In this episode we meet Sumitra Pasupathy, who is the Global Partnerships Director at Ashoka. Ashoka is absolutely legendary in the world of social entrepreneurship. And it's based on the idea that the most powerful force for good in the world is a social entrepreneur. Sumi is a social entrepreneur and the Co-founder and Director of Playeum, an innovative education content and service provider centered on creativity for children and families based in Singapore. Sumitra was most recently the Program Lead for The Changemaker Journey, a six-month capacity-building pilot program led by Ashoka and funded by Google.org, benefitting 28 non-profit organizations from India, Indonesia and Singapore, aimed at fast-tracking digital adoption and tech-based solutions as they pivot the way they work.

Today I have a very special guest for you dialling in from Bangkok, Thailand. She leads the incubation programs for young entrepreneurs in over 24 countries at the Youth Co:Lab, an initiative co-led by the UNDP Asia-Pacific and Citi Foundation to economically empower the next generation in the region, through youth entrepreneurship and government innovation.

Prior to joining the United Nations Development Programme, she founded various tech startups and social enterprises to economically empower the marginalised, and mobilised the youth to travel and learn. She studied business and soon realised the power of technology when managing companies, hence later learnt to become a front-end developer, then emerged to be a software consultant to develop analytics solutions for international corporates. She has a deep passion for future skills education and financial inclusion for women, and is always intrigued to learn about new ways to advance development through her travels.