Mekin Maheshwari

Co-founder

Co-founder of Udhyam Learning Foundation

Mekin Maheshwari is the co-founder of Udhyam Learning Foundation (2017)[1], an Indian non-profit working on education and livelihood from Bengaluru.

Mekin Maheshwari is an Indian technology executive turned social entrepreneur. He founded the Udhyam Learning Foundation in 2017 and is its chief executive. The Bengaluru-based non-profit works to build entrepreneurial mindsets among students in government schools and industrial training institutes, and to raise the incomes of nano-entrepreneurs in the informal economy.

Before moving into the social sector Maheshwari was an early member of the Flipkart team, where he served as head of engineering and later as chief people officer.

Early life and education

Maheshwari trained as an engineer. He began his career at Yahoo, working on data research and predictive models.

Career

Maheshwari joined Flipkart in its early years and held senior roles including head of engineering and chief people officer, leaving the company in 2016.

In 2017 he founded the Udhyam Learning Foundation. Its two principal programmes are Udhyam Shiksha, which works with state governments to run an entrepreneurial-mindset curriculum in government schools and ITIs, and Udhyam Vyapaar, which supports nano-entrepreneurs such as street food vendors and ironing vendors. Udhyam reports having reached several million school students across a dozen Indian states and supported thousands of nano-entrepreneurs.

He is also a co-founder of the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) and of ACT Grants, and has served as a founder of Plaksha University.

Recognition

Maheshwari was elected a Senior Ashoka Fellow in 2025 for his work on entrepreneurship and education through Udhyam.[2][3][4][5][6]

Udhyam Learning Foundation

Udhyam Learning Foundation is a Bengaluru-based non-profit founded in 2017 by former Flipkart executive Mekin Maheshwari. Its Udhyam Shiksha programme embeds entrepreneurship and 21st-century skills into government schools and ITIs, while Udhyam Vyapaar supports nano-entrepreneurs such as street food vendors and ironing vendors to grow their businesses.

Udhyam Learning Foundation reports the following, on its own site:

Building entrepreneurial mindsets and 21st century skills in 3.75 million students, training over 37,000 educators, in more than 9,000 government schools and ITIs across 12 states.
Supporting over 10,000 nano-entrepreneurs in 19 districts to scale their businesses, build resilience, and strengthen communities. The result? Over INR36 crore Annualised Income Uplift
The Istri Project has empowered over 9,000+ ironing vendors across six cities to improve their incomes and build an entrepreneurial mindset