Astha Agrawal

Project Associate, APAAR

Astha has over half a decade of experience in the development sector. She has worked across the different players of the ecosystem. Her larger inspiration comes from working towards democratisation of social welfare (resources, policies, tools and technologies) reaching the last mile.

In both part-time and full-time capacities, she has worked with organisations across the spectrum, ranging from NGOs (Kotak Education Foundation, Teach For India, Barefoot, IndiVillage, Aafaaq), intermediaries (Atma, Social Lens, XLeap), to CSRs and Philanthropies (EdelGive Foundation).

Starting her career as a Teach For India Fellow, she strengthend her understanding of the realities of the disadvantaged section of the society and connected with the communities at a deeper level. This helped her to understand their challenges, and aspirations towards bridging educational inequity.

With her role in the The GROW Fund, a first-of-its-kind-pool-fund initiative to make NGOs sustainable, resilient, and future ready, she directed the organisation development efforts for 100 grassroots organisations from sectors spanning education, women empowerment, livelihoods, climate, health, etc. across India, through capacity strengthening workshops and building LMS for NGOs.

In her most recent engagement with the Kotak Education Foundation, one of the largest NGO in the education sector, she worked in the Strategy function, guiding organisational strategy and represented the impact to the donor and government stakeholders.

She pursues a strong creator energy and thrive the best as an enabler. She loves all things art (pottery, poetry, painting, storytelling) and hey, if you think about mental and physical fitness, she is your go-to person!