‘Social stock exchange listing will become crucial for NGOs in the years to come’ Premium

While he started off with funding education of school students alongside running his logistics business, he later pivoted to skilling the youth. Bengaluru-based Unnati Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation working towards making Indian youth workforce- ready, became the first NGO to be listed on the NSE and BSE Social Stock Exchange in 2023. 

Ramesh Swamy, Director of Unnati Foundation Bengaluru, was a student at Regional Engineering College – Bhopal (which later became NIT-Bhopal) in 1984, when the Bhopal gas tragedy struck. The college was located far from the disaster site, but Swamy remembers hearing loud sirens and clarion calls in the wee hours of the day. Students, including him, rushed to help.  

“Two children to whom I was giving oxygen passed away,” recollects Swamy, who feels December 3, 1984, changed his life. “Since then, I have always felt like I wanted to do something for society.” 

While he started off with funding education of school students alongside running his logistics business, he later pivoted to skilling the youth. Bengaluru-based Unnati Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation working towards making Indian youth workforce- ready, became the first NGO to be listed on the NSE and BSE Social Stock Exchange in 2023. 

Swamy talks to The Hindu about skilling gap in the country, how the programmes of the foundation aim to bridge this gap and how the social stock exchange could help NGOs.