I started my career as social worker working in mental health care. For 12 years I worked as director of an NGO developing and providing community-based services for people with mental health problems in Budapest, Hungary. As a manager it was very frustrating to handle uncertainty, seeing the reluctance of our governments to invest into this field and jumping from one grant to another for many many years. Personally, I also felt sort of guilty. Managing this level of uncertainty, serving hundreds of clients, maintaining a team, developing and introducing new services required the same skills as running an enterprise but we were still living on grants provided by donors or burned the taxpayers' money. I wanted to see my organization being more independent and personally I wanted to prove that I am the same way a good manager as those running a successful business or establish a startup. That drove me to social entrepreneurship where I could keep being honest to my values but I could also could prove my managerial skills in a more independent way.
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I am very happy that you use your experience gained in the game industry turning into a very impactful initiative. More and more entrepreneurs and companies decide to do something meaningful with business solution. Your example hopefully will be followed by many.
My entrepreneurial journey started a long time ago after reading the book 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' by Robert Kiyosaki. It gave me some foundational insight into the need to own a business. As the years went by, I acquired a professional degree in Urban Planning and while designing neighborhood and city models and I discovered my passion for 3D designs. This passion led me into the game industry where I later founded my first company, Avena Games a mobile games development company based in Lagos.
Over the years I have participated in some business training from some reputable organizations such as the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Enterprise Development Center amongst others. I also acquired business development and project management skills from managing Avena. My entrepreneurial journey has led me to discover the concept of Social Entrepreneurship and how we could do more as businesses and as entrepreneurs than just making profits and engaging in CSR.
Currently, I am working on a social enterprise, Avena Interactive whose goal is to make interactive learning devices for educationally disenfranchised children to have the opportunity to learn in their mother tongue both within and outside the classroom. And with this, I hope to help bridge the educational inequality gap in Africa.
Congrats dear Nitin for your hard working!!
My story has multiple ups and downs. I completed my bachelors during the year of "Great recession" in 2008 at its peak. I had a college placement but the company was not able to hire me due to the recession, then I got selected in multiple multinational companies but didn’t get to sign a contract letter because of the same situation.
I started working in call-centres, then finally started my professional career from a South-Korea-based multinational company in Mobile, VAS Industry. Later I joined other big companies with larger responsibilities, but unfortunately, I was never satisfied with the positions or salary, my work always gave me a feeling of cheating my customers and after many years of thought I’d quit my job and team, to start some social work.
I started a social venture in 2018 which I enjoyed doing, it filled a void in me and graced me with happiness. I used all my savings to fuel my goal, but later I felt the need for investment if I wanted to grow on a larger scale.
I came to Estonia to learn more about investment-pitching and how I can shape my social enterprise in a better way. Along with that, I am also developing a product to help the Hospitality Industry recover from this COVID19 pandemic and we are heading toward growth very well in India.
Thankyou so much my mentor Zsolt, i appreciate to your support in our journey.
I started my career as an Engineering Assistant in Oil and Gas industry and later on Branding Manager working in marketing communications role. For 10+ years I worked with governmental stakeholders, mostly in educational and training sector, servicing multinationals corporate clients like a communications consultant. As I have always been very excited about project management as the core element of my work, I continue to sharpen my knowledge by learning UX problem solving methodologies that are used and applied presently. The pragmatic side of me prefers to cut the bureaucracy and pursue sustainable processes that generates design that works. That drove me to do what I am doing passionately as a UX designer tackling the challenges for entrepreneurial believers of goods and service providers (especially those with a social dimension).