Social Enterprise
Force Behind Social Enterpreneurship
Mr. Tikajit Rai was born in a remote village named Mukli (Mukli VDC) in Solukhumbu district (district where Mt. Everest stands). Although his father served in British Gurkhas he spent most of his childhood in the village. However, during his father service in the army he was enrolled in grade 2 in Gorkha children school in Brunei. When he finished his grade 4 in Hong Kong (because then 7th Gorkha Rifles, the battalion, had moved from Brunei to Hongkong), his father retired and settled back in Nepal.
When he was six months old, he lost his 3 years old brother. Community were convinced that the lost-brother's soul was stolen by "God of the forest." Infact, as we understand now, it was pneumonia. Health centers were not available then and even today access to health services--any sevices for that matter-- is still scarce. In the backdrop of the village experience, his little exposure in Brunei and Hong Kong's Gorkha children schools, albeit for the short period, propelled him to desiring for better education and making changes in rural communities.
In his pursual for higher education, he graduated with an Electrical Engineering Degree from Univesity of Oklahoma, USA. In his acedemic years, he was honored with "Who's Who in American colleges and universities (1997-98)", first Nepali ever to receive this honor. In 1998 he co-founded KathmanduNepal.com, Nepal's first eCommerce venture (which now runs under Thamel.com name).
After living in the US for 12 years, in 2003, in spite of conflict country was going through, Mr. Rai returned to Nepal. He, with Mr. Bishnu Gautam, co-founded Magnus Consulting Group Pvt. Ltd. in 2005 to extend ICT based services to rural areas: if KathmanduNepal.com targeted Diaspora community with access to Visa/Master cards, Magnus will target rural communities that are marginalized and are in the bottom of the pyramid. Death of his brother and the "Forest God " thing never escaped his mind. With the substantial engineering training and professional experience in Western world, he has the right energy, capacity and persona of a social enterpreneur to lead the Magnus Strategies.
In the span of 7 years, in addition to his successful social enterprise, he helped Institute of Engineering, Nepal, develop elective Wireless Technology course and taught for two years; executed responsibilities as the coordinator of two sub-committees in Rural Telecenter Coordination Commitee (RTCC) at High Level Commission for IT (HLCIT) and delivered recommendations report; served as ICT expert to develop national Type Approval (TA) at Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA). His current contribution in policy front is drafting of National Broadband Policy, which is completed in January, 2010. Next stop for him now is to help Government of Nepal to develop eCommerce provisions within Broadband framework. His other passion is teaching and promoting Project Management. Since 2008, he chairs Project Management Association Nepal (PMAN), country's first project management association. Mr. Rai is also a lifetime member of Institutue of Electrical and Eletronics Engineers (IEEE) and Project Management Institute (PMI).
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CGAP conducts a two-day virtual Webinar on MFIs, their ICT needs and service providers. The webinar is part of the workshop series that held in US, Africa and India. In the two-day Webinar, there are some popular topics than others. The Webinar is being held during July 8th and 9th, 2010. Read More »
Magnus Consulting Group Pvt. Ltd. had won the bidding to develop MF banking software for Sana Kisan Bikash Bank Limited (SKBBL), also known as Small Farmer Development Bank. Read More »
Mr. Tikajit Rai writes for MicroFinance Insight, a bimonthly international magazine, a US based MFI knowledge base company. This agreement was reached at recent MasterCard, Grameen Foundation and CGAP funded workshop series that was held in Hyderabad in April, 2010. Read More »
Magnus conducted second follow up coffee (wet) processing for the second year at Dhading district for Chayanpur, Maidi, Jiwanpur and Jamrung VDCs. Read More »
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