Skollar 2007/08
This June (2009) Dhruv Lakra was named as an Echoing Green fellow for his organisation, Mirakle Couriers. Echoing Green is a non-profit investment company that awards annual development fellowships to social entrepreneurs. Dhruv's winning idea is as unique as it is successful. After graduating from the Saïd Business School in 2008 with an Oxford MBA,
Dhruv set up Mirakle Couriers, a full-service courier company offering delivery and tracking services to clients in Mumbai that is staffed entirely by deaf employees. He got his innovative company up and running with a combination of his own savings and angel capital. He started with a single employee and five months on he now has a team of 35.
Performing all delivery and back office functions, his team communicate with each other and their clients through the use of SMS text messages, sign language and rigorous job training. In addition to providing job training, Mirakle Couriers provides life skills instruction for its employees including personal financial management.
Dhruv got his innovative company up and running with a combination of his own savings and angel capital. He started with a single employee and five months on he now has a team of 35.
India has one of the world's largest deaf populations and 66 percent of them are unemployed. Mirakle Couriers aims to create meaningful and sustainable employment opportunities for low-income deaf adults in India, thus increasing their social status, standard of living and making them economically independent
Born in the war-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir in India, Dhruv Lakra moved to Mumbai for his higher education and earned his Bachelors in Commerce from HR College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai University. He completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Social Enterprise Management at South Indian Education Society, College of Management Studies, where he was recognised as the Most Enterprising Student.
Dhruv began his career in investment banking with Merrill Lynch Mumbai, in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department. After two years, he moved to Dasra, then a small non-profit start-up with a mission to professionalise the non-profit sector through management skills. Dhruv's background in both investment banking and non-profit, led him to recognise the power of business for social change. He decided to do an MBA to learn about organisational models that blend social and financial return. He chose the Saïd Business School because of its strong focus on social entrepreneurship and the opportunity to become a Skoll Scholar, which he achieved in 2007/2008.
Dhruv has been awarded the Echoing Green fellowship, $60,000 in seed funding and technical support that will turn his innovative idea into a scaled up sustainable social change organisation. The company's mission is to take the lead in employing deaf adults and aims to employ up to 2 percent of deaf/hearing impaired adults in every Indian city. Mirakle Couriers seeks to become the number one employer for low-income deaf adults, generating employment for over 10,000 members of India's deaf community.