IIM Amritsar student honored with the prestigious “National Youth Icon Award 2020″
Amritsar: Indian Institute of Management, Amritsar, student Mr. Jashvanth Naidu Pogiri was bestowed upon with the prestigious “National Youth Icon Award” on 22nd February ’20. This award is given for Excellence in Development Work aimed to raise young people’s profile and highlight the contribution they are making towards developing a fairer, sustainable, peaceful, and prosperous future for the nation.
The National Youth Icon Award gives international, regional, and national recognition and support to those young men and women who have demonstrated young people’s capacity and potential to make positive contributions to their communities, nations, and the world at large. Mr. Jashvanth Naidu, a student of IIM Amritsar – MBA05 batch, on seeing the Ponduru Khadi workers’ plight, decided to work towards their upliftment.
Despite Ponduru Fine Khadi’s popularity, its weavers have been struggling to make ends meet for their families. To ease their troubles and market their products better, Mr. Naidu and his friends decided to create an online platform for marketing their products, as a consequence of which the Ponduru Khadi has now gained fame globally. It emancipated with making a documentary highlighting how the Ponduru Khadi weavers earned a meagre amount of Rs 200 per day despite their superior craftmanship and weaving skills.
“We decided to create an online marketing platform after seeing the dire conditions of the Khadi workers at Ponduru,” said Jaswanth Naidu, adding that the platform (loom2home) is being renovated and will be available with extra web pages. He added that there is a massive demand for Ponduru khadi in Western countries. “We act as facilitators between the khadi workers and customers without expecting any profit. In the international market, middlemen make huge profits by marketing Ponduru khadi. We created the website to eliminate middlemen,” he explained.
“We have involved about 200 selected customers from across the country on the website. They buy cloth worth Rs 10,000 per year. About 50 weavers sell their produce on the website, and we are motivating them to design clothes that meet the demands of youth.” Mr. Jashvanth said. Mr. Naidu added that they are also planning to create a mobile app that would serve as a design bank, including the work of prominent fashion designers.
Mr. Naidu with his remarkable contribution towards betterment of the community and creating a sustainable solution aiming towards solving a crucial community problem, has brought laurels to the Indian Institute of Management, Amritsar.