The Akshaya Patra Foundation held its virtual gala – Technology for Change, and raised $950,000 for feeding mid-day meals to school children in India. The event was attended by over 1,000 businesses, non-profits, government officials and philanthropic leaders from around the world. The evening saw celebrated volunteers and chapter teams from Austin, Dallas, and Houston. The event also saw a conversation with Narayana Murthy, Chairman Emeritus of Infosys by Siva Sivaram, President of Western Digital. Mr Sivaram was recently appointed Chairman of Akshaya Patra Foundation USA with Srivatsan Rajan, Partner at Bain & Company, as Vice Chairman.
Established in 2000, Akshaya Patra is the largest NGO-run school meal program in the world and serves 1.8 million children daily in over 19,257 schools through 55 kitchens in 12 states and two Union Territories in India. It costs only $20 to feed a child for an entire school year. Akshaya Patra not only provides food to the children suffering from hunger in India but also works to promote education in them. Siva Sivaram has recently been appointed the chairman of Akshaya Patra Foundation America. The current Vice-Chairman is Srivatsan Rajan.
Currently, this organization is providing food to schools in rural areas in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh. Around 1 lakh 50 thousand in Gujarat, 1 lakh 30 thousand in Rajasthan, 2 lakh 30 thousand in Bengaluru, 1 lakh 81 thousand students in Hubli and 3 thousand pregnant women in Bengaluru are getting benefit from this organization. The government is bearing Rs 3 out of 5 rupees per student meal and in addition to donations received at ISKCON temple in Bangalore, the program is being run on an average 235 days a year in collaboration with entrepreneurs and NGOs.
