Samagata Foundation

Samagata Foundation is a Section 8 non-profit founded in Bengaluru in 2022 by Kailash. Its mission is deliberately broad: to back projects and ideas, even small, unconventional ones, that bring value to society. Samagata works across science, culture, art, technology, and education, with a specific focus on building public commons, institutions, and community spaces where ideas and people can come together.

Unlike typical grant-makers chasing measurable, short-term outcomes, Samagata explicitly backs "unquantifiable positive changes that can ripple and compound over time." It supports individuals and organisations through a mix of grants, investments, and connections, acting as a platform for collaboration as much as a funder. The name itself, samāgata, means "those which have come together," reflecting its belief in what founder Kailash calls the "triangle of fulfilment": intent, skills, and resources meeting at the right time.

Major Areas of Work

• Public Technology & Governance: Backing initiatives that bring design thinking, systems thinking, and citizen-centricity into government technology and civic data platforms.

• Science & Space Education Access: Funding science centres, planetariums, and STEM maker spaces, especially those extending access to government-school and rural students.

• Arts, Culture & Heritage Preservation: Supporting community art spaces, digital language archives, and traditional craft and heritage documentation projects.

• Open Source Technology for Social Good: Backing FOSS-focused organisations and alliances that bring free, open-source technology capacity to the wider social sector.

• Community Health & Wellbeing: Supporting grassroots, low-cost models for palliative and mental health care rooted in volunteer and community participation.

• Early-Stage Social Sector Capacity Building: Helping early-stage social impact organisations with fundraising, team building, and governance support.

Major Initiatives & Programmes

• Bharat Digital / Build for Bharat Fellowship: Backing a six-month fellowship training early-career "public technologists" to build citizen-centric government technology.

• Aikyam Fellows (Aikyam Fund): Supporting Aikyam's work strengthening early-stage social impact organisations through fundraising, team-building, and capacity support.

• Science & Space Access: Funding the Regional Science Centre and Planetarium (Calicut), Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium (Bangalore), including its Taralaya rural-school outreach trips, REAP scholarship endowment, and Telescope Borrowing Program.

• Heritage & Craft Preservation: Backing the Marwar Block Print Project documenting ~400 traditional Rajasthani block prints, and Indic Digital Archive Foundation's Malayalam-language digital archives.

• Community Spaces: Supporting TinkerSpace (Kochi), Courtyard Koota's Makkala Masti programme, Paper Crane Lab, and The Long House Collective art space in Calicut.

• Open Source Ecosystem: Founding patron of OASIS (Open-Source Alliance for Social Innovation & Sustainability) and long-term backer of FOSS United.

• Health & Wellbeing: Backing the Institute of Palliative Medicine's campus upgrade in Calicut and MHAT's Community Mental Health Clinics in Bengaluru.

Impact

• Active support across 20+ organisations and projects spanning science, culture, technology, education, and health

• A 20-year scholarship endowment established for JNP's REAP programme, whose alumni include 135+ PhD holders now working as academics and scientists

• Backed the short film Desi Oon (with Centre for Pastoralism and Studio Eeksaurus), winner of the 2025 Annecy Jury Award

• Founding/patron support for OASIS and FOSS United, extending open-source technology capacity across the wider Indian social sector

• Direct capacity-building support to early-stage organisations like Aikyam, strengthening the broader social impact ecosystem rather than just funding individual projects

Samagata suits people drawn to philanthropy that isn't narrowly metric-driven. Because it backs such a wide range of causes (science education, open source, heritage, mental health, community art), people get exposure to a genuinely diverse portfolio rather than one sector. It also appeals to people who want to work close to founders and grassroots changemakers, since Samagata positions itself as a connector and enabler as much as a cheque-writer, meaning staff get involved in relationship-building and ecosystem work, not just grant administration.

Samagata suits people interested in philanthropy and ecosystem-building who are comfortable with a broad, exploratory mandate and want to support unconventional, early-stage ideas rather than large, established programmes.