Anukriti Jain

2021 - 2022

Legatum Fellow

From:

India

Sector:

Financial Services

Location:

India

Degree:

IDM, School of Engineering

Anukriti’s Venture, Samarth WasteEnablers, is formalizing the waste management sector by empowering Waste Enablers (Waste Pickers) with better-regularized rates for the recyclables using digital currency. The venture provides Waste Enablers with a seamless experience of buying daily-use items using digital currency in form of a card. This will bring unbanked Waste Pickers into a formal system and provide Waste Enablers with economic mobility as they take advantage of various financial products including loans and insurance. Simultaneously, the venture will contribute to the circular economy as Waste Enablers remove plastic from the environment and transfer its value to their communities.

Anukriti’s inspiration for her venture came from completing an ambitious train journey called Jagriti Yatra. She traveled 5,000 miles on a train for 15 days with 500 entrepreneurs immersing herself in deep meaningful conversations around local social and environmental problems. This journey took her to remotest villages of India to understand the role of social enterprises in solving problems at the grassroots level. Following this experience, she got involved in various sustainability projects and became interested in solving the waste management problem using her prior experience in fintech.

Anukriti has experience in building fintech products in India working with leading fintech startups like Indialends and Finomena. She has also worked with ConservationX labs as a fellow where she assisted them in designing the Microplastics Challenge to address plastic microfiber pollution. Anukriti earned a Bachelor’s in Engineering and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Engineering Management (IDM) from MIT School of Engineering and Sloan School of Management.