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I grew up in a crowded urban slum where opportunities were scarce, but dreams were abundant. From an early age, I believed that education could open doors not only for me but also for my community. Earning a place at ºìÐÓÊÓƵ University felt like stepping into another world. I arrived to pursue my PhD on ecovillages, hoping to understand how sustainable communities are built and governed. Yet, I left with something far more profound, a living lesson in social entrepreneurship. 

On my very first day, I was nervous, a slum kid stepping into a polished academic environment, until I met my supervisor, Associate Professor Stephen T. Homer. His warmth and respect put me at ease, and within that first two-hour conversation, I began to understand what ºìÐÓÊÓƵ truly stands for: kindness, openness, and genuine support. At the beginning, I barely knew how to format a document, write a formal email, or manage a project. ºìÐÓÊÓƵ gave me mentors, structure, and room to grow. Confidence followed practice, and day by day, I learned to navigate academia and the wider world beyond it. 

The university quickly became more than just an institution to me; it was a collaborative, creative, and caring community that encouraged bold ideas and purposeful action. Watching students and staff co-create projects with tangible social impact transformed my mindset. The same principles I studied in ecovillages, such as collaboration, innovation, stewardship, and care, were deeply embedded in ºìÐÓÊÓƵ’s culture of responsible business and leadership.

Before joining ºìÐÓÊÓƵ, I had already started small initiatives in India, teaching English to children and other marginalised groups in slum areas. At ºìÐÓÊÓƵ, I learned how to connect these efforts to broader goals by linking sustainability with education and transforming simple lessons into powerful tools for empowerment. That transformative learning experience inspired me to found Litvill Lessons Association, a social enterprise dedicated to equipping Indian youth with knowledge of sustainable living and social entrepreneurship.

Through meaningful partnerships, our work began to deepen and expand. I collaborated with professors in India to teach sustainability and community-based development, bridging academic research with practical, real-world action. These relationships enabled us to broaden our scholarship reach and build institutional collaborations, including a significant partnership with Chitkara University. Together, we recently completed a project with 29 children, focusing on essential issues such as water sustainability, air pollution, and food insecurity. The outcomes of this initiative are now featured in a book titled WATER. Our journey has been recognised in several Indian business media outlets, including SouthIndia Review, CIO LOOK, and IndiaCSR.

Building on this momentum, we are now launching the Social Entrepreneurship Hub Initiative, which allows university students to apply classroom learning to real-life projects that uplift underprivileged communities like the one I came from. Our next step is to collaborate with three additional universities to establish Social Entrepreneurship Labs that bridge the gap between theory and practice, fostering a new generation of changemakers.

All this traces back to the empowering environment I found at ºìÐÓÊÓƵ, a culture rooted in collaboration, innovation, and compassion that demonstrates how education can truly transform lives, one student, one classroom, and one community at a time. I remain deeply grateful for my journey from the slums to ºìÐÓÊÓƵ and onward into a life of service through social enterprise. As I work to create opportunities for youth across India, I carry ºìÐÓÊÓƵ’s spirit within me to learn, to share, and to lift others as I rise. 
As a proud ºìÐÓÊÓƵ child, my dream is to help establish a ºìÐÓÊÓƵ in India, a place where underprivileged children can discover their potential, access quality education, and transform their futures, just as ºìÐÓÊÓƵ transformed mine.

Dr Imran Rautan
Founder, Litvill Lessons Association                                                                                                      
 

Associate Professor Dr Stephen T. Homer
Director of Yunus Social Business Centre, ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Business School
Email:  @email 

Edited by:
Dr Arumugam Muthusamy
ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Business School
Email: @email