Varun Shrivastava
Varun Shrivastava is an Indian social reformer focused on education. He is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur. Shrivastava has received several awards including the "Young Alumni Achiever Award" conferred upon him by his alma mater.
Varun Shrivastava is working with NTPC Limited, a Maharatna PSU in India as a Deputy General Manager. He is the founder of UPAY, a non-profit working for underprivileged children. He is trained CSR Professional from IICA and a keynote motivational speaker. He pioneered the concept of footpathshala through this organization. It aims to replace begging bowls with books and bring schools to those who cannot reach school. UPAY has reached 9 states, operating 46 education centers. It has impacted the lives of thousands of children helping them move beyond begging.
Alongside he came up with an idea to make their families self-sustaining and hence, came up with an online e-commerce platform for them to sell handmade goods.
Early life
Varun was born in an farmer family in Shahjahanpur village of Jhansi District in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. He was He attended a primary school in his village and later moved to Chirgaon, to complete his secondary school education from Saraswati Vidya Mandir, Chirgaon. He studied instrumentation engineering at IIT Kharagpur. He has done his MBA from NIIMS University.He credits his mother with imparting values to him as a child that helped him develop. Shrivastava was deeply moved by the predicament of children begging at traffic signals. Eventually, this gave him the impetus to start a movement for equitable education for every child.
Career
He interned as a Research Trainee at Telephonica in Madrid, Spain for 3 months. He pursued his passion of teaching in his college town.NTPC Limited
After graduating from college, he joined NTPC, Mouda as an Executive Engineer. He worked as Deputy General Manager in NTPC Ltd.Under Privileged Advancement by Youth (UPAY)
UPAY was created in 2010 by Shrivastava and two friends in Kumbhari village near Nagpur, Maharastra. Prioneering the concept of “footpathshala” he came to be known as “A Man turning Footpaths into Schools”.Footpathshala
He started this initiative in October 2015. It's an open school that runs on footpaths and provides basic education to street children.Footpathshaala operates Nagpur, Pune, Gurugram, Delhi, Noida, Bangalore, and Mouda. Hundreds of poor children get a basic education. 30% of them enroll in schools.