$1 Tril Opp: How Refugees & Survivors are Rebuilding Economy with Navneet Bhalla + Aditya Khurjekar

Speaker A: Hey friends. Thanks for joining me. Jim Barood to hear a few insights from leaders who represent our innovation ecosystem. Today's chat is with Navneet Bala, the executive director of the Manavie organization, and Aditya Kurjikar, the global advisor of Civitas ID and co founder of Atomos.

Speaker B: So I'm the executive director at Manavi, which is a South Asian nonprofit organization serving South Asian survivors of violence.

Speaker A: Aditya.

Speaker C: I'm uh, a board member and co founder of Etymos, which is uh, working on helping forcibly displaced populations to get their dignity back.

Speaker A: Great. Navni, let's go back to you. How did you get to this position? Tell us about your journey from maybe high school or college.

Speaker B: Sure. So I used to. Well uh, I used to practice as um, an attorney in London for many years. And I uh, practiced, you know, I did kind of um, immigration law, supported asylum, uh, asylum law and supported many refugees, uh, across the world in different countries. I also uh, did employment law and served um, you know, employees and did work on race discrimination, sexual discrimination, um, and worked on a lot of gender based violence issues as an attorney. Um, prior to that I was also very heavily involved in student union and lifting up the voices of the most vulnerable communities within the student population as well as in the communities. Then after, uh, moving to the U.S. i wanted to continue my interest and passion in social justice issues and human rights issues. I then worked for the International Rescue Committee. I went to Sudan for a brief period, um, worked for the IRC there looking uh, at Sudanese law and also looked at policy and legal issues, um, from a social justice and human rights lens. And then worked at a, ah, national nonprofit called South Asian Americans Leading Together. Because I felt after doing work overseas and on an international lens, honestly I think I felt that the most important and significant impact we can have is at our doorstep. And that is what brought me back to working for a, uh, local nonprofit right here in New Jersey, uh, monavie. And um, monavie. I'm very, very proud that I found my passion in the work that I do at monavie. And uh, today I proudly serve as the executive director and um, really feel um, passionately about serving South Asian survivors of gender based violence and being part of the national movement to end gender based violence in the South Asian community.

Speaker A: How long have you been at your position?

Speaker B: Uh, I have been an executive director, um, for nine years. I am approaching. Well actually I started as a different position, but I've been at Monavie. Yes, Executive director. Eight, nine years now. Correct.

Speaker A: Wonderful. All right. Aditya tell us about your story. Tickets from high school.

Speaker C: High school. That's uh, that's going to be taking uh, that might take your entire podcast, Jim. Engineer by training. Uh, after high, after high school I went to engineering school. Um, I became a chip designer. Um, my first job was in Bell Labs. My um, first uh, uh, let's call it uh uh something real and beneficial I did was to uh, design the world's first HDTV chipset while I was at Bell Labs. Went from there to enterprise software, uh, went from there to mobile. I work at Verizon, uh the big phone company for a bunch of years. My last corporate job was to um, build the joint venture with AT&T and T mobile for mobile payments. Uh today you know that as Apple pay when you tap and pay your watch. Uh we spent a few years and uh, a lot of um, effort and passion and dollars to make that whole thing come together. And uh, that was my transition from m uh being a mobile guy to a mobile payments guy and from uh, being a corporate guy to being an entrepreneur. Founder Spent uh, the last 10, 15 years of my professional life um in building uh businesses. Uh have had uh, uh uh the good fortune of calling myself a two time uh founder with exits. And um, since I finished my obligations from my last exit, I have been looking at how I can spend my time meaningfully in building businesses, building value that also have um, um a um goodness factor or as they call impact associated with it. Um, I was very fortunate uh to have been introduced to Civitas which is a nonprofit that my co founder Colin Walsh started last year. Um, we announced uh, Civitas at the UN General assembly in September and then since then uh, we have established um, this for profit that goes alongside with it um to build the technology to support the objectives of the nonprofit together. So that has kind of been my journey and happy to be here and talking to you Jim. Thank you for inviting me.

Speaker A: Right, I look forward to discussing that uh, after we go back to Navneet. Navneet, tell us more about monavie and the genesis of it and how it's grown over the years and um, tell us about that.

Speaker B: Sure. Happy to. So Manavi is the very first South Asian non profit organization founded in the United States in 1985 dedicated to ending all forms of gender based violence um, in the South Asian community. So our mission is to ensure that we provide culturally specific and linguistically accessible services for all South Asian survivors of gender based violence. I'm um, excited to say that we have actually just celebrated our 40th anniversary, um, which is a significant and historic milestone. Um, for the last 40 years, Manvi has been centering the needs of all survivors and we've been uplifting the voices, um, and tailoring needs to every survivor. We take a survivor centered approach. And um, I think it's important for us to point out that especially in the current climate, Manavi services are even more critical, um, than ever before. So we have three offices. We have expanded and grown over the last four decades. We have an office in New Brunswick, we have an office in Paterson and also in Jersey City. We serve survivors across the state. Um, we have staff and volunteers who speak more than 14 languages to ensure that all our services are linguistically accessible. So briefly to touch on the range of services we provide, we provide culturally specific counseling, advocacy, legal support services. We have an in house attorney now, uh, we have a multilingual 24 hour hotline. And we also have a transitional home called Ashiana, which is the only culturally specific transitional home of its kind on the East Co that was established in 1997. And um, we have been serving survivors and children and housing them in the rent free facility where our goal is to make sure that as an agency we not only meet the immediate needs of every survivor, but also ensure that we build communities long term that are free from gender based violence and raise awareness and um, increase community outreach and education. So we're essentially building communities as well as ensuring that every survivor feels safe and supported.

Speaker A: Wow. You know, this podcast is about innovation across industries, nonprofit and for profit. And this is really novel what you guys have done, what you ladies have um, done mostly right, um, over the years. But I think many people will ask, how is this, how has this grown? Why, why are we at this stage in 2026? Shouldn't things have gotten better so that your organization may not be as robust as it needs to be or serves less people? So can you talk to people who are not familiar with um, this challenge? Yeah.

Speaker B: So I think um, within the South Asian community there is cultural stigma around domestic violence. Um, it is an issue that is not talked about, it is taboo. And uh, over the years, you know, if I go back in history, some of the stories that I've heard from many strong, inspiring women who founded the organization in 1985 tell me that back then when they started doing this work, they would be referred and called home wreckers by the community because it was so much stigma around this work. Um, and it was very difficult to go out there and actually safely talk about Domestic violence, because it was considered a topic that everyone would shy away from. There was a lot of judgment around that over the years. Yes, we have made a lot of progress, but we have a long way to go. Um, we are seeing increasing numbers, but I would say that's because more survivors are much more aware, number one, that what domestic violence looks like. There is a myth in the community, uh, and globally. I would argue for people to think that domestic violence is only physical. That is not true. There are various forms of domestic violence. Verbal, emotional, psychological, financial abuse is so common. Um, so I think, and especially in our community, immigration status is a significant barrier and is used as a tool by the perpetrator to exercise power and control over the. And to answer your question, more specifically, now more than ever, we are seeing immigrant rights and immigrants come under attack. Um, so now more than ever, a survivor's immigration status, um, is a tool that is being used to exercise power and control. So we are hearing that many immigrant survivors are afraid to report abuse. They are afraid to come forward because they are being told they will be subject to deportation if they report. So I think the concerns we have as an agency right now are that immigration status, language barriers, um, cultural stigma, all those issues continue to be a concern and a significant issue. And just to reiterate that, yes, we have come a long way, but there is so much more work for us to do within the community to raise, um, awareness and education and to make sure that we are making sure all our services are accessible for all survivors.

Speaker A: And are there other organizations in other countries that are similar, ah, that maybe you folks are a role model for or a template for?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I think, um, globally there are many, many domestic violence agencies and we actually also do transnational abandonment work where we work with survivors who've been abandoned in different parts of South Asia, whether it's India, Pakistan or different countries. Um, and there are agencies, um, within South Asia, but across the world and across all cultures, um, who do this very, very critical work. And I think the key piece I want to lift up here is that yes, many agencies do work around domestic violence, sexual violence and gender based violence. What sets Manavi apart and other culturally specific agencies is that our work particularly has this emphasis on making sure that we have this cultural lens and linguistic lens so that our services are culturally responsive. We understand the background and the cultural background of each survivor and their linguistic needs so that they can relate and feel safe. Um, and that's why I think now more than ever, culturally specific agencies like Manavi and Many of our sister agencies across the country and the world, um, are doing really critical work that is needed right now more than ever.

Speaker A: Got it. Okay, Aditya, tell us about Civitas.

Speaker C: Civitas is a, um. It's a charitable organization. It's a 513C, um, non profit, which, um, is taking, um, a very pragmatic approach, uh, to the 123 million forcibly displaced people around the world.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: People usually call them refugees or migrants. Um, it's actually a larger number if you include, uh, internally displaced people and if you also include economic migrants. We are looking at more than 300 million people who are in this broad category. Just to keep it in perspective, um, to share how large this problem is. 1.3 million people is 1 in 70 human beings. Um, independent research says that by 2050, 1 in 8 human beings will be forcibly displaced. And why does that happen? Why are people displaced from their homes? It could be climate change, war. There's a lot of that going on right now, unfortunately. Famine, uh, persecution. Any of these reasons causes people to be forcibly displaced from their homes. They have to leave, uh, where they live, uh, without documentation, without credentials. Uh, a hurricane comes, a bomb falls. They got to go, go to safety. And when that happens, uh, and they want to kind of become, you know, productive people, citizens, families. Again, they are not able to because they cannot do the most basic human thing, which is to prove their identity. If. If a person cannot prove who they are, what their name is, what their address is, where they are from, because they don't have documents, they don't have passports, they don't have anything to prove. What does that mean? They can get access to services. Like what? Can't apply for a job. Can't get a bank account, can't get admitted to a hospital, cannot put their kids into school. These are basic human services that are out of reach for them. So Civitas mission is to unlock access to public and private services for forcibly displaced populations around the world. That is the mission. Uh, we are, uh, beginning this work in two countries, uh, to get going, uh, pilots, uh, in Kenya and Colombia, work is happening on the ground already. Uh, we also have the technology arm for this, so that this can be done at scale, so that we can bring the latest, um, availability of AI tools, uh, compute, machine learning, so that this happens fast, so that the adoption is not limited by how many people are on the ground in the camps, but we can do it faster and have the ability to do it not just in these two countries, but anywhere in the world. So the two entities work hand in hand. Um, uh, we are also very clear, uh, and aware that this is a complex problem. Um, and the problem has become more acute, uh, because of how the, um, public funding landscape has changed dramatically in the last couple, uh, of years. As everybody's aware, USAID is no more M. UNHCR funding is down 80% since 2022. So most of these populations have typically been dependent on aid, not because they want handouts, but because that is the only way that the system has supported them. Now, as that aid system collapses, maybe there is a silver lining. Maybe we say, you know what? How do we find a way to not be dependent on aid? How do we find a way for them to stand on their own feet and be productive? How do we find a way for them to get integrated into the mainstream economies of the host countries so that we don't have to keep going for handouts to charities and organizations and funds that are donations, but rather be part of good capitalism, rather be part of the innovation and build ecosystem. Because guess what? A lot of these folks, just because they are migrants or refugees does not mean they are not capable. Right? They might have been very capable, very successful, skilled plumbers, electricians, doctors, teachers, even surgeons, lawyers in their home countries. Now, because they are not able to prove their credentials, they are not able to bring their skills to use. So we need to fix that. Um, as we are seeing everywhere in the world, not just here in the U.S. uh, there is also xenophobia. There are people who say, oh, they are migrants, they are outsiders. They are not one of us. We don't want them to be part of the economy. Guess what? That is a loss for the government. Because these folks are enterprising. They are hard working, they are able to build organizations, employ people, generate value. But if the government does not get tax revenue from their hard work, that's a loss for the governments. So if we do this right, if we do this in a way that, um, is a true alignment between multilateral organizations, World Bank, UN entities, the host government, NGOs, and of course, the migrants themselves, then this is truly a win, win, win. That is what, uh, Civitas and Etimos are all about. We are very fortunate to have the goodwill and the support and the collaboration from a number of folks who have been working with us so far. And, um, we are always open, um, to working with other folks who might be doing similar work. Uh, in fact, the last thing I'll say is that when we think of refugees or migrants, we think of them as um, in one homogeneous, uh, population. That is absolutely not true. I visited uh, Kenya in January. I was in the refugee camps. Um, I saw firsthand, uh, obviously the challenges and the uh, uh, the lack of resources. It's gut wrenching. On the other hand, ah, the optimistic side of what I saw is that uh, uh, many of these folks are entrepreneurial. Uh, they have a lot of enterprise in them. They are not just hard working, but they are creative. Um, I was amazed, ah, to see the uh, level of sophistication, thoughtfulness and even tech savvy, uh, from the refugee leaders that we met with. I felt like they were able to challenge us uh, in terms of, hey, how are you building this platform? What is your data privacy policy? What is the tech stack? What is your cryptographic standard? I would have thought these are founders in Silicon Valley or in Princeton or some other big tech hub. Um, and they're all self taught, imagine this, no college degrees, all self taught. But they're able to engage with us, um, in a way that gives me so much hope, Jim, that if we are able to channelize this wealth of capability into mainstream economies around the world. Guess what? Let's just do the numbers. 123 million, um, migrants forcibly displaced. I'm not counting the others. Let's take just 40% of them, the working age population. Let's leave out the too old and the too young. Uh, 40% of these, 123. You multiply that by the average per capita GDP in the world. We are looking at a trillion dollars of GDP that is up for grabs globally. A trillion dollars is what we can add to the global economy if we unlock, uh, access and integrate these people into the host economies. That is the work we are doing.

Speaker A: That is incredible. That is, and I think clearly we all know that refugees, immigrants are drivers of all economies. Most importantly, this country's right. We've succeeded, uh, beyond imagination because of the creativity and motivation and talent that's come to our shores. So that, that makes a lot of sense now. And you've been doing some other things that we can, we'll come back to as far as the other side of the business, other side of the organization, right, to sort of innovate around payments, right? And fintech. But Navi, tell us, um, clearly this is related, right? Because I'm sure I have a feeling that refugees and turmoil and displacement probably rise, increases the likelihood of uh, you know, some of the, you know, poor behavior and uh, harassment, uh, on um, you know, women. Is that, is that A right assumption to make. I mean.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think um, you know, when I, when I was practicing as an attorney, that was a real life example of many cases where refugees, um, who were fleeing persecution, uh, in war zones, um, and we were seeing, I personally saw hundreds and thousands where they were um, victims of gender based violence. Um, so, so I think that is absolutely true. And, and I think one other thing I wanted to touch on is something that you said. Um, Aditya, Accessing um, services just want to lift up some of the, the points, you know, how important people, agencies may be providing services across the world and, and nationally. But if they are not accessible to the most vulnerable communities who need them most, those services are meaningless. So accessibility is really crucial. And I would go as far as saying meaningful access, meaningful language access, uh, we even speak about language in terms of language justice. And I just wanted to share like some real life examples because I think very often um, people don't hear real life impact or real stories. So very briefly, you know, we've had situations, um, and again it touches on some of the things that you mentioned about um, immigrants and refugees having entrepreneurial skills. So survivors that we have served at Ashiana in transitional home, um, and Asiana is a place where survivors ah, stay for long term for like a year and a half to two years. It's not like a shelter with many agencies provide which is short term and only deals with immediate needs. We are looking at long term, um, stability. So in one particular case that I personally recall a few years ago, a survivor with two children was abandoned, um, at the airport, uh, by the perpetrator after years of abuse. And they came to Manavi, they came to Asiana, they stayed at Asiana for two years and Manavi was able to provide uh, all the range of services that I touched on earlier and to make sure that we tailored each service to the survivor and the children. And guess what? After that two year period, the survivor went on to open her own trucking business. Her own trucking. Not somebody who came from that background or came from background of like being an entrepreneur or had any kind of vocational or business or professional training. I'm just connecting something that you said earlier that there, that how, um. So, so this particular survivor opened a trucking business. He went on to employ like. She basically had a very successful company. She put her kids through college, bought her own home and was then able to give back to many other survivors and came back and told her story at uh, our gala a few years ago. And just like her, there are many other survivors that Manavi has served who went on to become caterers, designers, open their own businesses, do certifications and vocational trainings. Um, and I think all each survivor needs is an opportunity, um, accessibility to services, um, someone who can say that you are not alone. Uh, we are here for you. We believe you and we believe in you. So I think sharing, um, stories, um, and storytelling is a really critical part, um, of the work that we all do so we can show the real life human impact, um, that our services have and talk about our work from a human rights perspective. Um, I'll just end by saying one very important thing here that, you know, we all talk about like we do work with ending, uh, gender based violence and the critical work that you do that at your agency. We need to kind of bring it all back in. An overarching fundamental principle which is that every human being has a fundamental human right. We need to look at it from a human rights perspective. Every human being has a fundamental human right to live a life free of violence and to have access to all these fundamental human rights like housing, education, health care and so on. So I think that that is, that is where we all align, uh, and come together and collaborate.

Speaker A: Well said. Aditya, talk to us about technology. You have, uh, you mentioned leveraging technology to help help solve this challenge. Tell, uh, us more about what you folks are working on.

Speaker C: So when we think of technology, um, most people, um, and even me maybe in my past lives, um, as an engineer, you think of technology as an end in itself. I build something cool and I feel like, oh, I've achieved something. Well, hold on. If the technology is not solving a real problem and making a real impact on real human beings, what good is that technology? I think that is the frame through which we now see, um, our work. Civitas, um, gives us, uh, the framing. It says, here's the problem. How do we solve the problem? Now, there are two ways to solve the problem. Uh, we can either deploy, uh, an army of people who have all the right intent in each of the countries where we need to do the work and help these refugees fill out the forms to get access to an ID or anything manually and kind of do it, uh, the non technology way, or you can say, hold on a second, uh, we are in 2026. We shouldn't have to fill out a form on paper. Uh, to be able to get access to something. You should be able to click a button on a smartphone or a computer to do that. The good news is that even though a lot of these folks are in resource constrained environments where they don't have enough food to eat and barely have shelter. They have connectivity, they have smartphones.

Speaker A: Aha. Uh-huh.

Speaker C: So let's leverage that. In fact, what we have found in Colombia, where there are 3 million migrants from Venezuela, the migrant population is more digitally savvy than the rest of the population. Why? Because they are forced to look at technology as a lifesaver. And so they depend on their phones and smartphones and digital experiences as they are dealing with, uh, entities. How do we leverage the fact that we, um, have connectivity, uh, smartphones and uh, digital savviness already available to us? So now that is the starting point. It's a fantastic starting point for us to leverage. Now combine that with availability of, um, AI technology, um, and availability of on demand, uh, resources for compute, understanding of verifiable credentials and standards around privacy preserving credential management. Very important. Just because these folks are vulnerable does not mean we can abuse their data. In fact, they have been burned before. So one of the questions that we heard from the refugees in the camps in Kakuma, uh, was how will you protect our data? Can you assure us that our data will not be used by bad actors, uh, to abuse us? That is very important. We have now all of the building blocks available to us. What we are doing special Jim, in terms of the technology that we are investing in and building in the platform, uh, is, uh, what we call intelligent workflow orchestration. Uh, that is a fancy way, uh, to say, hey, look, if you are a migrant with any starting point, what is an easy to use guided pathway that we can give you from wherever you are to a service that you need, public or private? The technical word is, uh, uh, an agentic experience. For intelligent workflow orchestration, the plain English way is guided pathway to get access. Same thing, but that's what we're doing. We want the experience for every user to be a very high touch handheld experience unique to that situation, unique to that user, unique to the service that they want. That is how we are taking advantage of available technology and adding our own to it, uh, so that we can really solve the problem at scale.

Speaker A: That's exciting. When do you think that will launch?

Speaker C: We, uh, plan to, um, have our pilots, uh, with actual users using this, uh, in Q2 of this year, which is, uh, coming up soon, uh, in the two pilot countries, uh, we already have interest from other countries who want to work with us, but, uh, uh, slow and steady. So two countries first and then we'll Add more.

Speaker A: That's fantastic. This has been really fascinating conversation. Uh, tell us. We usually do just one thing. Uh, what's your hope for 2026, Navni?

Speaker B: Our hope is that all survivors have meaningful access to culturally grounded, holistic support centering their individual needs. And also that organizations like Manavi and all our partner agencies doing critical work right now continue to receive increased funding so that we can continue to support all survivors, reach each survivor and ensure their safety. Our, uh, hope and mission is also that every survivor's voice shapes the support they receive so they feel seen, safe and supported. At, uh, Monavie, we are committed to standing with survivors and honoring their voices to rebuild their lives with safety, dignity and independence.

Speaker A: Wonderful, Aditya.

Speaker C: My hope is that we look, um, at what is happening in the world around us and use, uh, that as an impetus, uh, to do the right thing. Uh, let's not get discouraged by what's happening in the geopolitical sphere, um, in the world. Let us, uh, keep the optimism alive to, um, solve the problem in any way we can. Um, we are doing it one way. There might be other ways. Uh, we welcome collaboration and engagement from anybody and everybody. Uh, but my hope for 2026 is to, uh, keep the optimism and keep the energy alive to do what is right, uh, for, uh, the world around us.

Speaker A: Great. Um, we usually end with a poem or a saying or a quote. Navneet, what would you like to share?

Speaker B: I think I'd like to share a, uh, quote directly from a survivor. Um, so in the survivor's words, they said, in my darkest moment, Manavi gave me safety, strength and dignity without judgment and with deep cultural understanding. Today I proudly call myself Survivor.

Speaker A: Wonderful Aditya.

Speaker C: I've had the pleasure of having fantastic mentors in my journey. One mentor boss once said to me, don't just admire the problem. Solve the problem. We, uh, see so many problems around us these days. Um, instead of just reading the news and having political shop talk at, uh, social events about all the problems we see around us, I'm happy and fortunate that I am able to now solve a problem by doing something with what we're doing at Civitas. So that has been my guiding, uh, that's been my guiding quote. Let's not just admire a problem. Let's solve the problem.

Speaker A: Very solve, Very solveful. So this has been a great conversation. Thank you for your service, both of you, your organizations, uh, doing incredible work, really important, noble work. And, uh, look forward to keeping in touch and seeing how, uh, I and our community can help thanks for joining us. I hope you enjoyed the show. Please like it, leave a review and subscribe. See you soon.