As part of an impressive COVID relief effort, Indian expat couple in Singapore Prantik Mazumdar and Dr Dipti Kamath recently launched a dollar-to-dollar matching fundraiser for India leveraging crowdfunding platform Milaap.
The dollar-for-dollar matching campaign kicked off on Sunday and raised over SGD 120,000 in less than 48 hours. Prantik, an entrepreneur, angel investor and Managing Partner of digital marketing agency Happy Marketer said they hit their initial dollar-for-dollar matching target of USD 25,000 in less than 24 hours.
"We crossed the three times our target mark in less than 48 hours and it was overwhelming, fulfilling and very encouraging to see generous donations flow in from friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances and even "anonymous strangers" from Singapore, India, Indonesia, Australia, UK, Canada and UAE," he added.
Over 500 donors from Singapore, India, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, UAE and the US have contributed so far to the campaign.
"Never in my practice of medicine have I been faced with a shortage of oxygen so when this was the case that my fellow doctors back in India had to face, with patients dying in the hundreds on a daily basis, it was but imperative that we had to mobilise funds to help procure the very thing that could sustain life and prevent deaths during this heart-wrenching pandemic back home,” Dr Dipti Kamath, who works in the Accident & Emergency department at the National University Hospital in Singapore, said.
The couple partnered with NGOs in India such as Swasth and ACT Grants, which are backed by the Indian startup and VC community by players like Accel, Sequoia, Curefit, BCG, ICICI etc to procure and deliver oxygen concentrators to areas facing an acute shortage.
Swasth Digital Health Foundation is a Not-for-Profit initiative (registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act), is an organization that is being overseen by credible industry leaders such as Kris Gopalakrishnan (ex Infosys); Mukesh Bansal (Curefit); Shashank ND (Practo); Dr. N. K. Jayram (Columbia Asia Hospitals) and many other stalwarts and the overall Program Management Partner for the body is the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
ACT Grants is a pioneering platform led by stalwarts from the Indian startup and VC ecosystem such as Prashant Prakash (Accel); Aarti Mohan (Sattva Consulting); GV Ravishankar (Sequoia); Vani Kola (Kalaari) and more.
Milaap was founded in Singapore as a crowdfunding platform by two National University of Singapore (NUS) graduates Mayukh Choudhury and Anoj Viswanathan. They allow individuals/organisations to run fundraiser/matching campaigns for healthcare, education, sports, disaster relief and other personal causes.
"This was our second dollar-for-dollar matching fundraiser on Milaap; the first one being exactly a year ago to support the migrant worker crisis back home in India, when the nation went into a complete lockdown," Prantik said.
"Given how serious, dire and scary the situation is back home and with so many of our families, friends and colleagues suffering, this is the least we could do remotely and I would like to thank everyone for their contributions, support, shares and encouragement," he added, signing off.