A deep, visual thinker who chose to discontinue college, develops himself by working on 6+ projects over a year.

Swaran Singh Matharu  is a 24 year old from Pune who did 2 years of college education and decided to drop out because he didn’t feel he was getting to learn what he actually wanted to learn.

Swaran believes that the best way for him to learn anything is ‘by doing’. He was always interested in participating in activities beyond classes like volunteering, forming clubs or being a part of different co-curricular activities. After dropping out of the college Swaran was in a look out for opportunities to learn skills practically. 

He got involved in gymnastics and started learning the art of Capoeira, mastered it and also taught it to kids. Swaran shares, “Teaching changed my perspective and also helped me gain a little confidence. I learned that if I knew something I shouldn’t be hesitant about it but rather go forth with it. Even if I do end up doing something wrong it would be a learning experience for me and hopefully for the people around as well.”

He also took a decision to join the Enterprise India Fellowship within a month after attending one of the sessions with the community, with the intention to engage himself in different projects and also live the college life that he was missing.

Swaran started his fellowship journey with the attitude that he will take up all the opportunities he gets, and started working on a client project with YelloSKYE  with a truly entrepreneurial challenge- building something from the ground up. He along with Bhaskar Adari & Dnyanesh Chandewar- two other Enterprise Partners (Partners = students who are a part of the fellowship) co-created a community story-sharing platform called the Green Room, with support from Enterprise coaches and guidance from Professor David Gould from the University of Iowa who conceptualized and teaches the Green Room as a course at the University of Iowa .

The Green Room is a monthly community story sharing evening hosted by Enterprise Partners, where changemakers and enterprising people from different fields join to let down their hair and share their story like in a theatre’s green room (the backstage room where performers prepare and can be vulnerable).

As founding team members, Swaran and team were involved in all aspects- seeking partnership from Professor Gould, organizing the event, outreach to invite the community, doing preparatory calls with the changemakers, hosting the community space for people and making sure all of it happens smoothly. Along with working with Professor Gould, through the preparatory calls, Swaran and team got to spend time and build connections with changemakers like Ajinkya & Satyajit Hange (organic farmers), Arun Kalluraya (healthcare entrepreneur) and many more.

Swaran Singh

Hometown: Pune

College: IGNOU 

Subject: BCA 

Interests/Cares About: Capoeira and creating awareness about physical and mental wellbeing . 

Fellowship Span: Jan 2020- Dec 2021

Fellowship Activities Sneak Peek:

Worked on 7+ projects including 4 Enterprise projects like the Green Room & #karo and 2 client projects with YelloSKYE and Pratha and 1 personal project on graphic harvesting

Worked on making graphic harvests for about 11 events over the last two years with mentorship and guidance from Stephanie Heckman, a graphic facilitator from Ireland, and also organized a visual harvesting workshop for other Partners

Created 7 blogs by leveraging the monthly reflection-based content creation process (Conflexion) at the Fellowship where Partners actively learn to reflect on their learnings and feelings and harvest them into blogs, videos and/or podcasts.

Next Steps post Fellowship: teaching Capoeira, finishing graduation 

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Swaran’s reflections on his self-discovery journey and the major change he witnessed as he worked on multiple real life projects and created his body of work.

The Green Room community is almost 2 years old, and along with the changemakers sharing their stories, it has also successfully emerged as a space for everyone in the audience to also share their stories, be vulnerable, and be inspired together. Over the two years 800+ people have participated through the platform.

Beyond the Green Room, Swaran worked on 6+ projects including 3 Enterprise projects like the #karo, website team page and 2 client projects with YellowSkye (a company pioneering in drone technology) and Pratha (a hand crafted jewellery studio in Pune) and also worked on a personal project where he explored the realm of graphic harvesting with mentorship from Stephanie Heckman, a graphic facilitator based in Ireland.

Towards the end of his fellowship. Swaran, along with another Partner Archee Singhania worked on creating a marketing campaign for Pratha- a hand crafted jewellery studio. 

”Swaran is a deep thinker. He is deeply passionate about his work and does not shy away from diving into topics that he is not familiar with” shares Jyoti Kanoria, Founder of Pratha.

This was a particularly meaningful project for Swaran as he worked on it thoroughly and saw it through completion.

Parallely to this project he leveraged the momentum he had built by organizing a workshop for other Enterprise Partners on visual harvesting hosted by Stephanie Heckman, a graphic facilitator based in Ireland who does graphic harvesting for the United Nations Climate COP events.

Being amazed by Swaran’s ability to document his work and meetings thoroughly, someone from the Enterprise team connected him with Stephanie. Over the two years Swaran built and maintained his relationship with Stephanie, and worked on improving his graphic harvesting skills with her support and mentorship. He created harvests for  #karo and Green Room events he was a part of and kept improving with feedback from Stephanie. As he practiced visually representing his work, he thought it would be a useful skill for other Enterprise Partners too, so he coordinated with Stephanie and the Enterprise team to organize a workshop for them.

Starting something of his own and finishing it off helped his confidence of taking projects and bringing them to conclusion to shoot up. 

“Swaran has worked on a wide variety of projects ranging from Pratha to Green Room to YelloSKYE and has given every project his best shot. A wide variety of skills developed through these experiences and is now ready to enter the workforce!” shares Yusuf Hakim, Co-founder of the Enterprise India Fellowship.

By doing Enterprise and Copeira both consistently Swaran started seeing the importance of the ‘intention’ behind any project. In one of his reflections he shared that knowing the intention and answering the ‘why’ for a project helped him get over his attitude of leaving projects halfway.

Reflecting on his fellowship journey, Swaran shared “I could really get a sense of educational independence to discover and understand what I would really want to work towards with ample support and guidance.”

Going forward, Swaran will focus on finishing his graduation and continue teaching Capoeira.

Interviewer: Akash Bhalerao
Authors: Nikita Juneja
& Akash Bhalerao
Video Editor: Rahul Devkar
Story Editors:  Aditya Jhunjhunwala, Ankita Parashar & Rhythm Joshi
Webpage Designer: Dnyanesh Chandewar

Swaran Singh Matharu  is a 24 year old from Pune who did 2 years of college education and decided to drop out because he didn’t feel he was getting to learn what he actually wanted to learn.

Swaran believes that the best way for him to learn anything is ‘by doing’. He was always interested in participating in activities beyond classes like volunteering, forming clubs or being a part of different co-curricular activities. After dropping out of the college Swaran was in a look out for opportunities to learn skills practically. 

He got involved in gymnastics and started learning the art of Capoeira, mastered it and also taught it to kids. Swaran shares, “Teaching changed my perspective and also helped me gain a little confidence. I learned that if I knew something I shouldn’t be hesitant about it but rather go forth with it. Even if I do end up doing something wrong it would be a learning experience for me and hopefully for the people around as well.”

He also took a decision to join the Enterprise India Fellowship within a month after attending one of the sessions with the community, with the intention to engage himself in different projects and also live the college life that he was missing.

Swaran started his fellowship journey with the attitude that he will take up all the opportunities he gets, and started working on a client project with YelloSKYE  with a truly entrepreneurial challenge- building something from the ground up. He along with Bhaskar Adari & Dnyanesh Chandewar- two other Enterprise Partners (Partners = students who are a part of the fellowship) co-created a community story-sharing platform called the Green Room, with support from Enterprise coaches and guidance from Professor David Gould from the University of Iowa who conceptualized and teaches the Green Room as a course at the University of Iowa .

The Green Room is a monthly community story sharing evening hosted by Enterprise Partners, where changemakers and enterprising people from different fields join to let down their hair and share their story like in a theatre’s green room (the backstage room where performers prepare and can be vulnerable).

As founding team members, Swaran and team were involved in all aspects- seeking partnership from Professor Gould, organizing the event, outreach to invite the community, doing preparatory calls with the changemakers, hosting the community space for people and making sure all of it happens smoothly. Along with working with Professor Gould, through the preparatory calls, Swaran and team got to spend time and build connections with changemakers like Ajinkya & Satyajit Hange (organic farmers), Arun Kalluraya (healthcare entrepreneur) and many more.

Swaran Singh

Hometown: Pune

College: IGNOU 

Subject: BCA 

Interests/Cares About: Capoeira and creating awareness about physical and mental wellbeing . 

Fellowship Span: Jan 2020- Dec 2021

Fellowship Activities Sneak Peek:

Worked on 7+ projects including 4 Enterprise projects like the Green Room & #karo and 2 client projects with YelloSKYE and Pratha and 1 personal project on graphic harvesting

Worked on making graphic harvests for about 11 events over the last two years with mentorship and guidance from Stephanie Heckman, a graphic facilitator from Ireland, and also organized a visual harvesting workshop for other Partners

Created 7 blogs by leveraging the monthly reflection-based content creation process (Conflexion) at the Fellowship where Partners actively learn to reflect on their learnings and feelings and harvest them into blogs, videos and/or podcasts.

Next Steps post Fellowship: teaching Capoeira, finishing graduation 

View Profile