Movement and growth: new offices, new missions

We opened a new office in Bengaluru (Bangalore). As India’s major IT hub, Bengaluru is now host to Athena’s ICT4D team, a key milestone in our mission to leverage data science for development. Our headquarters in Chennai also underwent an office shift recently, from T. Nagar to Adyar.

Knowledge dissemination: W20, MDDA and MCCI

Athena has also played a key role on national and global platforms this month, both disseminating knowledge and learning from our projects, and participating in fora where our delegates have had a chance to transfer their learnings back to the team. Our Co-founder and Director Deepa Karthykeyan attended the W20 summit in Buenos Aires as an India delegate – the focus of the summit this year was Labor, Rural, Digital and Financial Inclusion.

Our Co-founder and Director Vijay Bhalaki presented at the Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority’s (MDDA) 35th foundation day seminar, focusing on the urban financing landscape. Finally, our Senior Consultant Kowshik Ganesh attended the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (MCCI) Urban Thinker’s Campus, where he presented on the topic “Creating Liveable and Clean Cities”. Here, he presented 3 of Athena’s operating models for Solid Waste Management (SWM) along with a summary of their key takeaways.

Project updates: affordable housing and USISPF

As our expertise in the affordable housing domain grows, we’ve recently contracted and started working on two new projects in Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea. Both projects look at the regulatory contexts and the viability of Public Private Partnership (PPPs) to help underserved groups gain access to suitable housing.

Our project supporting USISPF documenting the impact of US companies on India’s growth drew to a close, this month. The efforts of the team lead to a coffee book, titled “Report of Remarkable Achievements of American Industry in India” was launched at USISPF’s India Leadership Summit. The coffee book was then presented to the Indian Prime Minister by USISPF.