P S Gunaranjan, founder of United Care Development Services

P S Gunaranjan (MBA 2002) has done his entire education in Swami’s Institutions. He did his primary schooling at the Sri Sathya Sai School, Ooty and then moved to Higher Secondary School at Prasanthi Nilayam. His university education spanned a bachelors and masters degrees in physics and also an MBA, all from Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning.

Based in Hyderabad, he is the founder of and a full time volunteer at an NGO called United Care Development Services, also know an UC. Founded in June 2009, UC is a Philanthropy Exchange, a volunteer driven platform, to create access to free and quality healthcare, in collaboration with Public Health Institutions and other partner NGOs. You can find more details about UC at www.yousee.in

Prior to founding UC, Gunaranjan worked for seven years with BASIX, a well-known development finance institution. At BASIX, he led the company’s micro-insurance vertical and operations for the North-Eastern states. He joined BASIX in 2002 as an executive – field operations units and went on to head its microinsurance unit. He led the expansion of micro insurance services across India, covering a wide range of life, health and asset insurance products including livestock, micro enterprise and weather index based insurance products for crops.

While at Basix, he had set up the Common Services Center (CSC) project in the state of Meghalaya, a National E-Governance project in a private public partnership model to bring access to various services to citizens. He was involved in the development of IT applications for insurance services and business process reengineering efforts, including setting up of Rural BPO centers. He had also undertaken consulting assignments in the field of micro insurance in a few countries in Asia, Asia-Pacific and Africa.

As a student in Prasanthi Nilayam, Gunaranjan was a voracious reader. “Exploration vast literature available kept me occupied during student days thanks to our excellent libraries at the School, University and Hostel. The books took me on several cerebral journeys on various topics in addition to my subjects. It was such good insulation from other inconsequential activities which rob students of precious time, leaving us with enough time to explore valuable books beyond class subjects,” he says.

Never the one to waste a single moment, Gunaranjan attributes his energy as a social entrepreneur to his physical training during student days. He was a long distance runner (5k & 10k) and during the university’s annual sports meet he was the gymnast and acrobatics performer.

“The disciplined training and the zeal to present the best to Swami, brought out such potential in us, that it would surprise me every time I could perform those acrobatic feats. That approach to training and physical fitness has remained a good companion over the years after college, helping me to maintain good enough fitness to support rigorous physical stamina at work to current day”, he says.

He also spent time teaching veda chanting, helping in the hostel bakery that made weekly bakery items and cakes for Swami on special occasions. He also worked with the team that made elaborate Hostel Greeting Cards for Swami during big events in PrasanthiNilayam.

“However the most valuable thing I received is the internal development which was nurtured by the constant closeness to Swami I had as student for 15 years. On many occasions when Swami would exhort students on seva and higher purpose of life, especially in those sessions he gave at the college, hostel and Trayee, I would be brimming with such exuberance that I wished Swami would give us marching orders to commence such work in the larger public from the very next day,” he says.

“The reflections we had in our classrooms led by very dedicated teachers and also the insightful talks during several morning prayer sessions in school and college, only reinforced this resolve. In my final semester of MBA, I had made up mind that I would pursue my time in the Social Sector leading to my assignment with BASIX followed by creation of UC,” Gunaranjan says.