Tech-Product Manager - Asha Kiran

About The/Nudge:

The/Nudge is an action institute working towards a poverty-free India, within our lifetime. We partner with governments, markets, and civil society to build resilient livelihoods for all. We are a collective of some of India’s best leaders and entrepreneurs from across the industry, academia, government, and development sectors

About the Program:

The Asha Kiran program aims to catalyze impact at scale by partnering with private sector and government, to implement livelihood interventions for women in poor households.

Who are we solving for?

• women farmers from landless, marginal and small landholders
• with an average family size of 5-6 members
• who have unpredictable wage labor
• male members migrate for livelihood opportunities

These farmers need a diversified & sustainable income to withstand life shocks, as well as to improve their food & income security, asset value & savings, access to safety nets and financial instruments, so as to come out of poverty.

What are we solving for?

Farmers in India have experienced newer opportunities through livestock based livelihood models promoted by govt/ markets, but there’s a need to build sustainable pro-poor models at population scale. While we are implementing livestock promotion models (backyard poultry and goatery models) in Uttar Pradesh, we also recognise and work towards building a deeper understanding of the value chain to create incentives for markets to participate & leverage govt resources to solve for:

• Infrastructure (Land & assets, Information & Technology)
• Standardization of rearing practices
• Forward & backward linkages for farmers
• Collectivisation of efforts through community institutions (SHGs)
• Organized production

What are some of the principles/ approaches we use?

• First principles thinking
• Human centered design (thoughtful, action oriented, experimental & iterative process) with a gender lens (unbiased and reflective approach)
• Systems thinking (analytical, stakeholder oriented and holistic)
• Strategic planning (result oriented, logical & coherent with clearly defined outcomes, grounded on the current realities)

What will you do?

• Own the end-to-end research, product design, and development of scalable and impactful models for a tech-led product in Backyard poultry / Goatery
• Drive innovations, conduct targeted pilots and iterations to improve the product design for implementation at scale
• Work closely with our program partners and all key stakeholders (internal and external - partners, thought leaders, entrepreneurs)
• Design a product with a tech-first approach to bring in meaningful impact at scale in a cost effective way (with a focus on scalability and viability)

Who are we looking for in this role?

• 8+ years of work experience in product strategy, consulting, portfolio management, intrapreneurial roles focused on tech (tech startup experience preferred)
• Comfortable with at least 10 working days based out of Lucknow.
• Demonstrated ability to learn continuously and collaborate with stakeholders in a space of ambiguity (0 to 1 journey of product development)
• Written and spoken fluency in Hindi and English
• Willingness to stay and travel in deep rural areas
• Excellent interpersonal and negotiation skills
• passion and hunger for solving big social problems at scale using technology
• comfort learning new technologies and applying to the context of the problem and ability to go deep from a technical perspective as needed