About Us

We Make Youth Opportunity Visible, Measurable, and Politically Salient

Building long-term infrastructure for India's youth opportunity

We work to make the world's largest democracy work for the world's largest youth population. We do this in two ways: by making youth opportunity visible, measurable, and politically salient in the political and administrative institutions that shape it; and by grounding our work in how young people themselves experience the state — building their capacity to document, participate, and lead.

Our flagship platform, YouthPOWER, is in use in Telangana under an MoU with the state government and is being piloted at the district level with select Members of Parliament. In 2026, YouthPOWER was selected for the McNulty Prize Catalyst Fund — a joint initiative of the McNulty Foundation and the Aspen Institute — as one of six projects named globally this year.

OUR APPROACH

Four areas of work

01 Civic-Tech Platform

YouthPOWER

India's 1st district-level youth opportunity map. Consolidates 21 government databases into comparable scorecards across 800 districts, tracking 80+ indicators in education, skilling, employment, and economic readiness.

Explore YouthPOWER

02 Institutional Research

Institutional Tracker

Tracking Parliament's engagement with youth employment. Analysis of 60,000+ parliamentary questions to assess legislative attention, identify gaps on emerging issues like gig work and AI, and surface bipartisan priorities.

Read the Report

03 Storytelling Initiative

Tracking Indian Youth

Humanising district-level data through the lived realities of young Indians. A media fellowship training youth to document their peers' lives across 22 states—bringing grassroots perspectives to national policy debates.

Read the Stories

04 Long-term Analysis

Strategic Research

Deep analysis of structural forces affecting Indian youth: AI governance and employment impact, information ecosystems and platform design, institutional readiness for technological change.

View Research

Leadership

Ruchi Gupta

Executive Director

Ruchi Gupta is the Executive Director of the Future of India Foundation. Over nearly two decades, she has worked across politics, public policy, and institution-building, linking democratic accountability to youth opportunity.

Earlier, Ruchi led one of India's largest progressive student and youth organisations, with more than 4 million registered members. In 2016, she played a key role in a rare parliamentary milestone in the Rajya Sabha: the adoption of an amendment to the President's Address, only the fifth such instance in independent India's history, defending the right of all citizens to contest local elections.

A former McKinsey consultant and Aspen Global Leadership Fellow, Ruchi has published more than 150 columns on political economy, democratic reform, and technology across leading Indian publications. Her collated writings are on her Substack, rgupta.substack.com.

LinkedIn → Writing → Email →

Advisory Board