Mujtaba Hasan Askari

Askari trained as a mechanical engineer and worked in the information technology industry, including at Infosys Technologies, before leaving the corporate sector to work full time on healthcare access for the poor.

Askari founded the Helping Hand Foundation in 2007 with a group of Hyderabad-based IT professionals, with the aim of making healthcare accessible and affordable to disadvantaged sections of society. The organisation runs a network of primary health centres in the city's urban slums, serving areas including Hakeempet, Khyamnagar, Rajendra Nagar and Wadi-e-Mustafa, and has extended its work into peri-urban and rural villages. Its programmes cover prevention, early detection, treatment, referral and long-term care, including sub-centres for non-communicable diseases.

The foundation operates a 'Praja Aarogya Mitra' scheme that places help desks in around 30 government hospitals to guide patients through admission and treatment. Askari has described a central part of his role as explaining to poor patients what their situation is and steering them away from private hospitals that would overcharge them, towards government facilities.

In partnership with SEED, a United States-based organisation, the foundation runs a free haemodialysis centre at Masjid-e-Mohammadia in Langar Houz for patients with renal failure. It also operates a free primary and bridge school at Errakunta for first-generation learners from migrant families. In January 2026 the foundation reported that more than a million urban and peri-urban poor people had used its free healthcare services during 2025.

Askari was named a Distinguished Citizen by the Rotary Club of Hyderabad for the Rotary year 2015–16, in recognition of his work with poor and underprivileged patients.[2][3][4][5][6]