The title 30on30 has an interesting story behind it.

I was turning 30 in April 2009 and wanted this to be a special occasion. Had planned for a month long holiday to celebrate the entry into the 30s, however couldn’t do that because of my on site assignment.

The next best idea came to my mind sometimes during the last week of March, and it involved putting up 30 of my photographs for sale for 30 days, to raise Rs. 30000 which would be used for some grassroots level initiative.

The time was too short for me to be able to manage everything. However, I got some excellent support from a few friends in India. Subhadhip from Kolkata, Swati from New Delhi, and Bhumika from Ahmedabad played important roles in this project by leading various threads.

Within a couple of days, the URL was set, the photographs shortlisted, and a dedicated blog was created. Photographs were uploaded, printing partner identified, logo created, blogger widget designed and installed on the blog, and so on and so forth.

We managed to launch the project on the 1st of April, with 45 photographs. A whole lot of friends came together to pass on the word about the initiative, and 30on30 managed to raise Rs. 10000 in the first week itself. The second week was moderate in terms of responses, but thanks to the commitment of the team, and the continuous information and update flow, it picked up again in the 3rd and 4th weeks. We managed to raise our target of Rs. 30000 by the mid of 3rd week, got greedy and raised our target to Rs. 50000.

Little did we know that Rs. 50000 would be achieved fairly quickly! By the time project came to its conclusion, 30on30 had raised Rs. 75000! And, Rs. 4000 were added on the last day thus making the total amount associated with 30on30 to be Rs. 79000!

This money was handed over to Dr. Aqeel Khan from ASK (www. askindia.org) to be used in ASK's initiative called Sankalp which is aimed at providing a decent primary education, living environment, and working towards building a sustainable model for Child Rights in Moradabad, the brass capital of India, or arguably the world too!

I have been associated with Sankalp and ASK for a few years now, and have no doubts about the use of funds or the transparency in the entire process of fund utilization in Moradabad. I have had the opportunity to stay at the main centre a couple of times myself, and have had a first hand experience of the target community and the schools.

30on30, not only made my 30th birthday a memorable one, it also helped bring a whole lot of people together to make this whole effort worth it. I really look forward to a few more initiatives on the same lines in the near future.