. Simran hopes to establish a framework in which nature and society are at peace.
MY STORY:
Mumbai, my home, is a city of tremendous wealth and poverty. Inequities are prevalent at scale, reflected across the Global South. Teaching at an under-resourced school shone a light on how most children, born into poverty, are victims of a birth lottery, and are in situations they will never find their way out of. Those lucky enough to receive a “decent” education are being taught in the same rote manner of 25-50 years ago.
How will this serve them in a world disrupted by AI and other technologies? How will they be prepared for a world plagued by mental health, societal justice, climate issues? How will they react to the negative narrative of climate change and war while being taught almost irrelevant subject matter at school? How helpless and anxious will they feel?
These are the questions that plagued me as I witnessed children in schools, saw my city’s pristine mangrove coastline and flamingo reserves ravaged and destroyed over the years in the name of progress.
I got involved in funding a mangrove restoration project in the Thor Heyerdahl Climate Park Myanmar. We developed a system of peer-to-peer funding, and with local communities planted 10 million mangrove trees. The local ecosystem flourished. 70% of our planters were women who were uplifted through employment. They saved money and sent their children to school. We started seeing changes in these very marginalised communities. The combination of understanding a problem in my own backyard and bootstrapping a solution in another part of the Global South taught me so much and inspired me to take action.
I realised that if we want to develop agency around mental health, societal injustice, climate change and education itself - we need to change education. And working with local communities I realised that the only way to truly drive change is to understand what the communities actually need and what their pain points are.
With this experience, I lead the development of the Rangeet app working closely with teachers and education service delivery professionals understanding their needs and pain-points. I combine my technology skills and interest to learn from those we serve to develop products they need and will benefit from; importantly learning and solving for the challenges they face: lack of electricity, connectivity and digital literacy.
My background as an entrepreneur and banker have equipped me with the skills to develop sustainable business models, build teams, and understand how to raise capital to meet the needs of growth. This has given us the ability to develop a quality product and curriculum that is being recognised by institutions and organisations such as Hundred.org, BRAC, Brookings and OUP. The government, in select states, is mandating the adoption of Rangeet. We are now moving the education needle in India. Without the ability to fuel our growth, our ideas and hopes will not have come to fruition.
I imagine a world in which nature and society are at peace.
