Hey, hi. Good evening everyone. This is Abhijeet and welcome you all to the final phase of Misfits. This year it's been such a wonderful fight. Misfits 2.0 is something that, to be honest, we never imagined we would be hosting. It started as an initiative. We kickstarted last year at the peak of the pandemic. There is so much that was going on. We all know that innovators globally just got into action and all of them have been creating something or the other to solve the crisis that all of us were in. And as an enabler, we at Rooksh, we started supporting them through different mediums. We started a hackathon. We started an accelerator. And then we further saw that there was so much more that was happening and we missed the stage to showcase the phenomenal work that all of you have been doing out there. And that's where Misfits was born. Misfits started as a small idea that was actually pitched by one of our then interns who said that, hey Abhijeet, let's do a pitch event. And we said, okay, let's make it big. And he said, okay, what's the best thing that we could do? And because at that core Rooksh enables entrepreneurs, it helps economies. We do so much on that level. So we came forward with this tagline to find the most impactful change makers from South Asia. And the name really struck a chord with all of us. And because while entrepreneurs, all of us are in some way or the other Misfits, but when it comes to social impact, there's literally that's a further subset of these entrepreneurs that are doing things where at times you don't even know if there's a return guaranteed. And that's where this Misfits initiative was born. So I'm very happy to be concluding this again this year. And to present to you what we've done with Misfits. Misfits 2.0 as all of you again, retreating is now an annual initiative by Rooksh ecosystem foundation to find the most impactful change makers from South Asia. This year we have some phenomenal partners that have supported us at the global level. We have one impact that is the global co-host. We're powered by Crowdera, Impact Pod, and East Alliance Fritchie. And we have the Knowledge Partner as Will Grow for the Indian region. To give you a brief insight again into Rooksh, we are a think tank that is seeding innovation ecosystems. We came together with purpose to enable entrepreneurs, support them in different ways, means and foster these innovation ecosystems to be able to democratize the knowledge that is within all of us. We have this internal saying that it's not about ideas, but making those ideas happen. And that's what even Misfits as an initiative stood for, while it was not just an idea that was pitched by someone, but it became into something much larger than any one of us that you could ever imagine. And with the same thought process with Rooksh, we are here to help entrepreneurs like you succeed in their ideas. So with Misfits 2.0, we've seen some phenomenal impact. This year again, it was an online pitch event across different regions enabling social entrepreneurs, innovators and change makers like you and me to be able to showcase the phenomenal work that you've been doing, to be able to connect with each other and really expand the impact that we do on ground. And while it started as a pitch event, it has grown into a phenomenal community that helps out each other, has a global coverage across Southeast Asia, highly impact focused and with the amazing partners that we have together. We've been able to see these impact ecosystems across the geographies and the community is what keeps us going moving forward. I'm so glad that this now we are over 400 plus Misfits so far since last year across these regions. We've had different pitch events, different partners coming us and supporting us from across Southeast Asia and we aim to go much larger again next year. To share a quick insight into the impact that we've had so far, these are the numbers, right? I'm blown away when we were actually collating this that we've had 40 hours of a total event duration in the past three months. The entire team went across, put their efforts, had sleepless nights and crazy days just putting together this entire event. We went across 20 regions. We had the support of 80 plus partners again this year and through which we were able to select the top 30 Misfits that all of you are out of 240 applications that came. To be honest, again, this year there were a lot of hurdles that we faced and to be honest, I was not really sure if I would be able to present such numbers this evening but we were able to do that. We had phenomenal folks coming us, coming up and sharing their experiences in our impact talks. We had juries who contributed so much of their time to judge you and there was completely, as an organization, we were not part of anything and it was completely by the community that all of you, the top 30 were chosen with on the social media front, we've seen so many people watching us, viewing us and these, this is just visible from the reach that you see on the screen and so many people have witnessed what Misfits as a community is doing. So if I just put all of these numbers together, it's over, it's almost two and a half, like people that have seen what Misfits is and they're just heartening and amazing to see what we've been able to do. I'm very thankful to the community at my impact, especially led by Matthew, who's been supporting us in every possible way to be the co-host this year. Crowdera, ImpactPod, Anisalim, Fitchi who've put in their efforts to ensure that this entire event becomes a success and will grow definitely one of the largest names in the impact ecosystem has come on board as a knowledge partner for the Indian region and we're so happy to have them support us in every possible way. Beyond that, there are all of these friends that joined in us as partners and who've been helping us every step of the way at a regional level, at a global level by supporting us through credits, through different ways, through mentorship and there's so much that is supposed to come over the next few months for all of you. So I'm very happy for the support and all of these regional partners who've really fixated it on their ground and there's a lot of support that has actually come through the Global Shapes community and I'm very thankful to all the hubs that have extended their support and we aim to take this forward with the Global Shapes community also and again everyone involved at a regional level there's a lot of stuff that's coming along your way so thank you to every partner that has been with us. Now without much ado, I bring on board my colleague Anubam who's been tirelessly working on the Misfits Initiative and she's championed this like a hero and just made all of this happen to actually bring forward a wonderful set of people that will be joining us for a panel discussion on scaling social impact and we have representatives from the Bangladesh Highdeck Park Authority, the ICT Agents, Sri Lanka and Nithya Yog from India. So Anubam, over to you. Yeah, thank you Avijit. So yes, hello beautiful people, a very warm welcome to all of you in the finale of Misfits 2021 cohort. This is Anubam Pandey, the community manager at Rukhsh where I am closely working on organizing and managing workshops for grassroots and early stage entrepreneurs in partnership with government and corporate bodies. I at Rukhsh, I'm building a network of startup founders, mentors and community people where we together are leading the social impact community Misfits which aims to find the most impactful change makers from South Asia as Avijit has already mentioned. So yes, welcome all of you to this panel discussion on scaling social impact. I would like to welcome our esteemed panelists. We have Mr. Masha, senior manager startup ecosystems at ICT Sri Lanka. Then we have Mr. Ashik Kumar. Yeah, then we have Mr. Ashikur, consultant startup policy and incubation strategy at Bangladesh Highdeck Park Authority and we have Ms. Sumita Soni, a young professional Neeti Aayog India. Talking about Ashikur Rahman, he is a strong advocate for home grown startup friendly ecosystem. Ashikur is currently a consultant at startup policy and incubation strategy at Bangladesh Highdeck Park Authority under ICT division. He is also the pioneer of student to startup platform in Bangladesh alongside many other organizational activities for entrepreneurs. Thanks for joining us Ashikur. Then we have Ms. Masha Fernando, a senior manager startup ecosystem development ICT agency of Sri Lanka. She is a strong team player with expert knowledge and community level interventions, having demonstrated excellent skills in project planning, coordination management, administrative coordination, professional collaboration, volunteer engagement, effective communication and public speaking. Glad to have you Mr. Masha. Then we have Sumita, she is an IIP graduate who pursued her studies in urban planning. She has been working in development sector for more than five years with state and central government. Sumita is leading international affairs at Neeti Aayog. She is also the part of Korty which is leading women entrepreneurship platform and women transforming India initiative. Happy to have you Sumita. Thanks for joining. So yes, today's discussion is based on social impact. What would be a social impact? Social impact, it's the effect. We all know that it's the effect on people and communities that happens as a result of an action, an activity, project, program or policy. Now how do we measure it? Impact is if I go by the definition part of it. Impact is also central to the organization's strategy as it helps everyone know whether we are meeting our mission and vision in the long term or not. Measuring the social impact will help us understand, manage and communicate the social value that our work creates in a clear and consistent way. So I would like all of you to throw some light to the esteemed panelists, to throw some light on how do you measure social impact and what motivates you to do what you do? What motivates you to scale that social impact? We can start with Mr. Masha, please go ahead. Thanks. Thank you. First of all, I just say thank you Abjit and Anifum for having me here. So just to be online, what Anifum was saying, I'm part of a government entity representing, a government entity of Sri Lanka representing ICTHS of Sri Lanka, Discoming the Ministry of Technology. So of course, being one of the government officers, having social impact solutions going into the public is one of the priority criteria in my job description as well, of course for sure. But as a government servant, yes, that is in my job description. But for me, it's not what limits to my JD or job description. So we do a lot of volunteering. It's a collaborative approach that we need to take in terms of getting all the social impact solutions to the people. So in my opinion, social impact solutions is the key that can make a bigger change in any community, especially regions like India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia, I could say. So because in, I would say, Sri Lanka mainly, I would say is at a very blank sheet where anyone can try out new products. Right. So we have a lot of innovators coming into the Sri Lankan ecosystem, which has a really good potential in developing social impact solutions. So even if I'm representing the startup ecosystem development data of ICTA, even though we focus on IT, so the social impact, the credit of social impact, how it impacts the society, what is the biggest problem, what is the big problem that it solves through your solution in the social, in the public. And it is one of the criteria and how ethical that is, how environment friendly your solution is, are key criteria that you're always looking into. So that itself, actually, I'm being a community before me joining into ICTA, I was a community builder who was voluntarily working in different few other entities. So it's kind of a passion of me and that have drawn me to here, to what I do now. So as I mentioned, yes, it is mentioned in my JD and this is part of my job, but apart from that, we do a lot of things around this ecosystem, which is totally beyond what's mentioned in the JD.  Hi, Sri Lanka. So anyone who's contributing to the society should have that mindset. So that is what motivates me to do my job as well, to do whatever I'm doing apart from my job. So I'm usually connected with almost everyone in the startup ecosystem in Sri Lanka and many of the global ecosystems as well, because I don't see, even though we say it's startup ecosystem in Sri Lanka, I don't really want to tell that thing, because startup ecosystem does not limit to a country per se. It's a global network that you need to maintain. So even if you, I mean, you in India can say we have this Indian startup ecosystem, Sri Lanka can say this is Sri Lanka's startup ecosystem, but when it comes to technology and specifically startups, it's a global network that we need to go through, because in Sri Lankan context, now we are focusing on having more globally scalable startups. So if you are in that run, yes, you need to maintain the global relationship in a bigger way. So and also social impact component plays a massive role in that, in that part. So that is what I have to say. Yes. Thank you so much for sharing this. Ashik, please share your thoughts on this. What are the things that motivate you in your current role and whatever you're doing? Please go ahead. Well, it's actually a very interesting story. I was actually an undergraduate student of an engineering university where I tried to study engineering, but it didn't work out. So I decided to drop out. And while I was in the university, we, you know, engineering students are actually close to think about things that we don't should think about, right? The problems that we see around ourselves, the society, the culture, the people, and every kind of problem that we find, we want to solve those problems. Back in 2015 or 16, actually it started when there was no supply chain for entrepreneurs. There were a lot of ideas, a lot of innovations that our youth was our students like us were working up with. But those ideas are those innovations were actually dying in those university campuses. There were no supply chain available. So that is when we decided to create this student to start a platform which is actually providing the, connecting the bridging between those supply chain, you know, bringing those ideas from universities and putting, showcasing them at the national level, providing the investment, providing the working space, business mentoring and everything possible. Currently, where I work, I work with the government, the Bangladesh High Tech Park Authority, it's actually the FX body for IT trade. We provide special economic zones for IT businesses, and we provide a lot of incentives, including cash incentive, vet incentive, duty incentive, and many more opportunities. In High Tech Park Authority, I have a very unique experience. We have High Tech Parks basically to decentralize the whole ecosystem, right? Because in a country like ours, the ecosystem is very much centralized based on the capital Dhaka. There is very less of activities available outside Dhaka. So High Tech Park Authority helped decentralizing that ecosystem. When I visited those High Tech Parks and in every High Tech Park, our government has provided a floor available for free. You know, every year entrepreneurs can come and work on those working spaces for free. Our government has provided those floors for the entrepreneurs and startups. So when I visit those floors, I see people from rural areas working with the very common and culture based ideas like, you know, building a cultural product. It's not a business.  She's trying to export that in 17 countries. So these are little ideas and little parts that I think actually provides very much impact on the society because when I try to empower those ecosystems outside the capital, I need one or two ideal cases like those where I can show people that this is what you can become. This is what you can achieve. So it's very important that we focus on every idea because I think every idea matters no matter how small or big it is as long as it solves the problem for the society or people. That's great. And you know, this idea of connecting all people to knowledge in each other is actually enduring. And it's an honor for me that, you know, to tell you that we have startups from Bangladesh as well as Sri Lanka in our top 30 cohort, I would love to, you know, connect them with you for further communications or maybe further opportunities. I had talked with Abhijeet and the team before because we are very much, we'll appreciate if we could provide free working spaces for the top three teams in our country. We'll love to host them. That's great. Thank you very much. Moving ahead with Sumita. Sumita please, your thoughts. Hi. Thank you Anupam and Abhijeet for having me here. And I'm really delighted to address you all here. And I'm really happy to see Will grow here as an organizing partner. They are also part of our woman entrepreneurship platform at Neethi Ayog about which I will be talking today. So talking about the social impact. So when we, from Neethi Ayog, when we think about how to make this country, we do come across this thought that, you know, that is not possible without participation of women and participation of women entrepreneurs. So when we come across the figures and then we realize that, you know, we are expected to generate like 150 million jobs by 2030 through the woman entrepreneurship and which is like in a more than 25% of the whole job requirement for the entire working age group. So we come to know that, you know, how important this whole ecosystem is. And when we also see how, what the situation is about women entrepreneurship in India, we tend to understand that, you know, there are much, much to do for supporting this woman entrepreneurship ecosystem. So if you go with some figures as per the research and studies, you'll realize, you know, that women owned entrepreneurship enterprises are actually increasing in past decade and there has been much, much work done. But it has rose only, you know, from 14% to 20%. So it's improving, but there is a little, you know, a little pace and there is a little growth in this number. So we feel that, you know, there should be, there should be a nudge, a push and support, which should be provided for supporting this woman entrepreneurship ecosystem. So for doing that, we feel that, you know, if the right kind of support for entrepreneurial activities undertaken by the women, if we provide that, that cannot only help improving the life and enhance of their agency, but also there is going to be a cumulative positive effect and impact on Indian economy. And we also feel that, you know, if we are able to help one woman entrepreneur, she is going to raise active jobs for multiple other workforce and the people around in the community and that is going to have a multiplier effect. So from the view of supporting this ecosystem, we at Meteor have launched this woman entrepreneurship platform in 2018. And so this platform actually acts as a aggregator between the woman entrepreneurs and the knowledge providers and support system.  So we try to provide the information, the knowledge, the education, and we also tried to send in the industry linkage, we try to increase the awareness of existing programs and services. And our partners, as I said, will grow as one of them and we have like many other partners about maybe 40 to 50 partners who support our 20,000 and more registered woman entrepreneurs as users as a WP platform. So we have been within the last one and a half years, we have been able to provide like more than 300 to 400 knowledge resources on our WP platform. And this process is going on and we are growing each day, we are improving each day, we are learning each day and we are trying to motivate ourselves and women entrepreneurs available from India. And we are trying to encourage them, we are trying to bring out the role models, we are trying to learn from their challenges, we are trying to learn from the strength, their strengths. And we are trying to modify our own platform and we are also trying to take learning to modify the nation's policies. So earlier this year we had also written a report that is moving the needle, that is also available on WP's website when we give it a look and understand that you know what is our perspective in understanding the challenges which are existing in women entrepreneurship ecosystem and also what are our thoughts going forward to improve and stand in this ecosystem. So as a part of this initiative we have launched a women transforming India Awards that is a flagship award for NetE.io and for that we invite the applications which is live and till the end of December we will be taking the applications and then the enterprises, the women enterprises who will be, who will take part in this application process and if they, when we will be felicitating about 75 women entrepreneurs and that will be on women's day. So yes through such initiatives, through knowing the ecosystem, through knowing the actual women entrepreneurs on grassroots level, we try to learn, we try to change the system, we try to support the system. Yes that is it from my side. Thank you Sumita and you know it's truly what what you people are doing is the ignition for positive change and growth, no doubt. With this I would like to move ahead to my next question which will be about the impact measurement also like impact measurement is not about measurement at all social impact measurement is the process of understanding how much social change occurred and can be attributed to an organization's activities. So with this I would like to ask this in particular that how can we, we together work to scale impact solutions we can start with Ashikur. Thanks actually there are a lot of scopes where we can actually work together right. Currently we are actually building 64 startup incubators in 64 districts of our country just to ensure that we have decentralized the whole system and then we'll be opening up those all of those incubators for the startup especially you know the people who need actually supply chain and market access all the grassroot areas we are opening those grassroot markets for any startup from any location of our country. So if we can just plug in that system with your or countries or the field and countries or the regional system actually our whole market is can be accessible from any for any kind of startups that is coming from the Misfits platform. Apart from that we are actually providing those you know very quirky spaces we are providing the business mentoring program for a year and all of those programs are state sponsored so we don't charge anything for that as well so it's basically to you know empower that social and the local ecosystem that in the village areas or the grassroot areas so that's the main point I think where we can actually connect and actually do something to you know improve the quality of those startups and businesses in their rural areas. Sure Ashikur we can connect or find out you know to discuss more about how can we yeah so thank you time is done moving ahead Tamash please go ahead. So I think you already had this question with Abhishek Abhishek and the team on how we can actually collaborate to us. I think from what I heard from Ashikur as well I do see a lot of potential and not so fierce synergies in between what we do in Sri Lanka and what you guys do in India and Bangladesh as well. So in Sri Lanka we have a national board of reaching X number of startups by this year so in with that question in mind we have Taylor made few programs starting from the idea stage then the business plan stage MVP level and launch stage so there are set of programs that we do in terms of inspiring all these body entrepreneurs coming and registering or establishing their business and also then scaling into global markets. I think in almost all the interventions starting from the very ground of the idea stage I think I do see a lot of synergies between the programs we do and we also as I mentioned earlier as well I do see this as a very connected global ecosystem and that is how we should visualize that if you want to you know build a scalable or globally scalable startups coming out from any country. So I think I mentioned this before as well so having that having the teams from different different regions together clear will make it a very really good blend in terms of understanding other cultures different generating business leads to enter into other markets. So I think it's a clear path where besides of what the program is or whatever you do that synergies can bring in a lot of value for the for this body. To be honest in Sri Lanka we don't see much that is happening in Sri Lanka because we do have like 75 percent of Sri Lanka is rural and land which becomes another problem for us as well when it comes to when it comes to we reaching to you know different different other markets in global. So but still what we encourage in Sri Lanka is if you should you should learn the language you should go and reach other markets should you connect with other people maybe to link they know any of the accelerators and get connected yourself to other other regions you might find like-minded people in other cause and you might be able to you know diversify your business or always start a different business all together from you know friends from the closer regions. So that is what we encourage as well. So it just you know it just yes because we think that it should be a very global connect globally connected ecosystem that we should maintain if for this all benefit of status and all the benefit of the startup ecosystem as well. So as I mentioned before I do see clear synergies in between part of all the programs we do I think all our social creating social impacts and from whatever the programs you do. So much happy to collaborate with Miss Beds and and the firm and also being a female what Sumita Soni said on the female entrepreneurship because it was my heart as well. So I was pretty much glad that if I could connect with Sumita as well on having more female startups in Sri Lanka which can be global and also bringing bringing them together in terms of building new startups with female founders especially in the tech community because I'm pretty much passionate about tech so pardon me if I had to talk a lot about tech in my larger business but yes that is something that we have already started doing and yeah I think it's a long journey that we can go together. Definitely definitely thanks a ton. Tamasha and moving ahead with Sumita Indian trust of time Sumita please be a bit quick and yeah please go ahead. Yes yes yeah so yeah I really welcome Tamasha's proposal we should collaborate offline and for Misfit as I said we have opportunities for both the things Misfit can pitch it as a knowledge partner with us. for WEP and also they can be engaged for WTI there's Women Transforming India Awards promotions and I know you had some words earlier on this we can connect again offline. So yeah that is it. Great thanks a lot thank you to the esteemed panelists. Also so yes yeah so broadly speaking social impact companies or social impact organizations that prioritise doing work that consciously constantly systematically sustainably serves or attempts to solve a local or global community need and yes thanks to all of you to Mr. Tamasha, Ms. Sumita, Mr. Ashikur for answering the questions so efficiently. Thanks again for joining us it would be great before the next slot starts it would be great if we can share at least you know a one-liner closing part before we end. Tamasha we can again start with you. Well I think a quick closing part yes. Yes I think it's yeah I just one line collaborative the collaborative effort can make a big impact so let's collaborate. Yes Sumita please go ahead. I think Sumita had to drop off. Okay Ashikur please go ahead. Let's just join hands and expand whatever we are doing. Great thank you so much Ashikur yeah thank you Tamasha thank you Sumita yes. And thank you both of you and thank you Sumita she had to leave because of another engagement but we would love for you to just stick around for the next few minutes while we go around and share the top 30 misfits that are part of the cohort this year and we have a special announcement that's supposed to go in. Yes I'll give this joining in sometime. Okay cool so in the meantime we can just share the top 30 misfits that are with us. Muskaan you there. Sure so yeah Muskaan is here and yes these three months I would like to mention these these three months wow a super amazing journey for us getting a chance to meet such exceptional ideas connecting with around 200 plus startups 80 plus partner organizations from different countries. This has been a super exciting journey no doubt and after conducting 12 regional events we have got our top 30 misfits congratulations to all of them for making it to this level. So yes here's to the crazy ones the misfits the round pegs in the square holes the ones who see things differently they're not fond of rules because they change things they pushed the human race forward. I would like to call my colleague Muskaan to introduce our top 30 misfits one by one please go ahead. Yeah just a second. And after this we'll move towards the free flows slot facilitated by Akip he has to do some announcements for all of you. Okay should I go ahead. Yes please. Yeah so going ahead with the first startup that we had on board was Venti Cook it is the world's first mechanical mechanically controlled force draft biomass burning store designed specifically for rural people and aimed at reducing indoor air pollution and its consequences. Thank you team Venti Cook for being a part of misfits 2021 cohort. Next up is the startup smart micro garden system it is a holistic vision of allowing people to grow their own organic food their mission is to deliver fresh organic food with value for money across urban livelihood in the nation. Team smart micro garden system we were glad to have you as a part of misfits 2021 cohort. Thank you so much. Next we have Uttarang it is a movement to create empowered leaders at the grassroots who can transform the early childhood education space that nurtures community leaders whose voice values and goals shape early education at the grassroots. It was wonderful having you on board team Uttarang. Next we have infinity box a revolutionizing solution aimed towards a circular economy for reusable food delivery delivery containers which replaces single use plastic food containers with a circular model with each infinity box being reused up to 100 times before being recycled. Thank you team infinity box for being a part of misfits 2021 cohort. Next is Unico which is an amalgamation of unique and eco that provides eco-friendly and sustainable products in never seen before avatar. They strive to curb the environmental threats of climate change and plastic pollution with their motto sharing sustainable happiness. Really glad that you were a part of misfits 2021 cohort team Unico.  It was wonderful having you on board. Next is Project Rangit which takes innovative approach to promote 21st century skills by supporting educators to connect brains with hearts to social, emotional and ecological knowledge lessons using a mobile app. It was a pleasure to have you on board Project Rangit. Next is Wilds of the People Association which aims to build an ecosystem that would catalyze the teaching learning process by producing interconnected lesson plans, e-learning content and efficient monitoring and assessment. Thank you so much Wilds of the People Association team for being a part of misfits 2021 cohort. Next is Wellbeing which is an integrated safe and sustainable solution for chronic lifestyle disorders by combining strength and clinical protocols of areas medical disciplinary, allopathy, ayurveda and naturopathy. Thank you so much for being on board with us. Next is Lead by Design which envisions to mobilize young India to build local solutions for global challenges through design thinking by spreading awareness, taking actions and building advocacy. It was a pleasure having you on board. Next is Techno Shala which strives to promote the use of technology in the existing school ecosystem through interventions focused on developing teacher and principal capacities. Thank you team Techno Shala for being on board with us. Next is Smart Warehouse which provides a past harvest solution for agriculture domain in which it provides digital booking of warehouses, marketplace and warehouse management to get stakeholder fair price, fair storage for their commodity. Thank you team Smart Warehouse for being a part of misfits 2021 cohort. Next is Dallat which brings a tailor-made freelancing platform the first in South Asia for Pakistanis by a Pakistani diversing by offering easy payment methods available worldwide. Thank you team Dallat. Next is Exam Hub. Exam Hub is an online innovative education platform for students to practice their exam without laziness with a digitalized gamified study experience. It was a pleasure having you on board team Exam Hub. Next is Brahmaputra Fables. It is a technology-based platform of handicraft and handloom products through which they connect artisans and weavers to end consumers where they list their products through simple WhatsApp clicks. Thank you team Brahmaputra Fables. Next is Unicense. It is an industrial lot startup predominantly for industrial setup and component design and has successfully worked on wide array of sensors to formulate industry-facing products including GPS ecosystem proximity sensor, thermal sensor, humidity sensor and light sensor to name a few. Thank you team Unicense. Next is Niryati. It is a B2B cross-border online marketplace that connects buyers from all over the world to source Indian goods without any hassle. It was really nice having you on board team Niryati. Next is the Rainwater Project. It is a one-stop source for the design and execution of sustainable rainwater harvesting and integrated water management techniques. Thank you team Rainwater Project for being on board with us. Next is team Edith Healthcare. Edith Healthcare aims to prevent the spread of any airborne virus, bacteria, fungal and saves millions lives who can be infected with such pathogens. It also provides bio-safety level for production at healthcare facility. Thank you team Edith Healthcare. Next is Earth Tatw. It works towards reducing mining for natural resources by 60% through recycling post-industrial fired ceramic waste. Then newly developed material is 35% stronger food safe and is 100% recyclable. They offer green milling and green building solutions through their recycled ceramics, tableware and architectural products. It was great having you on board team Earth Tatw. Next is Ecotera Biodesign. They provide 100% bioregradable, cheap, sustainable packaging material from agricultural waste and mushroom roots. Their innovation is for those individuals and companies who find difficulty in exporting their material to plastic and styrofoam banned countries. Thank you team Ecotera Biodesign. Next is Luminate Network. Their aim is to be the leading youth led consultancy and entrepreneurial community starting from Hong Kong that nurtures young ambitious talent to tackle organizational problems for the social good. It was great having you on board team Luminate Network. Next is Griho.com. It is an online tool for Bangladeshi landlords and tenants, empowering them to better manage their properties. At Griho, you can advertise a property, search for a property, build your own proper micro site and keep yourself updated with the latest news and trends making headlines in the reality and facility management sector. Thank you team Griho for being a part of Ms. Swift's 2021 cohort. Next is Team EcoGo. EcoGo is an app and website directory that aims to be the Hong Kong's one-stop platform for all things sustainable whether it be restaurants, stores, events, etc. Thank you team EcoGo. Next is Stimula. It is India's first complete solution to public speaking combining the latest deep learning tech with expert mentors packaged in a cohort based subscription. It was great having you on board team Stimula. Next is Karmasthal. Health Tech Private Limited. A home care startup specializing in elder care starting with a care finder product to predictive health analysis for remote monitoring. Thank you team Karmasthal. Next is Qab which aims to eliminate the production of plastic packaging whilst bringing single use products under a rejuvenated lens. Thank you team Qab. Next is Chimini. To overcome the most common problems related to kitchen appliances including ease of use, cleaning of kitchen furniture, clustered kitchen space, cooking smoke problems like asthma, etc. Chimini came up with the idea of an IoT enabled chimney, a smart compact version of conventional kitchen chimney. Thank you team Chimini for being a part of Misfits 2021 cohort. Lastly we have Digi Swastha Foundation which is a health tech non-profit organization. They bridge the gap between healthcare needs of rural India and urban healthcare services. It makes healthcare accessible and affordable across rural India by leveraging technology at fidgety telemedicine centers. Thank you Muskan and Kuros to all the top 30 teams. With this let's move to the next slot which will be facilitated by Akib Hossein the co-founder and chief integrator at FreeFlow. So FreeFlow is an incubator and accelerator for startups and a government affiliated body which allows all startups and investors that are in our ecosystem to come together on one platform to understand each other's requirements to create an opportunity for benefits for each other. Akib is here with us to share about his work and to announce a few important things. Akib over to you. Thank you Anupam. I hope I'm audible. Yes. So congratulations guys. The 2021 cohort party that has been just announced with exact amount of information that you needed to know about each one of these startups. So thank you. Thank you to the person who was doing a great job at giving the one pagers of the one liners around each business. So just a quick introduction. I work with the government of India, the invest India team in particular as the national venture building partner to invest India. And we kind of venture build with startups taking care of their technology, compliances, go-to-market and the i-word which is investment because Indian startups have a fetish for investments as and when it does come into their particular scheme of things. Our association with Misfits is about a year and a half long now and what we had done last year was a miniature version of the whole thing that they have been able to put again this year. And we met a few very exciting startups last year. So rather than talking about what is right now, I'll just take you back in time to 2020. We had been introduced to some of the most exciting impact models possible via this particular initiative of Misfits by Rukh. And we took those models under the venture building program, ran them through various revenue channel diversification models with us, took them to newer kinds of revenue realizations and impact realizations. And in the last two and a half months have syndicated funds for them. So there are a few announcements that I had to make and they were due, I had been telling and I'll tell the world who we have selected from Misfits. So we have been able to raise for ESG health and education based startups a total of about three and a half million dollars in the last 63 days out of which three of them, three of the 21 startups came from the Misfits team itself or the Misfits cohort itself. One of them was Jalodbust, which is raising $150,000 with us. They would have their eventual commitment agreements done in the next 14 odd days. Similarly, there was a platform called Plenvi, which was working on purification of air and a community air, which has got a commitment from us. And there was a soil conservation platform called Biotrends, which has got another commitment from us at about $120,000. So when I say commitment from us is what I want to talk about to the cohort of 2021. This time around, I want to give it to all 30. Each one of you who have made it to the top 30 are obviously special and obviously doing something that's specific. We want to be quicker with the capital outlay as well as get you the specific kinds of markets as soon as possible. Because this indication happens with similar startups coming together and similar startups feeding their input and output channels as efficiently as possible. Because it allows us to raise faster for them. It allows us to put our own capital faster to them. So in each one of these syndicates, we have gone ahead and put in 25% of the capital via free flow and its funds. So there are about a total of 57 investors waiting for you. There are two events which have been designed as a follow-up. I will get back to the Vrukshiko system team to actually get that sorted. There's an event that we are doing in Bihar on 11th of Feb for which you automatically qualify. Vruksh allows me to make you qualify to apply and be in the finale which would be presented in front of six state governments and more than 45 odd investors who would be writing checks in between $20,000 to $3.5 million. So depending on what is the kind of approach that you're following for your business model, we would like to facilitate that. Also, the syndication model would be live again from January after we close the first three. So you would all be applicable for that and you would automatically qualify for that. There's also a follow-up event in Bombay that we are doing under the flagship of startup Asia. Similar model, it's a Gemified version of you being able to present in front of actual investors and their capacity commitments being done on the day itself. For the Bihar event, we have a commitment of around $3.5 million as a wallet which would be available for startups for the top 50 startups that we select. And as I said, the top 30 here obviously get an advantage because you have got through a certain kind of a selection procedure already. And similarly in the startup Asia model, we are trying to give exhibition spaces as well as presentation opportunities to startup. We'll be selecting about 80 across the country. And again, all of you are more than invited in the March event. So the Bihar event is on 11th of Feb. The applications have already started. I'll share all the details. Amrita, I'll share everything that you need so you can all reach out. And Anupam is always there. She's been a very valued partner. She's always helped us getting the right kind of connects. Abhijeet also. Sorry, Abhijeet, I took your name after Anupam. And these are the two flagship events. In between, we would do the syndication models also. Just for clarity, syndication works faster than one-on-one interfacing with investors because of the simple reason that the investor does not need to necessarily directly invest on the startup. They invest on an LLP in between, which is thereby investing on a syndicate of correlated startups. So we, in a way, are being able to give guarantees for the first time to traditional investors about returns, about the kind of, about the kind of kickbacks that startup investments are built in with. And in that, we are also giving you services of things that you did not start your startup journeys for. Most of you did not start your startup journeys for PR. Some of you did not start it for marketing comms. Some of it did not start it for developing IT. And some of you did not start it for operational and sales. So at FreeFlow, we believe doing what you love and loving what you do is important. And we want you to sustain that particular spirit, at least for till the next few rounds of your investment race. And we'll be there to support you as venture builders in the same year. So that was the announcement. Some have already been committed from last year, which I just told the team. I'll give in the details and the PR details as and when they happen. The total investment from just the Misfits cohort has crossed about a half a million dollars in total. So in commitment. And I'm aiming to triple that amount this year because of the kind of models that I saw in the East India cohort that I was part of the jury of and the rest of them who I have had direct access to. So waiting for all the top 30 to actually enjoy the fruits of being in top 30. It's not just about the, it's both, it's offline and online. So the final pitches would be completely offline because hopefully we are off the COVID scare in a certain capacity. So we'll do an event in Patna and we'll do an event in Bombay. The syndication completely happens online. So we would try keeping it as specific as possible for all of you. So any questions on any one of these announcements or who am I to actually give all of this cash ready to answer? So yeah, please do feel free. And will we get incubation support from free flow? Yes, you do. Yes, you do. And with this incubation support, you also get about seven state government policies corrective work through. So you get a workaround from Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Odessa, Kerala, Assam, Bihar and Jharkhand. These would be the states wherein we get you a red tape workaround and work through for the startup policy advantages that these states give within the incubation. Also, technology and go to market teams are available in-house as well as in the ecosystem to help you out in any of the complementary areas. So that's part of the incubation slash venture building. Investment is but a result of all of these activities that we do with each other. So investments is an eventuality, not the starting point of it. Some nonprofits are part of this event. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. There are grants and specific release of amount that's happening just for ATG and non-profit organization registered entities. So there are elements for them also. It just needs to have the right kind of wiring with regards how would the non-profit activity of yours scale across the country or across the zone, the Southeast Asian zone. So that's the only thing that you need to take care of and then we could work the other things around. There might be more questions. Feel free to connect them on a particular common group if there is any and or their email IDs and I'll drop them all the information. And for sure, I'll meet Ruksh as a partner this time around in the events so that we can pull it off. We are in. Thank you. If there's any questions, participants, you can raise your hand. I can unmute you because we have a few minutes left to the next slot. If there's any, I guess there's no questions. Thank you. I'll see you around. Okay. Thank you Anupam for having me. Yes, moving ahead to the next slot, which is about, we're going to announce the top three misfits and the top three VEF team choice, the misfits basically. So Abhijit. Yes, just a minute. Sure. Sure. Meanwhile, if any of you wants to share anything, your experience for these, you know, because this was a three month engagement. So if any of you wants to share anything particular, anyone, any expectations or any experiences or how was your experience in meetings, so many of startups. So yeah, yes, please go ahead. Hi. Hi, Anupam. So I just want to, you know, like, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fitz for actually, you know, like organizing this, mainly because I applied to this event when it started off because I saw that it was a four minute speech. And I really read that. It gave me an opportunity to actually, you know, like, put down things and say like, you know, like, how am I going to actually talk about my, you know, the work that we do at Lead by Design to the world in four minutes. That was just amazing.  And got lots of, you know, like the next through the event itself. So thank you so much. Thank you, Swami. Thanks a lot. Anyone else? Yes. So Akim has dropped his email ID. You can connect with him. And talking about the event details, I'll share those event details with you whenever I receive them with them from Akim. Shashank, you want to go ahead? Yes. So definitely thanks for organizing this and one exciting thing for me about this event was getting to know about startups from different countries in the Southeast Asia region. That was really good. Otherwise, we usually get to know about our own region, but this was cross country. And that was really good to know. So thank you for the misfit, Steve. Pleasure. That's the idea. We want to go much larger beyond that. And I think we have been decent enough in actually bringing people from Southeast Asia together. And now the drum roll to the top three misfits. I'm so happy to see what all of you have been doing. To be honest, and Akim, one thing is I don't really mind taking Anupam's name because she's been leading this. So when it comes to misfits, I'm always the second person like after Anupam. And all the credit in terms of putting this phenomenal set of things together goes to her and the team that has been assisting us in making this happen. And obviously to all of you because if weren't it for the phenomenal folks out here who are doing some amazing stuff, we wouldn't have been able to build misfits. We saw this as an opportunity to actually bring that community together to see that can there be a more focused intervention for social startups because being an entrepreneur myself, being in the like I started with a couple of tech companies and when I entered in the nonprofit world or the impact world as such, it was really difficult to get the right set of people connected to write this typical NGOs or typical impact folks were very different from the world that I came in. And I think somewhere or the other it was also in a way or means to find my own tribe, right? To find people who I can personally relate with and I think with all of you out there, now it's a growing family and we'd like to just blow up from here. So again drumroll and the first misfit that we have, there's no ranking order here is DG Saustya. So Pallavi, congratulations for being part of this. And so Pallavi actually came out as a wildcard entry and then made it here. So it's I'm particularly happy with that transition. To be honest, we also like Pallavi and I we worked together during the second wave of the pandemic doing some different stuff and that's where we got introduced. So great to see you being part of the top three. So a couple of words here from your side. Hi, thank you so much. It's actually like I mentioned that it was quite a long engagement and you know, there are many fests that happen, but it's quite seldom that they build a community out of it. I'm going to be very honest, I was not expecting this because I felt like, this is the place where I can probably leverage what an ecosystem gives you. So not just the contacts of other startups in the same space or in different spaces where you can find some collaboration, but also the people that you brought in. So for the past few days, all the partners that we've had were quite engaging and I did connect with a lot of them on LinkedIn as well. In fact, even our kids. So I'm looking forward to use those, you know, all of those individuals who know how to run this space. I'm looking forward to use what they have to say and what they have said so far during the pitch fest. But yeah, thank you so much. Thank you very much, Pallavi. And the next one that we have as part of top three is Smart Warehouse, who we have from Smart Warehouse. Again, such an interesting solution to solve for the agricultural problem that we're facing and they've built a wonderful model around it. Do we have folks from Smart Warehouse? Yes, Abhijeet. I'm Akash. Yes, this is you. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for selecting us. It's a very great opportunity to try these signals, push down all the pitches into four minutes. It's very hard to do so. So thanks for delivering our techniques, the communication and all the pitching sessions and all the things. All credit goes to you folks. And I think it's all the juries that have brought you to this level. And again, I think all of you here are doing phenomenal work. So these are people who probably got better in the number of the game. But all of you are now a family of misfits. And the way we see social impact community is that we are here to work together. There's just so much impact that we can bring by just working, attaching ourselves with each other, finding those synergies. And that's where we also would like to play a role in terms of making those connections we've had. And which is where like the entire regional rounds and the domain specific rounds and now this has come together where we want more and more interaction to happen. And we've seen that already happening as part of the cohort or the previous cohorts as well. Now the third one that we have is edith healthcare. They have built a wonderful innovation. And especially with the COVID times, this is something helping a lot of healthcare folks out there. So we have someone for a minute. Yeah, Shubham is there. Hi, Shubham. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Actually, I would like to thank all of the team of the organizing this misfits and Rukas ecosystem to you know, bring up this all social impact startups. And I was also going through all the PTs happen in 2020-21. And these all are amazing. So yeah, thank you so much. Nice. Great, great to have you part of this. And moving forward, then our team also had a say in this. Now, while the jury did their work and announced the top three, our team felt here. And that's where we wanted to bring in a VF choice that the team really like some innovations that didn't make it to the top three. But we'd like to congratulate all of you. And the next set of VF choice are so again, congratulations to all the top three misfits for 2021. There's a lot of stuff in store for you and for everyone else. Now bringing on board the VF team choice is Unico, Coitopedia and EcoGo. Wonderful set of entrepreneurs and ideas in terms of making different initiatives in their own unique ways. So do we have someone from Unico here? Ankit, are you there? So I know there's no one from Unico. But we have Sonali from Coitopedia. Hi, Sonali. Hi, Vijit. Thank you so much. Honestly, I wasn't even expecting this because the space we operate in is so taboo. Just thank you so much for being so supportive and understanding and realizing that okay, there is a need for sex education to be the mainstream education at least someday in India. So really looking forward to working with you and congratulations to all the top three winners and all the teams here. Definitely, I think we have a lot of synergy that we can work together on and looking forward that all these startups really grow in the years to come and we become Unicons together from this space. And do we have the young team from EcoGo with us? Yes, we have Ian. Well, thank you so much for this opportunity. I'll say because this is a great platform for us and for our team to get started and to actually see that really, I did work and I'm really happy that we were given this opportunity by Misfits. And also congratulations to all the other teams for this round. And yeah, thank you very much. I really hope to draw further with our team and also hope to see all the other teams grow with the startups in the future. And yeah, again, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Shubham. Sorry, Meghank and everyone from your team. I really love what you folks were doing and to see high schoolers making such interesting stuff makes me feel weird. It makes me feel what was I even doing? I think I was probably preparing for some competitive examinations and all of that. And here you folks are here just making wonderful, becoming wonderful entrepreneurs. So congratulations and congratulations to everyone else. There is so much in store for all of you. So this is definitely not the end. And as we say, let's be the changemakers that the world needs. And congratulations to everyone. There's so much that is happening. And trust me, we have been, there's so much in the works on the back end that we've been speaking to wonderful people like Kakeb out there who've seen what Misfits is, who've seen all of you pitch, who've seen the growth that has happened from the last year. And wonderful news again, that all of you might have definitely heard. I keep sharing it. A couple of them have gone out, been exposed to different incubators, accelerators, have got fundings, have got clients. We've collaborated with them as an organization to further grow their impact and support them. And it's pretty much the same that we expect to do with you. So for all of you who couldn't make it to the top three and top six again, it's just a numbers game, but all of us are winning in the impact way. And let's try and work together in the best possible means. That's all I have to say. This is Abhijeet signing off. Thank you very much. Thank you Abhijeet. First of all, congratulations to all the winners and the team choices. You all deserve it. Frankly speaking, it was quite difficult for us to choose the best out of the best. The scores of top three, as Abhijeet just said, they had a difference of 0.5 marks. Even though we ranked you all the top 30 are the best ones, you deserve the applause for the work you're doing. Great job guys. I would specifically now like to introduce the team or I rather say the engine of Misfits that worked tirelessly for around four months to make this event happen. The team are all youngsters and I'm happy to say that majority of them are either freshers or students or students. Kudos to the grit, the determination and enthusiasm of my exceptional team members, Sneha Das, Muskaan, Apurva, Somya, Brahmi, Aditi, Aman, Yashaswini, Mohsina, Mathew, the Manimpa team, Mathew, Moksha, Niharika, Sayyam and the core members, Prasanjit, Amrita, Suraj, Rahul, Rahul Pari, the global lead of Misfits community and Abhijeet. Yes. Big assistance came from the team of entrepreneurship cell, I am Truchi led by Brahmi and Aditi and Manimpa led by Mathew and their members and impact pod led by Girish. We were guided constantly by the experienced folks that helped us avoid any major glitches. Thank you to, thankful to Aditi, Anupriya, Sherwari Kulkarni, Jatin Chaudhary, Kiran Reddy and of course our board members, Kamlesh, Sir, Rama Sir and Jaya Rupa Mam. Thankful for being there and motivating us constantly and yes that marks the end of our second edition of Misfits co-hosted by Manimpa powered by I am Truchi, Troudhira and impact pod. We are quite thankful to all our global and regional partners to trust our work. Thank you very much and also gratitude to all the attendees for joining us and sharing your precious time. That was Misfits for you where we will continue to find the most impactful change makers. Bye-bye guys, cheers and we'll see you next time. Thank you. See you again. Thank you. Have a good evening everyone. Bye. Bye-bye. Good evening. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.


Antonsen with the chance to get the Wanderers back into the contest. Scoring on his return to the A-League, Marcus Antonsen got two. As Western Sydney refused to throw in the towel.


Hello again everyone. I'm Ray Gilda, host of Lakeland Currents. Join me this week as my guests and I talk about starting high school fishing leagues. It's something that's really catching on in Minnesota.


الشهر الله Stevie Wonder شهر الله شهر الله عض الله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين الحمد لله الذي هدانا لهذا وما كنا لنهتر يلولى أنهدى على الله والسلات والسلام على أشرف الأنبياء والمرسلين خاتم النبيين سيد الممجد بشر المصدق المستفى الأمجد محمود الأحمد أب القاسم محمد وعلى أهل بيته طيبين الطاهلين المعسومين وعلى الله على الظالمين من الأولين والآخرين أما بعد قال إمام الحج عليه السلام اللهم إني أفتت حثنا أبي حمدك وأنت مسدد النصراب بمنك وأيكنت أنك أنت أرحم الراحمين في موذئ العفو والرحمة وأشد المعاقبين في موذئ النكال والنقمة وعظم المتجبلين في موذئ الكبرياء والعظم اللهم أذنت لي في دعائك ومساعتك فسمع يا سمي أمد حتي وأجب يا رحم دعوتي وأقل يا غفور عثرتي فكم يا إلهي من قربتين قد فرجتها وهموا من كد كشفتها وعثرة قد أقلتها وحلكة بلا إن قد فككتها صلاوات الله مستوبر عيج إمام الزمانة أعجب أن أخبرنا أخبارنا السلام عليكم جميعا ورحمة الله وبركاته الثلاثة في دعاء إفتتاء التي قامت بنا بمستوبر عيج إمام الحجة عجل الله تعالى فلجة الشريف بجنز بشكل إرادة مستوى بين أشبه مستوى وماذا يحبك الله سبحانه وتعالى وماذا يحبك وماذا يحبك في مستوى وماذا يحبك في معرفة أعلى نقول اللهم أذن تلي في دعائك ومساعتك فسمع يا سمي أمد حتي وأجيب يا رهي مدعوتي وأقل يا غفور عثرتي my lord you are the one who has permitted me to be able to ask and seek from you therefore listen oh hero and respond to my supplication when I call upon you the fact that we are saying these particular words shows how intimate the Imam when he was supplicating when he was in communion with الله سبحانه وتعالى you have allowed me to ask therefore listen oh hero and respond back to me then he continues by saying فكام يا إلهي من قربة قد فرجتها وهموم كد كشفتها وعثلة قد أقلتها وهلقت بلا إنك دفقتها my lord how many of the sorrows have you dispelled how many of the trials and tribulations have you removed from me how much of these problems in my life have I seen that you have separated and you have mitigated these circumstances from me this particular section of the da'a ceases or rather aims to take forth what we mentioned from last night when we began last night's discussion we stated that we began by praising الله سبحانه وتعالى I begin with a continuous praise of you it doesn't stop in all circumstances throughout my life I will make this praise to the extent that it becomes habitual for me but then the next stage of this da'a الله سبحانه وتعالى I begin with a continuous praise of you وانت مصدد للصواب بمنق وإي كنت أنك أنت أخرهم الراحيمين في مودي العرف والرحمة these sections were divided into four categories of praise first one for my guidance the second of your grand mercy the third in regards to the law that you have prescribed upon me and the fourth in recognition that you are superior over all those who consider themselves to be superior the enemies of yours who are superior over them in all circumstances now having considered الله سبحانه وتعالى's grandiosity having recognized that when it comes to the enemies of Allah سبحانه وتعالى we are outnumbered when it comes to looking at their financial resources maybe we are fewer comes to looking at how they are in control of media we see that we do not have this in the same scale of them I recognize that in comparison I do not have what it takes to make this equal battle but I recognize that you are superior to all of them in these circumstances having recognized his grandiosity it becomes the natural consequence for me to humble myself in front of Allah سبحانه وتعالى I don't even have strength against my enemy but you have greater strength than them if I can't even fight the enemy imagine how low and insignificant I really am and having humbled yourself having recognized who I am in comparison to this grand creator and sustainer I now turn in supplication to him I have concluded this point of praise I now go into seeking from Allah سبحانه وتعالى اللهم أذن تلي في دعائك ومسألتك my lord you are the one who have allowed permitted me to knock at your door you are the one who has allowed me to seek from you whatever it is that I want there is no curtailing there was no saying you can seek from me in this circumstance or in regards to this issue but I will not listen to you in regards to these issues of your life when you come come to me as you are come to me with whatever it is that you need you have permitted me imagine now you are working for an employer sometimes when it comes to this contract or your obligations you are required to fulfil first you are required to have stayed a number of months or a number of years before you are allowed to ask for an increase in your sustenance or when you come to him and say I am now worthy of being given more within my position but this isn't an employer in the same way he says come when you want my door is open to you there is no limitation as to how or when you can seek from me اللهم أذن تلي في دعائك or مسألتك you have sought دعاء and مسألتك these are two different things the Imam specifies that we have been given grant for both these two issues I am allowed to seek in supplication and in normal asking as well this points out that how Imam wants us to strategize become aware of our methodology of seeking maybe the دعاء has a more formal context to it whereas the seeking has no formality to it if I am walking I can come and seek if I am driving I can seek if I am putting on my socks I can seek there is no limitation as to when I can converse with my Lord it is both دعاء and مسألتك it is both of them now here we can again highlight this relationship with our Imams and how we seek intimacy with our Imams إن شاء الله especially now دعاء that we recite before افتتاء we ask my Lord we seek that you grant me Hajj this year in every year in our دعاء don't we just before دعاء افتتاء now of course we are not just seeking Hajj we are also seeking the great pilgrimage to the master of the martyrs عبد الله الحسين صلى الله عليه وسلم and therefore firstly when we seek this دعاء do not forget to extend the request to ask for أهل البيت زيارات as well we have these traditions one comes to us from our sixth Imam peace be upon him in which he is narrated to have said it is spiritually compulsory he uses the word واجب it is spiritually wajib for the rich person to perform the زيارة of أبي عبد الله الحسين twice a year and it is spiritually wajib for the person who is poor to perform the زيارة of أبي عبد الله at least once a year can you imagine the emphasis that is being placed upon him in the same way that when I approach الله سبحانه وتعالى there is the formal seeking of دعاء and there is the informal seeking of دعاء there is also the formal and the informal visitation of my Imam when I stand in front of أبي عبد الله or any of the grand masters of أهل البيت peace be upon them all there are certain formal practices that I am required to do I will stand in front of course I will perform my غسل of course I will stand and I will seek permission to enter into the ذري the courtyard of أبي عبد الله I will recite the formal زيارة that has been recommended to me but at the same time as much as I recite the formal زيارة to the Imam I am also required to engage with him informally as the master that he really is the Imam knows me better than I can ever know myself my Imam knows my history better than I know my own history he knows my present and he knows my future better than I will ever know my future when I come to the door of the Imam there is a formal statement to him and then there is the annihilation the time when I say to him يا إمام يا إمام الحسين شكرا for having invited me to your door I crumble at your feet I am nothing but a slave in front of you except me for who I am this is the difference between the formal and the informal in the same way the Imam is suggesting this idea when it comes to دعاء افتتاء اللهم اذن تلي في دعاءك ومسألتك I come to you formally and informally you have given me permission to have supplication formally and this seeking from you informally I understand that on the Thursday night I will seek formally in دعاء كوميل but when I get back into my car it doesn't mean that my communion with you all of a sudden stops am I really going to confine my discussion with Allah to the four walls of the Masjid or the Imam Barghat my Imam says that I am seeking from you formally and informally اللهم اذن اللهم اذن تلي في دعاءك ومسألتك فاسمع يا سميع مدحتي وأجيب يا رحيم دعوتي فاسمع listen to me يا سميع مدحتي وأجيب يا رحيم دعوتي all the one who hears respond to me all the one who is going to respond come back give to me understand my prayer and respond back to me when I seek from you now here the Imam is actually using two of the اسماء of اللهم فاسمع يا سميع مدحتي اللهم is he is the all hearing and he is also مجيب الدعوات the one who responds back to this وأجيب يا رحيم دعوتي the Imam is using these very two attributes اللهم in the way that he is trying to emphasize that when we correspond when we speak when we seek from اللهم we engage him intimately with his own names and his own attributes the best way to seek from اللهم is knocking at his door but speaking to him through his own name the same way you and I is do if we are going to be speaking to our father or the father is going to speak to his son the title that is used in intimacy there is a name that is used in intimacy it adorns yourself with respect look at how the prophets peace be upon them used to speak to each other for example in سورة اليوسوف when يا أقوب and اليوسوف peace be upon them speak to each other they do so by speaking to each other through their titles and attributes يا أبتي إني رأيت أحد عشر باوم الشمسة و القامرة و رأيته لي ساجدين يا بنيا لا تأخذ here when they speak to each other they speak to each other with great intimacy oh my dear father I have seen in a dream this taking place oh my dear son in response they adorn themselves with each other's titles the same way if my father wants to speak to me he will say to me with intimacy using my name oh جعفر can you go and do such and such having brought this name or the title it seeks to bring about the intimacy the relationship between the two similarly the Imam suggests that when you call upon الله سبحانه وتعالى use his names my lord you are a razaq therefore I am in need of risk give to me risk my lord you are a Sameer therefore listen to me because you are the one who listens to all the prayers of those who seek from me but the Imam goes further فاسمع يا سمي أمد حتي وأجيب يا رهيم ودعوتي when he says فاسمع in the Arabic language this is adorned with the intimacy of etiquette in the Arabic language as we know there is a command فقل الأمر the Imam didn't say اسمعني for example if I am giving the discussion here and people are talking you might say اسمعني listen to me it's a command stop what you're doing listen to me there is an authority that is being given to the statement in the Arabic language the Imam when addressing الله سبحانه وتعالى didn't say اسمعني it wasn't a command to his lord فاسمع يا سمي أمد حتي I humble myself in front of you it is an adab the way I am asking you please my lord I recognize that you are all hearing therefore lend your ear to me when I speak to you this is how the Imam engages his lord how would the lord turn you away in the circumstance how could Allah سبحانه وتعالى reject such an intimate discussion being made towards him how could he look upon you and say there is reverence love humility but having seen and observed my created aspiring to me in this nature how will I turn away from you now الله هم أذن تلي في دعائك ومسألتك فاسمع يا سمي أمد حتي وأجب يا رحيم دعوتي here the Imam is showing that he has confidence in his lord I know you are the one who has said call upon me and I know that you are the one who has said that when you call I will respond and therefore when I seek I seek with absolute confidence that you are the one who is going to give me now this is key to the etiquette of Da'a take a second reflect for a moment list the three most important Da'a that you have in your life right now whatever they are they might be health indeed amongst us tonight there will be people who are unwell it might be that there are problems within the family it might be that you need greater sustenance you don't know where next month is going to come from it may be that you have a certain weakness spiritually that you have been fighting for the last year of your life for whatever reason I am unable to overcome it no matter how much I have sought I am weak my lord whatever Da'a that you have now in front of you recognize that when the Imam supplicates he supplicates with confidence in front of his lord it's not that I'm asking you but I think you know I've been asking for these last three months but I haven't seen any response yet and therefore I'm not coming with full confidence no be entirely confident that your lord is not just listening but the fact that he is permitted to be the one who is seeking Da'a why would he seek Da'a if he is not willing to respond back to you when the Imam supplicates he supplicates with full confidence that his lord will listen and respond back شهيد مطهري has a story he recounts about a worshipper an عبد of God سبحانه وتعالى and how he went through this motion of having confidence and losing confidence and how Allah Ta'ala responded to this عبد when he began to lose confidence in him the story says one day this worshipper this عبد of Allah سبحانه وتعالى decided to increase his worshipper of Allah it was a worshipper of Allah but he was normal he was one who would perform his واجبات but maybe he wasn't one who would perform more of the مستحبات that he could perform for whatever reason this worshipper felt within his heart that he should now increase the worship of Allah سبحانه وتعالى he would continuously make the عالى he would increase his تسبيحات he would engage in the night prayer he would recite Quran he would increase his worship of Allah سبحانه وتعالى as such each night he would spend a little bit more on the prayer mat so for example on the first night he would spend half an hour seeking from Allah سبحانه وتعالى the second night he would go to 35 minutes after a week he would go to an hour and each night he would begin to increase and feel in his heart that there was more to do in front of his Lord having now worshipped his Lord and really given his all to his Lord إبليس comes to him Satan presents himself here we can take this literally or we can take it metaphorically when we seek from our Lord إبليس doesn't need to come to me in front of me he may come in my heart and give me وصوصة so Satan came in front of this man and started to give him this وصوصة he started to whisper الintention into his heart oh Abdullah each night you have been seeking Allah سبحانه وتعالى more and more each night you have been knocking more and more at his door increased from 30 to 50 to 1 hour have you responded have you heard a response from Allah سبحانه وتعالى you have been asking you had this Da'a and this Da'a you have been doing more and more worship in front of him you recited more Qur'an salat al-layl you started but have you got a response from your Da'a yet have you heard a response from your Lord إبليس gave this ultimate وصوصة he said had you knocked at the door of any king of this world the length of time that you had been knocking surely you would have got a response by now وصوصة may come into our hearts as well from Da'a I have been asking and I have been asking and I have been asking but still I have received a response the worshipper decided to close the prayer mat put away the books of Da'a put down the Tasbih go to bed early instead of fulfilling his hour or an hour and 10 tonight after 20 minutes he closes his Musallah goes to bed in a dream that night he hears a voice oh my dear servant why did you close your prayer mat early tonight why did you stop seeking from me they have the response using the same words that إبليس had used in the وصوصة note how we also use the وصوصة we argue on behalf of إبليس I hear إبليس's argument and I consider it to be correct I use these words in front of my Lord he said my Lord I had been knocking at your door every single night I had increased my worship and servitude of you but I had not heard any response to my prayer I had not felt closer to you I had not felt that there was more proximity between you and I the voice responded oh my dear servant you have misunderstood your worship altogether the very fact that you were increasing your worship every night the very fact that you had been wanting more and more proximity to me was my response to you in the very first place that is how you and I communicate the fact that within your heart you want me is me speaking to you that is how you and I communicate that is how you know I am responding to your دعاء you may not see it physically you may not see it tangibly just yet but I am the one responding in your heart and that is when you should know I have responded to your دعاء is this how we understand our relationship with our Lord شهر مضان my Lord شهر مضان he is calling open armed now here in this دعاء افتطاه there is the most heart rendering statement that the Imam makes يا ربي تدعوني فأوليانك وتتحببوا إليه فأتبغدوا إليك وتتوددوا إليه فلا أقبلوا منك my Lord you are the one who calls me you are open armed you have increased Rajab تشعبان تشهر مضان you have come to the point when you have said there are no more veils between you and I but yet I have the audacity to reject you you are the one who shows me such a abounding love I haven't even understood the word love and therefore I reject it entirely whereas the Imam starts this دعاء حملت my Lord you are so powerful I have no weight in front of the enemies of the world you are so great yet despite you having so many millions of people to look after despite you having every creature small and large to look after you are the one who is in authority of the most distant of sons I am not even a speck of dust in this earth you have said call upon me and I am the one who will respond back to you yet I don't have confidence in my Lord does it add up does it stack up my Lord I am nothing I am the worst of creatures you know me so well so intimately I am naked in front of you I am so bare you know everything about me one حديث القدسي says oh son of Adam if the people knew about you what I know about you they wouldn't even consider you worthy of the word salam to you when you are walking they wouldn't even come and give you salam they would want to run away from you if they knew the sins that were engulfing you yet yet I am the one who is open armed in front of you I am saying come ask seek knock don't stop I am constantly listening to you if only you realized how much I want you to be close to me how much I want to give you Imam in this light in this light is really giving us the confidence to really ask ask Allah SWT for whatever it is that we need and here again we must contextualize what it is we should be asking for when I stand in front of my lord he knows everything that I need before I open my mouth if I am in need of good health he knows I need good health he is the one who has allowed me to fall into bad health if I am the one who is in need of sustenance he knows I need the sustenance he is the one who has straightened my sustenance in the first place but when I ask from him what are the most important things that I should be asking for the first that I should be asking for in significance are others before myself I should be asking for the awaited savior of my time I should be asking for those people around the world who are in more need than I I should be asking for my community welfare I should be asking for those people who have served and looked after me I should be asking for those teachers who have taught me I should be asking for my parents and my marhumen if I do not have the etiquette to remember another before me why should I expect Allah SWT to remember me before another I should be looking for the other person before me in that famous famous tradition of the lady of light زهراء peace be upon her and her son إمام الحسين we see that the lady of light is in her سرات الليل the Imam is watching and observing her performing her سرات الليل before even giving us the rest of the tradition which we know so well look at the emphasis of how the child should be observing the ultimate ethic from the mother in our families how often does this take place that the son can wake up at night and hear the mother or the father in whispered prayer to their Lord what a good circumstance to find yourself in what a good ethic to set for our children it is 3 AM TV is off let us come and pray together watch and observe how I pray and tomorrow I will let you pray and I will watch and observe how you pray and I will make sure that you have got this prayer right Lady زهراء is reciting her دعاء she is engaging in this تسبيحات at the end of the prayer إمام عليسلاته السلام the young boy says oh my dear mother why is it I didn't see you asking for me and my brother for saying she responds oh my dear Hassan neighbors first and then the family we remember those others outside us and then we remember ourselves this is how we engage in the دعاء before the إمام actually goes a wonderful step further in دعاء تتاء and qualifies the best way of seeking in order to ensure that the prayer is accepted اللهم أذن تلي في دعائك ومسألتك فسطمع يا سميع مدحتي listen please my Lord to my praise مدح مدح the root word from the word مدح مدح is equivalent to the ذاكرين it is those people who go and praise ذاكرين are those people who sit on the pulpit they stand and they give the remembrance of أحل البيت peace be upon them all نهولي قرآن the مدح in the Arabic language are similar it's an equivalent they are also like the ذاكرين the مدح will also give praise they are the ones who give the praise of أحل البيت إمام عليه السلام is saying my Lord when you listen to my prayer فسمع يا سميع مدحتي listen to my praise first and then respond back to me showing us the sequence of how the دعاء must be I praise first and then I expect the response back from you the very best praise that one can give to ensure the دعاء is accepted is the Salawat upon محمد and ألي محمد before the دعاء and after the دعاء why? because the Salawat is a دعاء in itself اللهم صل على محمد وآلي محمد وعجل فرجهم is a دعاء in itself oh Allah send blessings upon محمد and ألي محمد and hasten the reappearance if I start my دعاء with the blessing upon محمد and ألي محمد and the ending by the blessings upon محمد and ألي محمد the دعاء will be accepted why? because Allah will never reject the first دعاء He will never say no I'm not going to give you the blessings upon محمد and ألي محمد of course he will send the blessings upon محمد and ألي محمد therefore if he is bound to accept the first دعاء from you and he is bound to accept the last دعاء of course being an all-encompassing Lord how will he reject the middle دعاء the one that I'm actually seeking for myself you start by sending blessings upon محمد and ألي محمد the praise فسمع ياسمي أمد حتي listen to my praise then my دعاء and then I conclude with the praise knowing that he is going to accept from me it continues اللهم أذن تلي في دعاء إكا و المسألاتك فسمع ياسمي أمد حتي وأجب يا رحيم دعوة وقل يا غفول عثرتي فكر يا إلهي من قربة كد فرجتها وهموم كد كشفتها وأثبت قد أقلتها و حلكتي بلائن كد فكقتها ملور how many sorrows have you removed how many trials and tribulations have you dispelled from me how many ill circumstances have you mitigated from me now here this is a huge admittance before our lord reflect for a second my brothers and sisters go through your life how many problems trials and tribulations have you and I had in our life when we felt that there was no way I could find a way out from this circumstance I am completely helpless I have done something it was my fault or maybe it wasn't my fault and a circumstance befell me my lord I am completely helpless I have no one to turn to but you in these circumstances I remember my lord how many uncountable circumstances I am unaware I have lost count of how many you have aided me in now here there is an ethic that we insha'Allah can try to adopt within ourselves our sixth Imam has an outstanding tradition when he says تخلق بأخلاق الله adopt for yourself the akhlaq of Allah سبحانه وتعالى Allah has an akhlaq he has an ethic he has an etiquette he has an etiquette within himself the way he acts upon his creation upon those Muslims the non-Muslims everyone included the sixth Imam says adopt for yourself the akhlaq of Allah سبحانه وتعالى if he is the all forgiving you should be the all forgiving if he is all merciful you should be as merciful as possible if he is the one who is unending in giving try to be the one who doesn't have a limit to your own giving adopt for yourself meaning in this da'a you are the one how many of these calamities have you dispelled from me how many times have I seen in my life when I've been unable to be helped by anyone from my family and friends but you my Lord stepped in therefore I should be this kind of human being to other people in my friends and family in my community I should be the one who when I see a problem I should go about and dispel the problem of my friend and family unfortunately sometimes within our community we find a person when someone comes up within the community someone wants to pull him down when someone is successful they look at him with envy I had asked for that same thing in my supplication why wasn't I given it by the fact that you're envious you're not worthy of having that thing in the first place no wonder you haven't been given it here we should have that ultimate ethic of Allah SWT he is pleased when someone is achieving we should be pleased when someone is achieving when someone is in dire need he steps into aid I should be the one who steps into aid that person as much as possible our Holy Prophet of Islam as a tradition he says the individual the person who stops a calamity befalling upon anyone in this world Allah will ensure that there is no calamity for that person in the next world it's a very simple equation it's a give and take if I am the one who is able to aid my brother or sister then Allah will step in at a time when I am most in need of it visa be the next world when I have no chance now to change the outcome when he is the one I am reliant upon in changing within this outcome when we find these da'a in Shah Ramadan are instilling this ethic in us اللهم أدخل على أهل الكبور السلو اللهم أغني كل فقير اللهم أشبع كل جائع اللهم أكسكل عوريان اللهم أغذي دين كل مدين here these lines are profound oh my lord enrich every purpose feed every hungry person now when I recite these da'a how do I think is the response to these da'a do I think to myself my lord because I've asked for this my lord enrich every poor person do I think that the poor person out on the street all of a sudden Allah is going to drop a bag of money in his lap I've made this application اللهم أغني كل فقير oh my lord enrich every person do I think that Allah will drop a bag of money to that person no Allah سبحانه وتعالى will be responding and saying oh my servant feed your da'a you become my hand on earth and you enrich the poor person oh my lord feed every hungry person no problem جعفر you have asked a da'a what have you done to feed that very hungry person before you come and ask me oh my lord اللهم أسلح كل فاصذ من أمول المسلمين oh my lord reform for us the situation of the Muslim umma Iraq 110 people they are counting bombed murdered shot to death today Syrian people our brothers and sisters people going into their houses and shooting them because they are the followers of Ahl al-Bait scholars releasing statements that we should bulldoze over Sayyid al Zaynab people in Yemen fighting for an opportunity and a little bit of say within government people in Bahrain being captured and tortured شيوخ آيات الله العضماء الشيخ النمر within Saudi being taken ambushed beaten where his own family say we can see marks of torture upon his head in the state where he is now in hunger strike when we raise our hands and we say اللهم أسلح كل فاصذ هل أعتقد that my lord is actually just sitting metaphorically on the throne and saying indeed no problem I will change everything the concept of the Da'a is that we are the ones implementing we become the hand of Allah سبحانه وتعالى on earth we have to become strategic we have to become aware we need our youth to be engaged emboldened participate I'll give you an example of what takes place sometimes when we go on marches when we go on marches we go to a particular embassy and we stand outside the embassy hoping for the rights to rebuild and to give us the rights back when you go on these marches observe the ethic of certain people when they go and they're standing out a certain embassy that you are seeking betterment from you are asking them improve your أخلاق towards أهل البيت but we have lost our أخلاق when representing أهل البيت I have seen people throwing eggs at the war of the embassy I have seen people giving لعلى upon certain personalities that they hold dear towards the embassy do you think that person within the embassy is genuinely going to take up on our request if I'm throwing eggs is that really the way that we are going to bring about this reformation to bring about the change the إسلاح within the Muslim Ummah there is an ethic that takes place تخلق بأخلاق الله the sixth Imam says the fact that you are the one my Lord who has stopped so many of these trials and tribulations from taking place in my life I take that responsibility to become such a human being where I will perform the same within my community when I see someone who is in need I will be the first to go out and help them to the extent that the Holy Qur'an says within سورة البقرة verse number 280 that if you are the one who has lent someone money and the debtor hasn't got the ability to give you the money back the first thing you should do is give them respite next if they still haven't got the ability to pay them back you should forgo it all together and give it to them as a charity this is how people step in to help each other this is how you stop a calamity a burden from taking place the Holy Prophet of Islam loved people so much to the extent that the verse 128 of سورة التوبة was revealed about him it said that the Prophet was the one who was sent from amongst you and it pains him so much that he sees you falling into problems when he sees anyone Muslim Non-Muslim Shi'a Sunni بهورة اسمع عليها falling into problems it pained him it killed him inside to see someone falling into problems how much we can do more for our particular community we conclude with one story of the Holy Prophet verse number 6 of سورة الكاف الله سبحانه وتعالى revealed a verse that said Oh Muhammad you will kill yourself with grief doesn't mean suicide it means the burden the pain that is going through the heart you will kill yourself with grief because of how much these people don't believe in your communications the reason for the verse the reason for revelation of this verse someone came to the Holy Prophet of Islam with a gift they came and gave him a red أبا a red cloak it was the most beautiful of cloaks that anyone could give to the Holy Prophet of Islam the moment he got that cloak he went straight away and took it knocked on the door of Abu Jahl who is Abu Jahl the biggest of enemies in Islam he knocks on the door of Abu Jahl and gives to him this particular cloak Oh Abu Jahl here is a gift for you Abu Jahl scorned him I don't want your gift I don't want you I don't want your relationship I don't want your religion be gone from here the Prophet all he wanted was an opportunity to engage all he wanted was to show the highest of ethics all he wanted was for one opportunity to show you who I am so that you may come towards the religion of Islam as a response from the Prophet had to turn away he was pained so much in his heart and not being able to guide not being able to bring someone towards the truth Allah تعالى revealed a verse about him you will kill yourself with grief you will be overcome with grief for how much you want this person to be guided خلق بأخلاق الله الله تعالى's arms are open come to me ask me seek from me I am here to give you that guidance I am here to uplift you I recognize how weak you are I recognize what you want within your families and communities seek from me because I am the one who wants to give to you اللهم أذن تلي في دعائك ومسألتك فسمع ياسمي أمي لحتي وأجب يا رحيم أعوتي وأقل يا غفور أفرتي أرجوك أن تدفعنا في دعائك نحاول الله سبحانه وتعالى سعيدًا وعلى المساعدة وعلى المساعدة نسأل الله أحسنه وعلى المساعدة أجبنا أن نكون أمي في كل مرة في حياتنا وفي حياتنا إذا كنتنا من this world قبل نستطيع أن نرى أمي أن نرى from our graves that we may be alongside him and partake in that victory نسأل الله من المساعدة وعلى المساعدة وعلى المساعدة أن هناك many people around the world who are in desperate need There are people in Afghanistan, in Iraq people in Pakistan people in Mexico people in Nigeria people in Saudi Arabia Bahrain Palestine يالله give them safety, security medicine educations and victory نسأل الله من المساعدة وعلى المساعدة to forgive our sins the sins of our parents all those whom we love all those that love us all those who are merciful and all those who are scholars نسأل الله من المساعدة وعلى المساعدة أن يجب علينا أن نرى أحلى المساعدة أن يساعدنا في this month as we are trying to achieve in this month ونسأل الله for the opportunity to die in the love of Muhammad and Ali Muhammad نسأل الله بسرعة بسرعة أن tomorrow we will commence our Tafsir series which is going to be practical techniques towards pondering upon the Holy Quran سنرى ننظر لدينا محدودة عن how to build upon those ponderings ومن قام to concluded to our Ponderings كيف سنعرف if those Ponderings are correct or incorrect وماذا نتكب to get the best from the Holy Quran within this month and the rest of our lives السلام عليكم جميعا ورحمة الله وبرا كاتب سأسأل لكم one- loud salawat in honor of the greatest saviour من أحج عاجل الله فرج الشريف