CrisisAid : A social venture to accelerate disaster response

Overview

CrisisAid aims to help people during the aftermath of a disaster by bridging the gap between the people who need help and the organizations who can provide it. The problem today is that when people try to reach out, they call the helplines like 112 or 108, but due to heavy volume of incoming calls, many calls do not even reach these helplines, and the ones which do connect have at least 10-15 minutes wait time.

CrisisAid

In 2019, series of floods affected 13 states in various states of India, due to excessive rains. At least 200 people died and about a million people were displaced. Karnataka and Maharashtra were the most severely affected states. Millions of food packages and relief material was shipped to the affected areas but the load on the government and non-profit organizations was too high. To help curb the situation, I used an opportunity provided by my SAP for developing a solution to aid the disaster response process. I joined hands with three more colleagues who were willing to work towards this cause and co-founded CrisisAid.
I began talking to numerous stakeholders in the government and non-profit organizations to understand their pain points and their existing processes. After interviewing the stakeholders I identified this problem. Within a period of two weeks my team and I developed a working MVP. The next step was to deploy this solution and see the success by running a pilot. We teamed up with an NGO based in Bangalore and fine-tuned the solution to test the MVP in multiple states in India.

My Journey

As a social entrepreneur I grew a lot professionally and personally. For CrisisAid, I handled all the business aspects and wore multiple hats. I worked with multiple stakeholders in transforming this idea into a viable business. I performed the customer engagements, built product roadmap, conducted competitive analysis, and developed the business model strategy. Personally, this experience has left me feeling more powerful. I now know that with enough will and courage we all can create a positive impact on this world and help transform lives.

My Motivation

My father, Mr. Shailendra Deshmukh was a dedicated BMC officer, I had always seen him work 10 times harder when disasters struck the city of Mumbai. He used to always say that “The greatest work is the work done for the society in the toughest times.”