From teaching visually impaired children while working in IT to advancing vocational skills and grassroots entrepreneurship, Gaurav Arora is working to make education a pathway to opportunity for young people.
Growing up in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, Gaurav Arora followed a familiar route to professional success. He studied electronics engineering and joined Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as an IT professional in 2004. But an experience outside his corporate career gradually changed the direction of his work.
While living in Mumbai, Arora began volunteering at the Victoria Memorial School for the Blind in Tardeo, teaching English to visually impaired children on weekends. Drawing on his technical background, he also explored ways to introduce them to computers.
The experience exposed him to the possibilities of social work and development, fields he had not considered as career options while growing up. After around two years in IT, he moved into TCS’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) team before eventually transitioning to the development sector.
Today, as Co-CEO & Director of Salaam Bombay Foundation, Arora works towards a larger goal: helping young people from resource-constrained communities build the skills, confidence and opportunities needed to improve their lives and break the cycle of poverty within a single generation.
From Tobacco Prevention To A Broader Vision For Young People
Founded by Padmini Sekhsaria in 2002, Salaam Bombay Foundation initially focused on preventing tobacco use among school children in Mumbai. Arora explained that conversations between Sekhsaria and oncologist Dr. Sultan Pradhan helped shape the organisation’s prevention-first approach, particularly the importance of reaching children before tobacco use became established.
Instead of relying solely on conventional awareness campaigns, the foundation used theatre, storytelling, arts and cultural activities to engage students. Its Super Army programme encouraged school children to highlight the ill-effects of tobacco while developing life skills and leadership abilities.
However, working closely with schools and communities revealed challenges extending beyond tobacco prevention. Many children were dropping out of school, while those who completed their education often struggled to find clear pathways into employment.
The Foundation began expanding its work to address these gaps, introducing vocational training and other skill-development opportunities alongside its health and life-skills programmes.
“The vision of the organisation has evolved,” Arora explained during the interview. While the early focus was on keeping children in school and helping them envision a future, the broader ambition is now to help young people and their families break the cycle of poverty within a single generation.
Why Vocational Skills Need To Be Part Of Education
One of the challenges Arora highlighted is the perception that formal education and vocational training are separate, unequal pathways.
In many communities, vocational training is viewed as a fallback for students who have dropped out of school or are unable to pursue conventional academic routes. This can leave young people and their families reluctant to consider skills-based careers, even when those skills could help them become financially independent.
Arora believes this approach needs to change. Rather than introducing vocational training only after a young person leaves school, he argues that skill development should be integrated into the education journey, particularly during secondary schooling.
The aim is to help students understand different career possibilities before completing Class 10, allowing them to make informed choices about their futures.
The Foundation’s approach combines education, life skills and vocational exposure so that young people can recognise the value of practical skills without feeling that they have been pushed into a less desirable alternative.
For Arora, the larger challenge is not simply providing training. It is making skills-based careers aspirational and ensuring that young people have the confidence and opportunities to pursue them.
Dolphin Tanki: Supporting Grassroots Entrepreneurs
Salaam Bombay Foundation’s work has also expanded towards entrepreneurship, particularly for young people who want to start small businesses in their neighbourhoods and villages.
Arora explained that young people who learn photography, video editing, beauty services and other vocational skills may begin earning an income but still need support to turn those abilities into sustainable businesses.
To address this gap, the Foundation developed the Entrepreneurship Incubator and introduced Dolphin Tanki, a platform that allows young entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas and seek seed funding.
Arora described it as a grassroots alternative to Shark Tank, designed around a more nurturing approach to entrepreneurship. The platform gives young people an opportunity to present practical business ideas, including photography services, bakeries, mobile repair ventures and beauty-related businesses.
The funding requirements are often modest compared with those of conventional startups. According to Arora, some entrepreneurs need around ₹50,000 to establish or expand their businesses.
The objective is to help young people build livelihoods within their own communities rather than assuming that entrepreneurship requires large investments or access to elite business schools.
Arora shared that approximately 750 to 800 young people had been connected with the Foundation’s entrepreneurship initiatives. Around 150 young entrepreneurs had pitched their business ideas through Dolphin Tanki, and 112 had received seed-funding support.
According to the impact figures he shared, the incomes of entrepreneurs who received funding increased by approximately 2.5 to three times. These figures reflect the Foundation’s reported experience with the programme.
For young people who may not have access to formal business education, such initiatives offer an opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills, test their ideas and work towards financial independence.
Reaching Communities Beyond Cities
The Foundation’s work extends beyond urban communities. Arora referred to initiatives in Dindori in Maharashtra’s Nashik district and villages in the Chamarajanagar region of Karnataka, illustrating the organisation’s engagement with rural communities as well.
He said Salaam Bombay Foundation had cumulatively reached approximately 7.5 lakh young people, with its programmes benefiting around 55,000 to 60,000 people annually. The Foundation’s skilling programme was expected to reach more than 10,000 people during the year discussed in the interview.
Arora also said the organisation was working across roughly seven states and nine cities, with programmes spanning Maharashtra and other parts of the country.
These efforts reflect the Foundation’s broader approach to supporting young people through multiple stages of their development, from school-based engagement and life skills to vocational training and entrepreneurship.
The underlying idea is that education becomes more meaningful when young people can connect what they learn with future opportunities, employment and income generation.
Bringing Artificial Intelligence Into The Conversation
As technology changes how young people learn and work, Arora said the Foundation is also examining the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in education and vocational training.
He referred to research conducted in March among Class 9 students in Mumbai municipal schools to understand their awareness and use of AI. According to his account, some students were accessing AI through their parents’ phones, even when access to technology within schools was limited.
Arora raised concerns about students relying on AI to complete assignments without necessarily understanding the material themselves. He described this as a risk of “cognitive offloading”, where learners delegate parts of their thinking to technology instead of developing their own understanding.
The Foundation is exploring ways to introduce AI literacy in urban and rural communities while considering how the technology could be integrated into advanced vocational training.
Potential areas include photography, video editing and beauty services, where technology may become increasingly relevant to the way people learn, work and run small businesses.
For Arora, the challenge is to ensure that young people are equipped to use emerging technologies meaningfully, rather than being left behind because of unequal access or limited guidance.
Building Pathways To Opportunity
Arora’s journey from an IT career to the development sector began with weekend volunteering, but it eventually shaped his understanding of education, skills and social impact.
At Salaam Bombay Foundation, the work has evolved from preventing tobacco use among school children to addressing the wider barriers that can prevent young people from translating education into livelihoods.
From integrating vocational skills into schooling to supporting small businesses through Dolphin Tanki, the Foundation is working towards a future in which young people have more choices and the means to pursue them.
The challenge remains broader than training alone. Young people also need access to opportunities, support for their ideas and an environment in which different kinds of work are valued.
For Arora, helping families break the cycle of poverty means building these pathways early, so that young people can make informed choices, develop practical skills and work towards greater economic independence.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Education can open doors, but its impact is limited when young people cannot connect what they learn with meaningful opportunities. Salaam Bombay Foundation’s evolving approach highlights the importance of combining schooling with life skills, vocational training and entrepreneurship support.
By challenging the perception that skills-based careers are inferior and creating platforms for grassroots entrepreneurs, the organisation is working towards a more inclusive understanding of opportunity. The larger question is how education systems, communities and employers can work together to ensure that young people have the skills, confidence and choices to shape their own futures.
What do you think schools should do to help young people connect education with employment and entrepreneurship? Share your views in the comments.
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