Start Up - India

01/05/2026

29/04/2026

Our stories are our maps to the futures we dare to build.

At A River of Stories – the ORA Ideas Festival, we invited leaders from art, media, journalism, and the development sector to engage as storytellers and narrative weavers. We asked them: What themes must the stories of our time hold, if they are to help us navigate the polycrisis and imagine renewal?

From rage and love to churning and stillness, our guests named a rich spectrum of emotions and themes. They reminded us that we must keep re‑authoring our stories with a multitude of voices and truths, so that multiple futures may find space within them.

Our guests of honour, Anshu Gupta and Patricia Mukhim, spoke of finding hope in stories from the margins. They warned of the dangers when those at the centre – including in the development sector – stop listening to what feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar.

Most of all, the guests held up the third cohort of ORA India Fellows – visionary changemakers who are working with communities in the hotbeds of the polycrisis to co-create narratives of renewal.

We laughed, fell silent, and experienced bonds of solidarity as we recognized that our stories are us. We closed the event with a collective agreement that our stories open narrative pathways for healing, justice, and transformation.

ORA is an initiative of Commonweal. Start Up! serves as the India anchor of the ORA Fellowships.

The ORA Ideas Festival is co-curated by the ORA India Fellows, Start Up! and our design partner, Studio Eksaat.

A huge shout out to ORA alumni Kumar Sambhav (Land Conflict Watch) and Divya Varma (Work Fair and Free) for the excellent moderation of the event.

16/04/2026

The ORA Ideas Festival : A River of Stories is here!

Powered by the pathbreaking models of ORA India Fellows, the event will unfold how knowledge sits in community stories and how our stories and shape the language and lens through which we understand and act in the world.

We are looking forward to an evening of ideas, imagination and friendship.

15/04/2026

The ORA Ideas Festival is here!

The Festival will celebrate the pathbreaking models of the third cohort of ORA India Fellows. It will also be an evening of solidarity, as we mark 15 years of Start Up!

The theme of this edition of the ORA Ideas Festival is ‘A River of Stories’.

The event will invite practitioners and leaders working at the intersection of art, media, storytelling, and development to collectively imagine stories and storytellers as pathways to transformation.

We will be joined by Anshu Gupta and Patricia Mukhim - exceptional narrative weavers, as our guests of honour.

The event will be moderated by ORA alums Kumar Sambhav from Land Conflict Watch and Divya Varma from Work Fair and Free.

From shaping language for a new world, to poetry as protest, to humour as an antidote to hate, to the language of rebellions across forest lands - we look forward to our audiences joining us in a river of shared stories and imagination.

The ORA Ideas festival is a collective offering of Omega Resilience Awards, ORA India Fellows, and Start Up! It’s designed by Studio Eksaat.

10/04/2026

🌼 Our stories shape our resistance, resilience, and renewal. They give language to hope and imagination.

🌏 In the second edition of the ORA (Omega Resilience Awards) Ideas Festival, we will be joined by ORA India Fellows, artists, changemakers, media practitioners, public intellectuals, and diverse voices from the development sector to explore how stories build pathways of renewal and hope.

🎈This edition of the Festival celebrates the third cohort of ORA India Fellows and their pioneering models of community-led narrative change. It will also be an evening of solidarity as we mark 15 years of Start Up!

🌼 We are honoured to host journalist, peace activist, and Padma Shri awardee Patricia Mukhim, and Magsaysay awardee Anshu Gupta of Goonj as Guests of Honour.

🌏 The theme for this year’s Festival, “River of Stories,” invites us to flow through narratives—from poetry of protest and stories that revive dying languages to those that challenge hate and division. The ORA India Fellows will inspire audiences to reflect on their own narratives of renewal.

🌼 The ORA Ideas Festival is co-curated with ORA India Fellows, Studio Eksaat, and Start Up!
This event is by invitation. Stay tuned for more updates.

07/04/2026

How can stories be the pathway to deep transformation?

How might we create a language of hope and imagination?

The ORA (Omega Resilience Awards) Ideas Festival is back! And we will collectively respond to the questions above.

The Festival will celebrate the third cohort of ORA India Fellows and their pathbreaking models of community-led narrative change. It will also be an evening of solidarity where we mark 15 years of Start Up!

The event will bring together artists, changemakers, narrative builders, media-makers, public intellectuals, and diverse voices from the development sector to share narratives of renewal and hope. We will also be joined by journalist, peace activist, and Padma Shri awardee, Patricia Mukhim, and Magsaysay awardee Anshu Gupta, of Goonj, as guests of honour.

The theme of the second edition of the ORA Ideas Festival is “River of Stories”. Through poetry, spoken-word performances, and immersive conversations, the event will inspire audiences to reflect on their own narratives of renewal.

The ORA Ideas Festival is co-curated with the ORA India Fellows, Studio Eksaat and Start Up!

This event is by invitation. Stay tuned for more updates.

30/03/2026

On , we are celebrating Poonam Bir Kasturi and her powerful vision to make everyone’s responsibility.

Poonam, and her organization, Daily Dump / , have tirelessly reminded us that ‘Zero Waste’ is about our mental models, our consumption behaviours, and most of all about our relationships with waste and our ecological world.

Poonam always reminded us that ‘solutions don’t save the world’, our behaviours and actions do.

As a friend, advisor and teacher to Start Up! Poonam urged us to constantly shape our own definitions of success and impact that would be rooted in behaviours of circularity and sustainability.

20/03/2026

Its ,🌼and we are turning our attention to rural women entrepreneurs.

🦋 What do happiness and well-being mean for lakhs of rural women entrepreneurs who juggle masculine markets, manage multiple care roles, navigate opaque financial institutions, and yet keep village economies moving?

🦋 In our work with rural women entrepreneurs and leaders, we have noted the absence of research and data on their happiness and well-being practices. We know that rest and leisure are often alien concepts for them, due to the burdens of time poverty. What then keeps them energetic and hopeful in their roles as entrepreneurs?

🦋 Our conversations with rural women entrepreneurs are telling us that selfhood, sisterhood, solidarity, and social recognition are key to their happiness and well-being.

🦋 What are your insights from your work with rural women entrepreneurs?

Much gratitude to our partners , , and in opening these opportunities for us to work and learn from rural women entrepreneurs.

We wish you all a wonderful International Happiness Day! 🌼

20/03/2026

This , inspired by voices like Hafiz—
a reminder that while light resides within us,
it is in togetherness that it truly glows.

May you find both your inner light and your collective strength. 🌙 ✨

31/12/2025

As we leave the shores of 2025, here are our most memorable wins of the year!

We partnered with 20 non-profit organizations to scale 342 grassroots leaders and community-based models across 9 states.

As the strategy and knowledge partners of 4 multi-state alliances, we learnt that collaboratives multiply impact as well as solidarities and well-being.

We debuted at UNGA 2025 and expanded our leadership dialogues and listening circles.

Our work with the Ford Global Fellowship and the Omega Resilience Award Fellowship deepened our conviction that Fellowships enable individuals to drive innovation.

In a year fraught with challenges, our partners continued to be our champions.

Thank you all for believing in us, for traveling with us and for making 2025 a year of wins!

18/11/2025

Our work takes us to unusual hotspots of hope.

Parcham is one such spot, based in Mumbra - one of the largest Muslim-majority towns in Maharashtra.

Two weeks ago, we travelled through the buzzing urban hubs of Mumbra for a deep listening exercise.

We heard stories from Parcham's adolescent, youth, and women leaders of how they are shifting the alienation in their communities to progressive optimism.

Over the next few months, we will be working closely with the Parcham Collective to co-create an impact strategy that builds on the joyful resistance, resilience and solidarity that the Collective has fostered in Mumbra in the last decade.