India, April 12 -- How did you first conceptualise the idea of the Swaniti initiative? Where did you draw the idea from?

As a graduate student at Kennedy School, we conceptualised the idea of supporting Parliamentarians at the constituency level. We wanted to bring together the best talent from across India and embed them in rural communities. I envisioned a programme where we could have young people leveraging data and key insights at the grassroot level by working in partnership with parliamentarians. In 2009, we had a few Harvard Graduate school students work with parliamentarians and we noticed that the impact was truly phenomenal. Key insights in the constituencies could be very powerful. After mulling on India for two years, in 201...