TiE Speaker & Tuesday Recap

Speaker Bio:

Sai Kumar is an experienced Senior Executive in technology sales, business development, strategy, analytics, compliance, privacy, and information security; Owner of several US patents with a passion for creative solutions.

TiE Speaker: Raghuraman Chandrasekaran

We are excited to bring to you the story of E-Hands Energy and the entrepreneur behind it. About 12 years ago, Founder/CEO Raghuraman learned that 1.5 Billion people on this earth live without access to electricity and another 3 billion people live without access to clean cooking. He wanted to do something about it by not being dependent on grants/ charity and donations, but do it on an enterprise model — with impact first as the mission, providing decent earnings. Raghu quit the corporate world and pursued this mission of providing clean, affordable energy to the BOP in India in a profitable model. A decade + on, collectively (they are about 800-900 enterprises worldwide in clean energy/ cooking) along with local governments, they have managed to deliver electricity/ clean energy-based livelihood inclusion to about 700 million people worldwide; they still have millions to feed basic energy for just the lights! From Day one, E-Hands has been EBIDTA positive, scaled, and sustained pan India operations. Their solar-powered rural bank branches have enabled almost 5 million people to come into the formal banking system of India, powering the most efficient and innovative fintech solutions in the world! They operate in 21 States of India with installations in 500 + towns/ villages. They run 32 microgrids providing direct supply of clean energy to thousands of people, on a sustainable model. Apart from the rural solar business, they have initiated trials for Solar-powered EV charging stations. On a side note, interestingly the journey initially started with a mission to provide electricity to self-learning kiosks at remote locations at high altitudes in the Himalayas, where kids still walk miles and miles to schools. Hopefully with enough electricity in those villages from E-Hands Energy‘s solar microgrids, access to education at the very bottom of the pyramid will be closer to reality!

Raghu is a Charter Member of TiE Chennai for almost a decade now. Raghu serves on the Board of CLEAN, internationally recognized anchor body of DRE sector in India and the association of the industry of clean energy access & clean cooking in India, with about 170 enterprises in various facets of clean energy, including Hydrogen fuel cells ready for deployment in rural areas.