00:00:00 – 00:00:09 Nitin Bajaj

Hey everyone, welcome to The INDUStry Show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj, and joining me today is Aashish Beergi. Aashish, welcome on the show.

00:00:09 – 00:00:12 Aashish Beergi

Thank you, Nitin. It’s great to be here with you.

00:00:12 – 00:00:15 Nitin Bajaj

It’s great to have you here. Let’s start with who is Aashish.

00:00:17 – 00:00:44 Aashish Beergi

I am an entrepreneur. I’ve been working in the social impact space for over 15 years now. I started as a young change maker who was always curious and passionate about solving for local problems, local issues. And over the last few years, I think I had a great pleasure to work with some very interesting like-minded people. And yeah, I’m still very curious and figuring out new problems to solve every day.

00:00:45 – 00:01:03 Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Now, I’m always curious about why people do the things they do. And amongst the many different things that you could have done, why MASH? And obviously, I want to know, I want people to know what MASH is. But start with the why.

00:01:05 – 00:01:20 Aashish Beergi

I think that’s a very good question, Nitin. Growing up in India, and I’m from Delhi, my parents both worked in the government. So we’re from a pretty middle-class background. So I think there’s always a big focus on academic learning. And same for us, most of the parents are.

00:01:20 – 00:01:49 Aashish Beergi

I think while I did pretty decent, I wouldn’t say excellent, but I did pretty decent on academics. But I was very interested in extracurriculars and various other interests, right? So I think I very early realized, probably when I was in between my 13 to 15 years of age, that especially in India, given there is such a humongous amount of interesting opportunities that are emerging, we can’t just have a one particular linear approach to doing things, right?

00:01:50 – 00:02:28 Aashish Beergi

So I think I was fortunate that I had met a school counselor who saw some potential, leadership, curiosity, problem solving, those kind of 21st-century skills, as we call it, right? And because she was able to guide me and I got involved in a lot of extracurriculars, and then over the years, within my school time, became a part of the leadership team at the student body. So I realized that if I was so hellbent on that I need to only academically excel to be able to do, I would have been probably not been best at doing so many other things. So I think that was my early initial learning.

00:02:28 – 00:02:50 Aashish Beergi

So the big why of what I do today comes from stemming from that idea that we need to really help people discover their talents and then connect them with the right kind of what we call as 3Cs. And maybe I’ll talk a little more about what we do at MASH is the right kind of community. So when you meet the right people, you get a lot of ideas, you get support, you build collaboration.

00:02:50 – 00:03:05 Aashish Beergi

Second, you need to invest in their capacities. And third is to really help get theirs communicate their stories. So capacity, community, capacity, communications. So the big why comes from growing up, figuring out things myself, and that made a huge difference.

00:03:06 – 00:03:25 Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Now, obviously, tell us a little more about MASH Global. I love to understand the impact of the work one does. Give us a sense of the impact, the geographies, the beneficiaries you’ve been able to help and serve.

00:03:26 – 00:03:57 Aashish Beergi

Sure. MASH started, I’ve been an entrepreneur before this. I did for the first venture was in waste management. And that was started as a small college project, turned into a social enterprise. And with support of a few good large orgs and the CSR mandate in India, which is a corporate social responsibility, which, and those maybe some of the viewers who are not aware, is that 2% of your net profit, some of the large corporates which come under that compliance, have to give for social purposes, social causes. So that really opened up a lot of opportunity to work on different mandates.

00:03:57 – 00:04:37 Aashish Beergi

So I think the, I was passionate about waste because I think that’s again a big large problem in India at multiple levels. So we created the concept of decentralized model of waste management, which basically focuses on treating your waste within a certain geography of your home and offices. So the waste does not go to large, big landfills, right? So I think that early exposure to building a solution and creating an enterprise, and then we had a support from large, few large orgs, so then they took that model and scaled up, was very instrumental in helping me realize that you need to have a multi-stakeholder approach in solving for the problems.

00:04:37 – 00:04:53 Aashish Beergi

So when the initial ideas of MASH kind of started with that you have to look at mapping the right partners and linking them with the kind of entrepreneurs, change makers who are coming up with innovative solutions. So those were the early days of MASH.

00:04:53 – 00:05:20 Aashish Beergi

I think over the, now last few years, we have also scaled ourselves in different geographies. We have quite a few international partners, but the idea remains the same that we are looking at constantly what help organizations partner, collaborate, what helps them build their capacities, what helps them tell their stories better so that they can really scale their work, this impact with their communities faster and do it better. Yeah.

00:05:20 – 00:05:36 Nitin Bajaj

I love that. Now, as you work across a myriad of organizations, regulations, geographies, I’m sure you come across many different challenges. What’s the one that you would like to call out?

00:05:37 – 00:06:20 Aashish Beergi

I think in terms of the challenges, well, there might be many, but probably one of the biggest challenges at an individual level when I work with so many young entrepreneurs is lack of persistence. I fundamentally do believe things get done. It may take some time, it may take a lot of effort, it might need creative, innovative approaches. It may not give us the same result. We might use different sort of ways to get to a particular outcome, not the result, but an outcome, because an outcome, it could be better than what you imagine, envision, but if you’re committed to a particular cause. So persistence is very critical. And in the age of AI, we’re getting too impatient for quick outcomes for many things. So that’s definitely one.

00:06:20 – 00:07:07 Aashish Beergi

Second is, I think at a larger global level, all of us are seeing there’s a lot of different shifts that are happening geopolitically, technologically. So there are a lot of these shifts that are happening and moving. So one big challenge is to really understanding that what is going to be the future of work, future of jobs, future of our economy, right? And that’s creating a lot of, I think, uncertainty among especially young people and organizations, right? So I think that’s something that as an organization, we are also constantly working on, that what creates a certain capacity for resiliency among people. And at the same time, coming back to the what I told, allows more and more people to collaborate and learn from each other.

00:07:07 – 00:07:55 Aashish Beergi

So I think we’re creating spaces like these, Nitin, and I know I had a great honor, an opportunity to meet you and a few of other like-minded leaders recently in New York, where we hosted India Impact House, and which is one of our fairly new initiatives, which we started about seven, eight months ago in London, in Oxford with Cold World Forum. Then we took the forum to Singapore during the Philanthropy Asia Summit, then London Climate Action Week in Delhi, and then now in New York. And the idea of India Impact House is to create a convening space for like-minded organizations who are doing good work in India or are focused on doing good work in India and bring them on the sidelines of these global moments or global large gatherings of leaders, right? So I think that’s also creating a lot of these spaces for interesting ideas to exchange.

00:07:55 – 00:08:20 Aashish Beergi

And we’re putting a lot of thought in terms of how do we make it more curated, how do we create mechanisms for tracking progress of certain action and so on and so forth, right? So yeah, I know that might be a long answer to your very simple question, but we need to figure out more creative ways to really find more spaces for where organizations partner, collaborate better, right?

00:08:21 – 00:08:33 Nitin Bajaj

And congratulations and kudos to you again on your very successful India Impact House. Great venue, great execution, great minds that you and the team brought together.

00:08:33 – 00:08:33 Aashish Beergi

Thank you.

00:08:33 – 00:08:37 Nitin Bajaj

So it’s, I know you’re just getting started with this.

00:08:37 – 00:08:37 Aashish Beergi

Thank you.

00:08:37 – 00:08:51 Nitin Bajaj

And it’ll be bigger and better as this continues. So I’m super excited about that. Now, on the flip side of challenges come opportunities. What’s the one you’re most excited about?

00:08:51 – 00:09:25 Aashish Beergi

Interesting. I think AI definitely is opening up a lot of, while it’s also posing certain challenges and uncertainties, it’s also, no doubt, creating a lot of opportunities. It’s a great enabler where we see for access to information, access to getting things done at a speed which was not imagined, at the cost which was not imagined earlier, right? So how do we really build capacities for organizations, especially small, medium orgs, who are doing a lot of grassroots work in really looking at how AI builds their capacities to do better with those communities?

00:09:25 – 00:09:53 Aashish Beergi

I think with the larger organizations, there will always be access to talent, access to capital to deploy at a certain scale. But how do we take the benefits of AI to grassroots is what I’m particularly excited about. We’re working with a few partners in India, Magic Bus Foundation, which works on skilling of young people. We’re working with Sambhav, which is again looking at, looking at future of work and doing a lot of work with women and young girls.

00:09:53 – 00:10:09 Aashish Beergi

We’re working with Digital Green, which is again a US-based nonprofit, but a lot of our work, a lot of their work is in India, Africa, and Southeast Asia now. So they’re looking at agriculture outcomes and enabling more flowers. So I think that’s the space. A lot of interesting work is happening.

00:10:09 – 00:10:34 Aashish Beergi

Even the Gates Foundation, while we were in New York, announced a very large collaboration of 60 plus orgs coming together and making AI more language ready to the last mile. So a lot of interesting work, Nitin. And if again, some of your users who are entrepreneurs or who are aspiring to be entrepreneurs, and they’re looking at something at the nexus of impact, I don’t think there is a more exciting time than this where opportunities are tremendous, right? So yeah.

00:10:35 – 00:10:49 Nitin Bajaj

I agree 100%. And now as we look into the future, I’d like to take this moment to pause and reflect. And I’d love for you to share two moments. One where things did not work out as you had expected.

00:10:49 – 00:10:50 Aashish Beergi

Yeah.

00:10:50 – 00:10:59 Nitin Bajaj

There was disappointment, failure, lessons, and another where things exceeded your expectations and there was success beyond your imagination.

00:11:01 – 00:11:35 Aashish Beergi

Very interesting. I love to share this with a lot of my colleagues, a lot of my, you know, fellow, I would say, batchmates from school, colleges, a lot of young people who look, seek out any kind of advice, right? And probably I’ll tie it to my point regarding persistence, right? So I think, like I said, growing up or at any stage of life, we’ve had our own set of expectations and ideas of life where we want to be and doing what, right? And not everything goes as per plans, right? So I think this capacity of being resilient and agile is very critical, is what I believe.

00:11:36 – 00:11:55 Aashish Beergi

And one of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs is that he said that you cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only think about when you, how they got connected over a course of time, and they do connect. So having that belief that the universe has got a plan if things are not happening the way you would want always helps you navigate, right?

00:11:55 – 00:12:37 Aashish Beergi

So I think just talking about one such instance is that during my high school, when I graduated, there was a particular kind of college I wanted to go, particular course I wanted to pursue. And again, it’s a big milestone in your life, right? For your undergrad and all the time you’ve prepared for it and you were pretty prepared. But there was a small policy change that happened that particular year, which kind of, you know, had a fairly unfair advantage to a certain group of students who have taken certain subjects which are additional, right? And put certain at a disadvantage. While they might have their fair share of reasoning, but it was just happened where you did not have that opportunity to go back and take those additional subjects, right?

00:12:37 – 00:13:04 Aashish Beergi

So I was really disappointed because this, all this while I was pretty clear about a certain college, certain program, and I was doing pretty well on my mock exams and tests and all of that, right? So it was, I would do feel it was quite a low point in my life at that point. And I thought I’ll drop in here, I’ll take the additional subjects and apply next year, right? But I was also just, my parents were like, don’t take chance, at least apply for a few other institutes, other options. But we can, of course, come back to this.

00:13:04 – 00:13:32 Aashish Beergi

So I happened to get through where I did my undergrad from, from Delhi. That was Jamia Malia Islamia. I did in business management. And I think now that happened to be one of the best things that have happened in that new course because Jamia was a fantastic place. It gave me a lot of interesting opportunities, very different kind of cultural exposure, and a lot of open time to be experimental, doing things, right? And I think generally the ecosystem was very supportive as well.

00:13:32 – 00:14:02 Aashish Beergi

So I felt like that allowed me to build my own enterprise and the waste management project I spoke about started actually there. So the idea came there, the spot came there. And I think when I look back, there’s a lot of great things happened, probably wouldn’t have happened if I would have gotten to my earlier option because that would have been very heavy on or more academically demanding in a certain manner or more competitive, right? So that takes a lot of mind space and doing, be able to do things out of the box, right? So that definitely was one big such moment.

00:14:02 – 00:14:34 Aashish Beergi

In terms of accomplishment, if I think about, I think COVID was also a fairly initial few months were very challenging. I was in Singapore, I was doing my master’s at NUS, I did my public policy there, and Singapore was quite strict about it, which was also great, but for a lot of our students, it restricted in how much we could go out, be in classrooms, meet more people, right? At the same time, I was running MASH, was still in its very initial phase, right? So it was quite challenging to keep it afloat. A lot of our programs were impacted, right?

00:14:34 – 00:15:01 Aashish Beergi

But I think one thing I would want to definitely leave, you know, probably the audience of this discussion of this podcast is that among uncertainties and among challenges, there’s always a big opportunity just will take its time. So you have to look at that slight bit of ray of sunshine there that what can we solve, which open new kind of avenues, right? So I think COVID allowed us to move a pivot to a lot of our digital work.

00:15:01 – 00:15:42 Aashish Beergi

We launched a campaign called the COVID Action, which basically enabled more innovators to really put out their innovations around solving for COVID and various other effects of COVID. So we created a discovery platform and we did a big campaign around a lot of things around misinformation, disinformation, mental health, careers, which are affecting to a lot of our audience, right? So that campaign won us an award from the Gates Foundation called the Goalkeepers Global Goals Award, which is their annual award in New York on the sidelines of UN General Assembly. So they award one global leader and one three young leaders every year in New York.

00:15:42 – 00:16:15 Aashish Beergi

And I think that award was quite a turning point in our journey in terms of recognizing our work, putting us on a global map in the development space, and then opening a lot of doors for new partnerships and collaboration. In fact, a lot of ideas that what we do with India Impact House has been built because of those exposures that came along with the recognition like with the Gates Foundation. So I think while COVID had its own fair share of we were solving what problems we could solve, the work found its attention with a few of our partners who recommended us for that award and it helped us to get through.

00:16:15 – 00:16:41 Aashish Beergi

So yeah, I think, and but we don’t have to tire ourselves that we are doing X activity because we have to get certain kind of recognition or award or XYZ. It’s, if you’re solving for problems, if your intention is in the right place, I think the universe finds its way of definitely like incentivizing its own manner and helping you push your journey further ahead, right? Yeah.

00:16:41 – 00:16:47 Nitin Bajaj

So true and so very well said. Now, changing gears a little bit, what do you do for fun?

00:16:49 – 00:17:09 Aashish Beergi

Both my wife and I are quite passionate about traveling. Both of us work together. So whenever we get an opportunity, we combine our work, travel, and maybe extend it by wherever time allows a little bit to explore culture. We also love to explore new coffee places, find interesting books to read.

00:17:10 – 00:17:32 Aashish Beergi

And also lately, and she was just completing her MBA at Oxford, that’s where we picked up learning to play new sports. We went for this summer MBA Olympics kind of a thing called Embatt in Paris, which was hosted by HEC Paris. So I think that was quite fun. And now we’re picking up on whatever sports that we learned during that course now, want to take that forward.

00:17:32 – 00:17:46 Aashish Beergi

So yeah, but I think our work itself is a lot of fun. We get to meet such amazing people like yourself and others. So we enjoy it so much that I don’t think we really feel the need to do anything apart. But of course, it’s also important.

00:17:46 – 00:17:48 Aashish Beergi

So we definitely enjoy those things, right? Yeah.

00:17:48 – 00:17:53 Nitin Bajaj

That’s great to hear. You mentioned books. Is there one that is a favorite and you want to share?

00:17:54 – 00:18:14 Aashish Beergi

Absolutely. So growing up, and again, I’m a big believer of entrepreneurs and what kind of difference that they make to society, right? While I’m a huge fan of many successful entrepreneurs, but Richard Branson was somebody who I grew up, and as a young person, he’s kind of fascinating personality. He does things out of the box.

00:18:15 – 00:18:33 Aashish Beergi

So I read his book, which was his autobiography called Losing My Virginity. And it was a book about how he really went beyond unconventional means at a very young age to do interesting things, right? So for anybody who’s starting young and new, I think that’s the book I definitely recommend.

00:18:33 – 00:18:53 Aashish Beergi

I also had a great opportunity to meet Bill Gates a few months ago while he was in Delhi for the AI Summit. And he hosted a few of us over a closed-door discussion. We spent an hour with him, which was very surreal, interesting, and a great opportunity. And he gave us a signed copy of his new book called The Source Code. I’ve been also reading that.

00:18:53 – 00:19:08 Aashish Beergi

So there’s a lot of interesting lessons which he shared from his both personal lives and professional lives and how those lessons have been instrumental, right? So I think these two books, and I’m also a firm believer of a very strategic, systematic way of approaching things and thinking.

00:19:08 – 00:19:33 Aashish Beergi

So John Doerr, a very successful venture capitalist from the Bay Area, also founded the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford. He’s talked about OKRs and how do you apply these objective and key results in your personal life, in your professional life, and also how do you use them solving problems. So I think that’s been really helpful in structuring a lot of the work that I do and been also talking to a lot of fellow entrepreneurs about that, right?

00:19:33 – 00:19:42 Nitin Bajaj

Now, onto my favorite part of the show, we call this the one-line life lessons. And Aashish, I would love for you to share your life lessons with us.

00:19:42 – 00:20:05 Aashish Beergi

One-line life lessons. There are quite a few, but if I have to think off the top of my mind, one thing is always be curious about people. People are definitely keen to learn more, hear you out, build that sort of relationship if you are telling them less about yourself, but curious to learn more about them. That’s for sure number one.

00:20:05 – 00:20:25 Aashish Beergi

Second is in terms of, I think integrity is very critical, right? And that shows up in small things of your life, right? So one thing I learned, and I did this very interesting course called the Landmark Forum a few years ago. Not sure how many of you have heard of it, but do look up the Landmark Forum. It’s a three-day program. It really talks about looking at these blind spots in your areas.

00:20:25 – 00:20:39 Aashish Beergi

And one of the things that really talk teach you is how do you keep your word, right? Or even if you’re not able to, how do you communicate and be in a process? So that frees up mentally a lot of things. So being practicing integrity is very critical, right?

00:20:39 – 00:21:07 Aashish Beergi

Third is dreaming big. I’m a very firm believer that your goals have to be something like what you call that big audacious hairy goals, right? So I think it’s very important that every day you wake up, you look for solving something for which is larger than life, right? For me currently is, I have a 20-year vision. We are talking about making India a developed country, Viksit Bharat 2047. 20 years is not a lot, right?

00:21:07 – 00:21:23 Aashish Beergi

So the every morning we’re looking at something about what will help us get there, what can we do in our individual capacity, but how can we mobilize, engage, enable more people? So a lot of work is happening on that particular front, right? So big dream big, right?

00:21:24 – 00:21:51 Aashish Beergi

Fourth would be, you know, starting small. Sometimes when we have these big goals, we think about we have to achieve a certain age milestone or a particular, while it’s important to have those goals and build a strong foundation of stability. But you can think of what will help me get me there if I start small today, right? So those baby steps make big difference if you look at over a long period of time.

00:21:51 – 00:22:15 Aashish Beergi

And fifth is action. Act now, right? So what we don’t have to really delay what will help us get there to someday, right? So it’s all about taking action towards your goals, right? It could be as simple as it is just writing down your thoughts, revisiting them once a week, connecting with maybe one or two people who you think and might help you, right?

00:22:16 – 00:22:24 Aashish Beergi

So yeah, I think these five things I would say has been my five mantras or five big things if I think of really helped me, right?

00:22:25 – 00:22:54 Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Thanks for sharing those, but also thank you for making the time to share your journey, your story, and for most importantly, being you and helping make a big change around us. You’ve been doing that for many years and I know you’re just getting started. So Aashish, thank you so much for whatever you do for our country, our citizens, our community. Really appreciate it.

00:22:55 – 00:23:06 Aashish Beergi

Thank you so much, Nitin. It’s been a true pleasure speaking to you this today and look forward to seeing how these conversations inspire more people and how we can also collaborate and suppor