MOM with a vision

Through the power of stories, Map of Me is helping the youth fulfil their entrepreneurial dreams and become problem solvers, writes Nayare Ali

Her journey began two decades ago when Lisa Heydlauff first visited India. In 1998, when she first moved to Delhi, Lisa was curious to discover ‘how children go to school in India’. While she figured her answer to this elementary question, Lisa’s sojourn into India led her on a deeper quest. In 1997 she relocated to Mumbai. And during her interactions with children from indigent homes, Lisa realised that these talented kids may have the skill to become entrepreneurs but needed the requisite guidance. That is when this proactive founder of Going to School, a creative not-for-profit education trust that makes design-driven stories to teach children and young people skills at school, decided to extend her reach towards this cause. And thus, was born MOM or Map of Me, a channel with a repository of 100 videos featuring talented young entrepreneurs from Bengaluru, Delhi, and Kolkata (currently).

Lisa Heydlauff

The first step

This pan-India initiative will soon be launched in Mumbai and will gradually extend to other tier 2 cities. Lisa wanted to ensure that lower-middle-income group youngsters in India do not have to struggle to set up their own ventures like Lisa did. “I was straight out of college and looking for a job. My family did not have the connections so it was really hard to get a job. So, I unknowingly started my entrepreneurial adventure by designing content for young people. I realised that you don’t even need a lot of resources to begin your venture. I understood that this path was open to millions of young people from low-income groups, if they just took that first step,” recollects Lisa.

In order to give wings to her own dreams, Lisa and her team worked diligently for over a year to create MOM. She zeroed in on the above mentioned three cities as they currently have volunteers in place there.

“These cities became a natural fit for our teams to create a new life plan bringing technology and skills to young people who are offline to enable them to make new school to work-life plans. We selected entrepreneurs for each city based on primarily if they are young women in new sectors, careers, enterprises and problem-solving in the city in new and unique ways,” says Lisa.

The venture though predominantly focuses on a larger female representation. There is a reason. “Because MOM is about women problem-solving in the city in new careers, new roles and new enterprises, mainstreamed for both young men and women to see,” she explains.

Learning all the way

While MOM showcases videos of young achievers, it does not share stories from well-known successful business people. But Lisa has her strategy in place.

“There are a lot of successful stories from business people out there, not enough of them are women and not enough of them are young, so we wanted to flip the success story on its head and say we are all learning, we are all a work in progress, and so we all can do it together,” she reasons.

She is also clear about the traits she seeks in youngsters who feature in her videos. Positivity is the buzzword that makes Lisa take notice.

“We have heard a lot of young people say they can’t do something because they have never done that before. The important thing is to try and when you begin, you will see the magic of the entrepreneurial universe other entrepreneurs will come to help you out,” says Lisa who has the distinction of having been selected as a Young Global Leader, an Ashoka Fellow and a Ted Fellow.

What do all these achievements mean to her? Her answer is not surprising. “They mean that taking risks to do new things can be a good thing after all,” she adds.

Youth participants in the videos

Madhavi Shankar

Madhavi Shankar, 30 is the founder of SpaceBasic, an interactive networking platform, which addresses critical problems like student safety checks and digital data management, open and improved communication channels between all stakeholders within independent student housing communities (SHC) and SHCs in schools and college.

MOM benefits: “The MOM team reached out to me regarding its initiative to create design-driven stories to inspire young minds and help them understand different entrepreneurial ideas and skilled jobs to pursue in their careers. I strongly believe youth empowerment is the need of the hour and was more than happy to contribute to this cause.”

Ayush Gharat (15) is the founder of mNutrition, which helps organisations identify malnourished children on the streets and render help when needed. This is then used to check for malnourishment by using the World Health Organisation’s calculation formula to test the same.

Ayush Gharat

MOM benefits: “I received a call from the MOM’s Mumbai office and was briefed on the work being done by them. What impressed me most was the storytelling through videos of young innovative and intelligent entrepreneurial minds being showcased on the MOM platform. This is when I made up my mind to also be a part of this wonderful initiative.”