YouthPOWER named a 2026 McNulty Prize Catalyst Fund winner

YouthPOWER, the platform we run at the Future of India Foundation, has been selected for the 2026 McNulty Prize Catalyst Fund.

The fund, a joint initiative of the McNulty Foundation and the Aspen Institute, recognises ventures in the Aspen network at a pivotal stage on their path to meaningful change. Six projects were selected globally this year.

I am grateful for the recognition, not only because it comes from institutions I respect, but because it affirms the importance of a question that still sits too far from the centre of public life in India: what do we owe young people in the places where they live, and which shape almost their entire life trajectory?

YouthPOWER has one simple focus: to define, measure, and improve youth opportunity across all of India’s roughly 800 districts, and to link that work to the elected representatives and public institutions that shape outcomes.

To define opportunity is to be clear about what a young person in a district should reasonably be able to expect: access to education, skills, work, public support, and meaningful civic participation.

To measure it is to track those things district by district, rather than hide behind state averages or national rhetoric.

To improve it is to bring together those who can actually change outcomes, elected representatives, administrators, civil society, and young people themselves, and ask what is missing and what can be done to close the gap.

The larger ambition behind this work is to harness India’s democratic and demographic dividend at the same time, to make our democracy more responsive to young people, and to bring young people themselves closer to the centre of nation-building. Opportunity is not only about jobs. It is about whether a young person in Bhagalpur or Beawar has access to the information, institutions, and public representatives that can help turn ambition into outcome. It is also about whether young people are part of shaping what comes next.

This recognition comes at an important moment. Over the past year, YouthPOWER has begun to move into public institutions. We have an MoU with one state government to support stronger district-level thinking on youth opportunity, skilling, and employment, and pilots with a few Members of Parliament to test how serious district-level engagement by public officials can improve local youth outcomes.

Work of this kind is sometimes difficult to place. It sits between data and politics, between democracy and development, and between local realities and national ambition. But it is precisely in that space that some of India’s most important work now lies.

On April 28, the McNulty Foundation and the Aspen Institute will host a livestream conversation with the six awardees on the work, the challenges ahead, and the year to come. You can register here.

Thank you to everyone who has used the platform, shared feedback, or connected us to people and institutions in their districts. Your support has helped bring the work this far.