Latest news with #PiyushJain
Business Standard
10-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
CarePal Group Co-Founder & CEO Piyush Jain Awarded 2025 Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Innovation Award
NewsVoir Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 10: Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of CarePal Group and Impact Guru, has been awarded the 2025 Alumni Innovation Award from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Alumni Board at Harvard University. Piyush, a graduate of the 2013 Master's in Public Policy Program at HKS, was chosen from a highly competitive pool for his transformative contributions in healthcare financing in India. Over the last decade, Impact Guru, which was incubated at the Harvard Innovation Labs, has already supported over 50,000 patients and engaged 4.5 million donors globally, establishing Piyush as a leader who has creatively used technology-based innovation for creating large-scale social impact by tackling complex challenges in healthcare. The Award recognizes HKS alumni who demonstrate exceptional leadership, creativity, and dedication to create positive change for individuals and communities using technology. Beyond his contributions at Impact Guru, Piyush has also co-founded CarePal Money - a healthcare lending marketplace and CarePal Secure - a health protection and insurance marketplace. CarePal Money offers 0% interest healthcare loans in India and has already enabled over 1,200 patients within 18 months to access non-critical treatments without financial distress by partnering with healthcare providers and lending institutions. CarePal Secure provides innovative health benefits and insurance plans for over 200,000 customers, addressing critical gaps for India's underinsured middle class and lower-income population. Piyush was honoured with the award at the Harvard Kennedy School on Friday, May 16, 2025, in the Forum during the alumni reunion weekend. Piyush Jain, Co-founder and CEO of CarePal Group, said, "I'm deeply honored to receive the Alumni Innovation Award from Harvard Kennedy School. This recognition holds special meaning for me, as ImpactGuru (and CarePal) was first ideated during my time as a student as part of a PAE (Policy Analysis Exercise) project and incubated at Harvard Innovation Lab. What began as an academic exploration has grown into a real-world mission - to make healthcare more affordable and accessible for millions of families across India and beyond. I'm sincerely grateful to the faculty, classmates, and the ecosystem at HKS and Harvard that encouraged bold ideas and purpose-driven entrepreneurship. I am privileged to share this incredible honour with my co-founders, dedicated teammates, supportive investors, compassionate hospital partners and doctors, brave patients and their families, generous donors, and all our insurance and lending partners who have always believed in our mission. We are committed to working tirelessly on our mission to ensure that no one dies due to a lack of funds for healthcare in India and positively supporting over 1 million customers' healthcare financing needs by 2030." Other award winners at Harvard this year include Natalia Gavrilita, former Prime Minister of Moldova, who received the Alumni Public Service Award. At the same time, Sebastian Burduja, Romania's Minister of Energy, was honored with the Emerging Global Leader Award. Carol Finney, Director of Harvard University's MPA/ID Program, was awarded the Julius E. Babbitt Memorial Volunteer Award, and Lisa B. Sloane was recognized with the HKS Fund Outstanding Alumni Award. CarePal is an integrated healthcare finance ecosystem that combines a medical lending marketplace solution (CarePal Money), insurance and protection solutions (CarePal Secure), and a crowdfunding technology platform (Impact Guru) for healthcare financing. We aim to make critical and elective treatments accessible and affordable to every household in India. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
The Wire
10-07-2025
- Business
- The Wire
CarePal Group Co-Founder & CEO Piyush Jain Awarded 2025 Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Innovation Award
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India (NewsVoir) Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of CarePal Group and Impact Guru, has been awarded the 2025 Alumni Innovation Award from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Alumni Board at Harvard University. Piyush, a graduate of the 2013 Master's in Public Policy Program at HKS, was chosen from a highly competitive pool for his transformative contributions in healthcare financing in India. Over the last decade, Impact Guru, which was incubated at the Harvard Innovation Labs, has already supported over 50,000 patients and engaged 4.5 million donors globally, establishing Piyush as a leader who has creatively used technology-based innovation for creating large-scale social impact by tackling complex challenges in healthcare. The Award recognizes HKS alumni who demonstrate exceptional leadership, creativity, and dedication to create positive change for individuals and communities using technology. Beyond his contributions at Impact Guru, Piyush has also co-founded CarePal Money - a healthcare lending marketplace and CarePal Secure - a health protection and insurance marketplace. CarePal Money offers 0% interest healthcare loans in India and has already enabled over 1,200 patients within 18 months to access non-critical treatments without financial distress by partnering with healthcare providers and lending institutions. CarePal Secure provides innovative health benefits and insurance plans for over 200,000 customers, addressing critical gaps for India's underinsured middle class and lower-income population. Piyush was honoured with the award at the Harvard Kennedy School on Friday, May 16, 2025, in the Forum during the alumni reunion weekend. Piyush Jain, Co-founder and CEO of CarePal Group, said, 'I'm deeply honored to receive the Alumni Innovation Award from Harvard Kennedy School. This recognition holds special meaning for me, as ImpactGuru (and CarePal) was first ideated during my time as a student as part of a PAE (Policy Analysis Exercise) project and incubated at Harvard Innovation Lab. What began as an academic exploration has grown into a real-world mission - to make healthcare more affordable and accessible for millions of families across India and beyond. I'm sincerely grateful to the faculty, classmates, and the ecosystem at HKS and Harvard that encouraged bold ideas and purpose-driven entrepreneurship. I am privileged to share this incredible honour with my co-founders, dedicated teammates, supportive investors, compassionate hospital partners and doctors, brave patients and their families, generous donors, and all our insurance and lending partners who have always believed in our mission. We are committed to working tirelessly on our mission to ensure that no one dies due to a lack of funds for healthcare in India and positively supporting over 1 million customers' healthcare financing needs by 2030.' Other award winners at Harvard this year include Natalia Gavrilita, former Prime Minister of Moldova, who received the Alumni Public Service Award. At the same time, Sebastian Burduja, Romania's Minister of Energy, was honored with the Emerging Global Leader Award. Carol Finney, Director of Harvard University's MPA/ID Program, was awarded the Julius E. Babbitt Memorial Volunteer Award, and Lisa B. Sloane was recognized with the HKS Fund Outstanding Alumni Award. About CarePal CarePal is an integrated healthcare finance ecosystem that combines a medical lending marketplace solution (CarePal Money), insurance and protection solutions (CarePal Secure), and a crowdfunding technology platform (Impact Guru) for healthcare financing. We aim to make critical and elective treatments accessible and affordable to every household in India. (Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with Newsvoir and PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.).
Fashion Value Chain
10-07-2025
- Business
- Fashion Value Chain
CarePal Group Co-Founder & CEO Piyush Jain Awarded 2025 Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Innovation Award
Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of CarePal Group and Impact Guru, has been awarded the 2025 Alumni Innovation Award from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Alumni Board at Harvard University. Piyush, a graduate of the 2013 Master's in Public Policy Program at HKS, was chosen from a highly competitive pool for his transformative contributions in healthcare financing in India. Piyush Jain being felicitated at Harvard Kennedy School Over the last decade, Impact Guru, which was incubated at the Harvard Innovation Labs, has already supported over 50,000 patients and engaged 4.5 million donors globally, establishing Piyush as a leader who has creatively used technology-based innovation for creating large-scale social impact by tackling complex challenges in healthcare. The Award recognizes HKS alumni who demonstrate exceptional leadership, creativity, and dedication to create positive change for individuals and communities using technology. Beyond his contributions at Impact Guru, Piyush has also co-founded CarePal Money – a healthcare lending marketplace and CarePal Secure – a health protection and insurance marketplace. CarePal Money offers 0% interest healthcare loans in India and has already enabled over 1,200 patients within 18 months to access non-critical treatments without financial distress by partnering with healthcare providers and lending institutions. CarePal Secure provides innovative health benefits and insurance plans for over 200,000 customers, addressing critical gaps for India's underinsured middle class and lower-income population. Piyush was honoured with the award at the Harvard Kennedy School on Friday, May 16, 2025, in the Forum during the alumni reunion weekend. Piyush Jain, Co-founder and CEO of CarePal Group, said, 'I'm deeply honored to receive the Alumni Innovation Award from Harvard Kennedy School. This recognition holds special meaning for me, as ImpactGuru (and CarePal) was first ideated during my time as a student as part of a PAE (Policy Analysis Exercise) project and incubated at Harvard Innovation Lab. What began as an academic exploration has grown into a real-world mission – to make healthcare more affordable and accessible for millions of families across India and beyond. I'm sincerely grateful to the faculty, classmates, and the ecosystem at HKS and Harvard that encouraged bold ideas and purpose-driven entrepreneurship. I am privileged to share this incredible honour with my co-founders, dedicated teammates, supportive investors, compassionate hospital partners and doctors, brave patients and their families, generous donors, and all our insurance and lending partners who have always believed in our mission. We are committed to working tirelessly on our mission to ensure that no one dies due to a lack of funds for healthcare in India and positively supporting over 1 million customers healthcare financing needs by 2030.' Other award winners at Harvard this year include Natalia Gavrilita, former Prime Minister of Moldova, who received the Alumni Public Service Award. At the same time, Sebastian Burduja, Romania's Minister of Energy, was honored with the Emerging Global Leader Award. Carol Finney, Director of Harvard University's MPA/ID Program, was awarded the Julius E. Babbitt Memorial Volunteer Award, and Lisa B. Sloane was recognized with the HKS Fund Outstanding Alumni Award. About CarePal CarePal is an integrated healthcare finance ecosystem that combines a medical lending marketplace solution (CarePal Money), insurance and protection solutions (CarePal Secure), and a crowdfunding technology platform (Impact Guru) for healthcare financing. We aim to make critical and elective treatments accessible and affordable to every household in India.
Time of India
04-07-2025
- Time of India
Rs 4.5 crore medical crowdfunding fraud complaint false, says Mumbai Police in case closure report
Mumbai: Police have filed a closure report in a case of alleged misuse of Rs 4.5 crore raised through crowdfunding for a child's medical treatment. Police, in the B summary report filed in a magistrate's court, said the complaint was false without merit. In Nov 2024, activist Arif Ahmed Mansoor Sheikh filed a private complaint saying Piyush Jain, director of the Impact Guru app, along with the child's parents Nikhat and Noufil Kazi, misused funds raised for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Matunga police registered an FIR of cheating, forgery and breach of trust after following the directions of a magistrate's court. You Can Also Check: Mumbai AQI | Weather in Mumbai | Bank Holidays in Mumbai | Public Holidays in Mumbai According to Sheikh's complaint, between Jan and June 2024, the accused claimed that the child required Rs 17 crore for SMA treatment and was undergoing care at Hinduja Hospital. Actress Sana Khan shared the appeal on her Instagram account on Jan 11. The complaint alleged that instead of depositing donations directly into the hospital's official account, the accused diverted over Rs 4.5 crore into personal bank accounts and misused the funds. Ater a detailed probe, police found no evidence to support the allegations, said advocate Ayan Shaikh, representing the Kazis. Police concluded that the accused failed to produce any documents proving the accused collected Rs 4.5 crore or misused it. Further, police said the documents shared during the probe — including those posted on social media — did not come from official sources like Impact Guru or the hospital. The closure report stated: "It has been established that all allegations are baseless and lack any foundation and hence no offence is found to have been committed."
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Inside the Challenges Befalling Black-owned Brands in 2025 — and How They're Facing Them
Black beauty brand founders are facing waning support. Founders and executives told WWD that the galvanization they saw in the wake of George Floyd's murder has decelerated, largely in terms of retail support and investment, though not in terms of consumer sentiment. More from WWD It's Bigger Than Resale: How a Los Angeles Sneaker Store Is Building Its Business - and Community Golden Goose Brings Its 'Forward' Concept Store to Dallas Big 5 Sporting Goods Goes Private in $112.7 Million Deal 'Every year since 2020, we've seen a rollback of the support and investment into Black and BIPOC-owned brands,' said Ron Robinson, founder and chief executive officer of BeautyStat. 'I think it's only gotten more significant under this new presidential administration.' 'Eight out of 10 BIPOC-owned businesses fail within the first 18 months of launch,' said Piyush Jain, chief executive officer of Maesa, which introduced the Maesa Magic Incubator to provide grants and mentorship to underrepresented founders. That program is now in its third year. 'One cause is lack of mentorship, the other is lack of role models, and the third is funding.' The situation has become even more acute under the current presidential administration, which has actively rolled back DEI policies at a federal level, and taken legal action to do the same at universities across the country. More localized to beauty, part of the issue is the number of retailers, in particular, and the wider business landscape that have rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives against the fast-changing political backdrop. During its first-quarter earnings call in May, Target Corp. cited a broader shift away from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the top of the year as a key contributor to single-digit sales dips, in addition to on-again, off-again tariffs. More specifically, Target ended its Racial Equity Action and Change initiatives, and changed the moniker of its 'Supplier Diversity' team to 'Supplier Engagement.' Elsewhere in the mass market, Walmart stopped participating in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Index, and agreed to drop the phrase diversity, equity and inclusion as well as products marketed to transgender children. On the prestige beauty side, the news is more positive. Both Sephora and Ulta Beauty have signed the Fifteen Percent Pledge, an Aurora James-founded initiative to dedicate 15 percent of shelf space to Black-owned brands and seem committed to attaining that goal. Founders also report investors pulling back in some cases. As WWD reported in 2024, Black-owned brands were among the first to feel the drought of a waning M&A market. For some, the picture is still grim. Crunchbase data, additionally, indicates that funding for Black-founded startups in the U.S. fell from $4.9 billion in 2021 to $700 million in 2024. 'We haven't had the growth scale that typical VC firms want. It's difficult to expect that from founders that are Black-owned because we're already at a disadvantage, we don't have the same resources and we don't have the same capital,' said Denis Asamoah, Forvr Mood, which he cofounded with Jackie Aina. He acknowledged that the brand was on track to meet its sales targets for 2025. 'It just seems like there's always a moving of the goalposts with Black founders, and what we've been able to build and create has been nothing short of incredible,' Aina said. 'It raises questions of what's required of non-Black founders versus Black founders.' 'It's hard right now in general — you can't ignore the macroeconomic pressures and general uncertainty. For small brands that's even more challenging,' said Alisa Carmichael, partner at VMG Partners, who oversees VMG's Parity Collective in partnership with James, an investment initiative that specializes in BIPOC brands. 'Also, the rollback from a DE&I perspective have made people in the ecosystem a bit more nervous.' Melissa Butler, founder and chief executive officer of The Lip Bar, characterized the landscape overall as generally tough. 'Investors are afraid to deploy capital,' she said. 'M&A hasn't been very active. That's true for every founder, and then you have to add on what I call the 'Black tax' on top of it.' Part of that, Butler said, was the persistent misconception that Black-owned brands are designed solely for Black consumers. 'Oftentimes, a Black founder will centralize a Black person in their advertising because your community deserves to be seen and it's an underserved community,' Butler said. 'The unfortunate truth is that can oftentimes lead to you only attracting Black customers. With the Lip Bar, for instance, there's no difference between my lips and a white woman's lips or an Asian woman's lips.' That phenomenon has also impacted the financial community. 'Everyone was so focused on investing in Black-owned brands with COVID and the murder of George Floyd,' said one investor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 'Now, we're in this phase where saying you're Black-owned can be a disadvantage because shoppers wonder if the product is for them, if they should be buying it, or if it's cultural appropriation.' Conversely, brands that keep their appeal broad are reaping the benefits. 'Yes, I'm a Black female founder and this is a Black-founded brand, but the ethos of the brand has always been that it's about everybody,' said Danessa Myricks, who founded Danessa Myricks Beauty. 'Our whole perspective is that everybody is able to participate and feel they're in a safe space.' Added Robinson, 'I'm front-facing on TikTok, and a lot of people didn't even necessarily know that I was the founder until I started to do more on social. We have all these clinicals, all these patents, and that brings people into the brand. On the consumer side, I'm not seeing people pulling back from support.' Other brands agreed that it's not an issue of consumer perception. 'The challenge is that the strategy should always be inclusive,' said Butler. 'I think consumers are already in tune with that, but it's the retailers, investors, strategics and private equity groups that are a little behind in terms of how consumers are looking at beauty today. 'I don't think it's consumers that are shifting,' Butler continued. 'Especially when you look at the population, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the most diverse and the most open to diversity. I think it's an old guard saying they followed the rules in 2020, and now, they're onto the next.' Best of WWD Which Celebrity Brands Are Next for a Major Deal? Lady Gaga, Beyonce and More Possible Contenders for the Next Corporate Prize The Best Makeup Looks in Golden Globes History A Look Back at Golden Globes Best Makeup on the Red Carpet, From Megan Fox to Sophia Loren [PHOTOS]
