Manoj Bhargava

Co-founder

Manoj Bhargava is the co-founder of The Hans Foundation (2009)[1], an Indian non-profit working on healthcare, education, disability and livelihood from New Delhi.

Manoj Bhargava (born 1953) is an Indian-American businessman and philanthropist. He created the energy shot 5-hour Energy, launched in 2004 through his company Living Essentials, and has since directed much of the resulting wealth into charitable work in India.

In 2009 he helped establish The Hans Foundation, a public charitable trust registered in India which funds health, education, water and sanitation, disability and livelihood programmes through partner non-governmental organisations. Bhargava signed the Giving Pledge in 2012, committing more than ninety per cent of his wealth to philanthropy.

Early life and education

Bhargava was born in Lucknow, India, in 1953. His father, Narottam Bhargava, was a publisher. The family moved to the United States when Bhargava was fourteen, so that his father could study at the Wharton School.

He attended The Hill School on a scholarship and enrolled at Princeton University in 1972, leaving after a year. From 1974 he spent more than a decade living at ashrams in India associated with the spiritual teacher Hans Ji Maharaj.

Career

Returning to the United States in the mid-1980s, Bhargava worked in his family's plastics manufacturing business in Indiana, which he sold in 2006. He founded Innovations Ventures in 1998 and its subsidiary Living Essentials, and in 2004 developed and launched 5-hour Energy.

The Hans Foundation, named after Hans Ji Maharaj, was established in 2009 with Shweta Rawat as chairperson. It operates as a grant-making trust, supporting several hundred non-governmental organisations across most Indian states and union territories, and has funded cancer hospitals, residential schools, corneal eye banks, cochlear implants and paediatric cardiac surgery. Bhargava also established the Rural India Supporting Trust.

In 2015 he launched Billions in Change, an initiative to develop and distribute low-cost inventions for clean water, electricity and health in low-income communities; it was the subject of a documentary of the same name.

Recognition

Bhargava joined the Giving Pledge in 2012.[2][3][4][5]

The Hans Foundation

The Hans Foundation funds and runs programmes in health, education, disability, livelihoods and disaster relief across India, often in underserved regions. It supports both direct projects and grants to partner NGOs.

The Hans Foundation reports the following, on its own site: