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When Aakarsh Shamanur was 10, he asked his grandfather what he wanted to be when he grew up.
"Don't start big by demolishing buildings," he said, per Quartz.
So the 34-year-old Indian architect went on to earn a master's degree in urban management and development from the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, where he worked on projects with a special focus on developing countries in the Global South.
After that, Shamanur worked with a clean-tech consultancy where he was solar-powering music concerts in Europe.
His extensive work on solar-powered solutions was what drove Shamanur to adopt a similar approach to the Indian context, especially with street vendors.
"I believe that a lot of people migrate from rural to urban areas in search of livelihood and one of the easiest ways to start an entrepreneurial journey is to become a street vendor," Shamanur tells the Express.
So he founded BePolite (polite meaning "portable light"), an initiative where he's working with street vendors across India to improve their livelihoods through solar-powered lights and solutions based on the internet of things.
The solar lamps consist of a 3-watt LED bulb, battery bank, and a solar panel.
They
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