Deshpande Foundation’s LEad Prayana to inspire innovation among college students

With the aim of ‘unleashing creativity and innovation’ among college students, Deshpande Foundation will roll out ‘LEad Prayana,’ a leadership journey on wheels from January 23.

LEad (LEaders Accelerating Development) programme is the brainchild of Gururaj ‘Desh' Deshpande, a serial entrepreneur, now Chairman of Sparta group in the US.

The journey will cover 1,800 km across Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Dharwad/Hubballi, Belagavi, Sagar, Doddaballapur, Bangaluru, Mysuru, Manipal/Udupi, Dharmasthala and Kuppam will be covered.

“LEad Prayana is targeted at college students and youth in the age group of 18-26 years to help them think big and create companies. The platform also provides opportunities in social commitments, raising funds, managing projects and in getting leadership experience,” said Abhinandan Kavale, LEad Programme Associate at Deshpande Foundation.

As part of the entrepreneurial 14-day journey, participants are expected to hear from 10 inspiring role models, see their extraordinary work, visit eight destinations, take part in panel sessions, explore 12 unique organisations, institutions and industries, and create own groups to share your hands-on, experiential learning.

According to Kavale, the journey kicks off from Hubballi on January 23, and after covering all the 14 destinations and ends at Hubballi on February 6 with an International Conference called ‘Yuva Summit’.

The participants will get a chance to meet and interact with Kailash Satyarthi (Nobel Peace prize winner 2014), N R Narayan Murthy (Chairman Emeritus Infosys), Anshu Gupta (Founder, Goonj), Phanindra Sama (Co-Founder of Redbus.in), Dr Devi Prasad Shetty (Chairman and Founder, Narayana Health), Dr Veerendra Heggade (Dharmadhikari, Dharmasthala), Gururaj ‘Desh’ Deshpande (Chairman Sparta group LLC), Raju Reddy (Co-founder and CEO of Sierra Atlantic), Vivek Pawar (Sankalp Semiconductor, Hubli) and Naveen Jha (CEO, Deshpande Foundation).

While creating LEad, Deshpande had said, “By these initiatives, we are not looking at dramatically changes the society overnight, but a social transformation capable of bringing changes to the society.”