AN INTERVIEW OF YOUNG ACHIEVER KANAV BATRA – CO FOUNDER OF FINZ ORGANISATION

Through his organisation Finz, this social entrepreneur is on a mission to raise awareness about the importance of financial literacy among Gen Z He also started the Workers’ Rights Awareness Project and is part of Youth Policy Collective, focussing on research and writing. Kanav Batra speaks about his journey.

What is your organisation Finz all about?

Finz was established to educate Gen Z about personal finance, investing, entrepreneurship, and economics. With the help of a tailor-made curriculum, we provide courses that enrich students’ financial acumen. We also provide an environment where Genz can gather real-life lessons along the way. At Finz, competitions are held for students to collaborate and compete. We will also conduct webinars with industry experts, college students, personal finance influencers, and youth entrepreneurs, and boot camps to reinforce what we teach through courses and mainstream learning instruments.

What made you a social entrepreneur?

Till I was in Class XI, I spent my time writing, reading, and just sticking with school. In Class XI, I felt there were many opportunities for students like me who wanted to become changemakers but didn’t know how to. That’s when I started pursuing my academic interests and hobbies outside of school too, starting my journey to becoming a social entrepreneur. Along the way, I saw many other young changemakers creating impact and bringing positive changes to society. This motivated me then, still does, and pushed me to be a social entrepreneur. To be fair though, my interests were always in economics, and this was one of the key reasons I started Finz with my friend Niranjen.

You set up WRAP – the Workers’ Rights Awareness Project.

It is a social impact initiative that started with a team of nine other fellows as part of the Take the World Forward’ Fellowship, a six-month programme by ‘Learn with Leaders. Our motive is to improve the livelihood of daily wage workers by helping them become financially literate and spread awareness about programmes, policies, and organisations already in place to help them. Over the last couple of months, I underwent Social Impact and Leadership Training to nurture and grow WRAP as an organisation. We are commencing our move towards making WRAP an independent organisation away from the fellowship.

Tell us about your work in research, focussing on your time with Youth Policy Collective (YPC).

As part of the Economics and Trade Committee at YPC, I worked on the environmental economics and disaster management research paper, ‘A Case-Study Based Analysis of the Implications of Natural Disasters on the Indian Agriculture Industry From 2000-2020. The premise of the paper and the journey of writing it were quite interesting. After a year of research, editing, and rewriting, it is now publicly available on Social Science Research Network. I am also working on two new papers with YPC, which I aim to finish in October. Outside of YPC, I am working on a behavioural economics paper surrounding consumer behaviour.

Do you think the youth of today will bring change in this entrepreneur world?

 I believe that in the next few years, there will be a changemaker in every house, and that changemaker will be a student. Students are now raising their voices by bringing more awareness to society. I strongly believe students will bring positive change and maybe one day provide a solution for our nation’s problems.

What other projects are you involved in?

Under YPC, I’m also editor-in-chief of the newsletter and a member of the Steering Committee, which is essentially the top management of the organisation. I am the vice-president and one of the founding members of The Scribble Society, a creative writing dub that brings together budding writers into a community where they can publish and discuss written work. Recently, I helped organise a = writing competition on self-growth, which brought over 30 participants to compete for the top positions.

How do you manage your hobbies?

First of all, I’d like to say I am horrible at time management. Though, in contrast, I’m very committed to my work. No matter what time it is, I work and don’t leave it until it is done. I think this is my best quality as it shows how much I love what I do. As for my hobbies, I am a big basketball fan; not only playing but I enjoy watching it too. I’m grateful to the sport as it helped me get better with things such as teamwork, leadership, perseverance, and resilience. Besides that, I also like writing. Writing is something I’ve been doing for a long time, and I feel that words have always helped me stay true to the storyteller in me.

Picture Credit : Google 

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