Raghunandan Ranganath

Founder

Raghunandan Ranganath is the founder of Ishanya India Foundation (2015)[1], an Indian non-profit working on disability from Bengaluru.

Raghunandan Ranganath, known as Raghu, is a co-founder and trustee of the Ishanya India Foundation, a Bangalore-based organisation working on the rehabilitation and empowerment of people with disabilities.

He founded the organisation in 2015 with Swathi Vellal Raghunandan, a special educator who serves as its founder-director; it was registered as a public charitable trust in 2018.

Career

Before turning to the non-profit sector Ranganath worked in information technology for large multinational companies for more than a decade, and then in media services.

His involvement with Ishanya India Foundation began as occasional support and grew into a full-time role. In recent years he has managed the foundation's day-to-day operations, established its internal processes and developed collaborations, drawing on his corporate background.

The foundation runs strength-based programmes intended to build agency, workplace competencies and independent living skills among people with disabilities, with the stated aim of a society founded on diversity, equity and inclusion.[2][3]

Ishanya India Foundation

Ishanya India Foundation, established in 2015 in Bengaluru, works to skill and employ persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities including autism spectrum disorder, ADHD and learning disabilities. It runs vocational training, corporate inclusion partnerships and initiatives such as the India Inclusion Resource Centre and neurodiversity summits.

Ishanya India Foundation reports the following, on its own site:

In one year, Ishanya helped 72 students achieve their goals (Annual Report 2019-20 impact statement).
Under its Siddhi remedial intervention program, Ishanya completed 58 Individualised Education Plans for children aged 3 to 25, with 38 students enrolled in the remedial program (2019-20).