Dakshana Foundation

The Dakshana Foundation is a start-up philanthropic foundation working on behalf of poverty alleviation. We focus our efforts on providing world-class educational opportunities to gifted but economically and socially disadvantaged students. Our initial focus is the entrance exam to the Indian Institute of Technology, a network of elite colleges which specialize in various fields of engineering. Students at IIT are disproportionately from urban areas, while the 750 million Indians living in the nation’s 640,000 villages, many of whom are below the poverty line, are underrepresented.

The Dakshana Foundation has partnered with the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNV) school system to provide gifted rural students with world-class coaching for the IIT Joint Entrance Exam, or IIT-JEE. By providing underprivileged students the opportunity to even the playing field in regards to the IIT-JEE, we allow students to realize their full potential, empower rural communities and provide a system through which India can better tap it’s greatest resource- it’s people.

Founded by Mr. Mohnish Pabrai and his spouse, Ms. Harina Kapoor, the Dakshana Foundation is designed to be self-sustaining. We encourage Dakshana scholars to voluntarily “give back” to the foundation, so that the beneficiary of today may become the donor of tomorrow. By embracing this philosophy and maintaining a laser-focus and a business mindset, we are confident that we can change the lives of thousands of students and do our part to make a positive change in the world today.

The Dakshana Foundation provides gifted low income students with academic coaching in preparation for the entrance exam to the Indian Institutes of Technology.