Growth and Development Platform (GDP) Foundation is a ‘one of a kind’ Trust aimed at promoting cultural collaboration and to speed up working of community systems
The customary pattern when it comes to the formation of any trust would be such that a single person comes forward with an aim to initiate the project thereafter leading to compliance between other trustees. However, what is particularly unique about the formation of the GDP Foundation is that each of the four trustees specialising in the legal, financial, HR and organizational development aspect all came forward to kick-start this foundation.
Speaking further about the distinctiveness of this Trust, Kishore M Shah, the managing trustee of the GDP Foundation says that finding a team of people who specialise in the above stated aspects of social development is a ‘rarest of rare’ happening and more so it was possible because all the trustees, being the core team behind the trust, had similar resonance in the origination of this trust.
The GDP Foundation finds its back-bone in the form of its trustees who are: Kishore M. Shah, (Director, ideaz unlimited), Adv. Ameya Salatry, (Founder of Legal Minds LLP), Sandesh J. Prabhukhanolkar, (Founder, KPT & Associates LLP) and Parag R. Velusker (Professional- HR).
While Kishore Shah is the brain or rather ‘soul’ of the GDP Foundation project, with immense passion for organizational development and talent analytics, Adv. Ameya Salatry is what Shah characterizes as the ‘Legal eagle’ of the foundation. Sandesh Prabhukhanolkar is what Shah labels as the ‘young gun’ at GDPF who contributes to the betterment of the Trust by means of his enormous financial proficiency and exposure to global patrons and Parag Velusker is man behind the HR aspect!
Driven by the desire to reach out to entrepreneurs, the GDP Foundation offers three major verticals, the primary service being ‘SPEED’ i.e. ‘Social Platform for Engagement and Entrepreneurship Development’ that aims at re-shaping and cultivating ideas of social entrepreneurship by collaborating with under graduate students from the varied fields of Arts, Science and Commerce along with added participation of Self Help Groups and industries in a way that it gives rise to consumerist and revenue based ideas; and further creates awareness with respect to CSR in a single attempt with nominal borrowings and investments thus literally ‘speeding’ up the process of entrepreneurship! SPEED focuses on reshaping staffing services especially for women and motivate them to realise their true potential.
Just few of the many real-time instances where SPEED has played a catalytic role include aiding Shaziya Sayyed to achieve her goal of becoming Goa’s premier independent woman labour contractor; encouraging Sunaya Shirodkar to make ‘Asier Solutions’ a unique social startup that deals primarily with ‘robokits’; backing Ujwala Nivekar to take up traditional authentic culinary wonders in the form of ‘Isha Kulfi’ to the next level in the form of a full-fledged startup; mentoring A M J Ramaraju, Arun Singh Rathore and Priyesh Pandey in order to enable their project ‘DroneSena’ to resolve intricate on-field tasks with more competent and precise machinery and technology and many more!
The second service offered by the GDP Foundation is called the ‘CSR Incubator.’ As the title itself suggests, through the CSR Incubator, the foundation acts as a base that helps generate and intensify young businesses by providing them necessary financial and technical sustainability.
Kishore Shah, who also happens to be the Director of ‘ideaz unlimited’ went on to say that ideaz unlimited has to its credit the exceptional merit of pioneering and organizing the first “Goa CSR Awards” back in 2009, with the endeavour of encouraging small, medium and large industries to invest in the thought of CSR and afford absolute support to sustainable CSR in society.
Bearing in mind the transition that Goa has substantially gone through that almost led to the extinction of CSR, the GDP Foundation launched the CSR Incubator so that upcoming ideas in the field of CSR invented by either entrepreneurs, industries, media and corporate bodies, NGOs or philanthropists can be successfully backed by an innovative platform to further the cause of creating bright research opportunities in the form of research publications, projects, consultancy and ideas!
The third social service provided for by the GDP Foundation is the Hope-kart festival. ‘HOPE’ i.e. ‘Habitat Of Passionate Entrepreneurs’ that primarily focuses on showcasing the achievements of bureaucrats and communicate with them with an intent to motivate young guns who want to take their entrepreneurial drive to the next level!
Under the HOPE Kart festival service, the GDP Foundation has tied up with the Goa University and the Directorate of Higher Education and launched the ‘Swachh Bharat Student Internship’ (SBSI) program that principally encourages wide participation in a variety of informative workshops mainly pertaining to strategic planning and implementation that aims at directing a person to the path of sheer excellence.
To quote Adv. Ameya Salatry, “GDPF aims to carry out activities that benefit society in general across various spectrums. GDPF believes that there is a lot of work that needs to be carried out to fill the gap between industries and social beneficiaries. We at GDPF envisage that our commitment towards this cause will have far reaching effects by working with stakeholders to achieve this objective.”
“GDPF is a bridge that helps solve social problems by providing necessary incubation to social entrepreneurs and channelling CSR opportunities to the deserving ones. We, as individuals, desire work satisfaction in every field of operation and HDPF has rightfully given me that opportunity,” says Parag Velusker.
“What fascinates me about the GDPF is its active role in employment creation for the nation. At GDPF, we look forward to achieve our social objective by creating maximum employment for the ones who truly warrant entrepreneurial prosperity,” opines Sandesh Prabhukhanolkar.
All in all, in the words of Shah, the GDPF experience is like ‘driving in the dark’ wherein one cannot see the entire road ahead but can only perceive what the headlight shows the driver! Once you have made it to that point, the light will show you the path ahead and so on and so forth!
In other words, it is a step by step process thus facilitating and fuelling the growth and development phenomena with a strong focus to bring in societal change through instruments of Corporate Social Responsibility
