Ashish Dhawan on why he chose education for philanthropy, and the current state of private equity

After an illustrious career as a private equity investor, Ashish Dhawan has turned a philanthropist by setting up a non-profit organisation Central Square Foundation (CSF), which aims to improve the quality of education for poor children. In an exclusive interview with VCCircle, Dhawan says that he chose philanthropy as opposed to impact investing for CSF after much thought and deliberation as he wanted to keep the initiative pure.

He also argues that advocacy or influencing public-policy for an education reform movement is one of the key goals of CSF, which would have been seen as a conflict if he had chosen the impact investor route. Dhawan believes that the current education model in the country is broken, and therefore, he has identified four key areas of focus—using technology in education, building the capacity of teachers, increasing school accountability and setting up high-quality affordable schools. Dhawan has committed Rs 50 crore of his personal capital to the initiative for now, and will also look at opening up the platform for external donors next year.

Watch the interview for more.