Pro Bono work with Hippocampus in India

For Kiran Kumar, Regional Manager of Sales Enablement and Prafull Choudhry, Sr. Force.com Developer, a passion for supporting education initiatives was a key factor in choosing to work with Hippocampus, a Social Enterprise with a mission to create high quality, low cost educational programs in rural India.

Since it’s founding in 2013, Hippocampus has gone from being a single location experience centre to an educational entity with learning center libraries, a campus, and school partnerships and trainings. By doing this, they have redefined rural schooling and the early education system.

Hippocampus uses its fundraising income to grow their programs and sought pro bono technical assistance to help support their development. Senior Technical Solutions Architect at Salesforce Shashidhar Gurumurthy introduced Kiran and Prafull to Hippocampus and then together they identified specific system customizations that would allow the organization to reach their goals.

These included: Qualification Automation, Opportunity Management, Payment Schedules, and Mobile Accessibility.

Kiran and Prafull designed and customized the implementation for Hippocampus which will eventually automate their sales cycle, save time and increase the efficiency of their sales reps.

The project is still in motion, but already Hippocampus Field Executives are experiencing more productive interactions and a higher rate of success. With the enhanced payment scheduling, Hippocampus can easy follow-up on payment dues by any customer and through the introduction of Salesforce1 Mobile, Field Execs always have access to up to date information. The improved opportunity management system has also helped Hippocampus to forecast better and speed up the internal improvement process. These improvements are allowing the team at Hippocampus to spend less time on administration and more time on activities that will help support rural schooling and early education in India, growing their programs and impacting childhood development and knowledge.

Hippocampus is eager to share their experience working with Kiran and Prafull.

“We are working with several technology partners. Salesforce is the only team which is proactive, understands our needs and requires minimal follow up – and all this for free.” 

Everyone’s a winner on the Salesforce.org Pro Pono Program – nonprofits receive technical resources they might not otherwise be able to afford, and Salesforce pro bono volunteers have a great way to mix up their regular work assignments; it inspires and engages them in activities they might not otherwise have the chance to do.

“I would certainly encourage everyone to take up at least one Pro bono project. Not only is it an amazing learning experience, but also an opportunity to understand the customer side of the process and how our solution can truly make a visible difference to their organization.” – Kiran Kumar

Are you a nonprofit looking for pro bono assistance, or a professional who wants to user their Salesforce experience for social change? Get in touch or check out the current opportunities here: