According to the Economic Survey (2018-19), close to 12 million people in India enter the workplace annually. However, only 5-6 million jobs are created per year, with government jobs making up only a fraction of this number.

While job seekers already exceed the number of job opportunities, youth studying in ITIs, VTIs and polytechnics need additional support to enter the workforce. An over-crowded job market risks exposing marginalized youth to unemployment or underemployment. 

The MyQuest self-employment initiatives aim to equip young people with skills critical for creating and sustaining entrepreneurial pursuits, both independently or as part of a platform. Self-employment can mean starting their own business or even working as freelancers, through a digital platform for e-commerce, hyperlocal logistics, online work etc.

Young Entrepreneurs Program

The Young Entrepreneurs Program (YEP) is designed to equip young women with skills to begin small self-employed units, and provides them the necessary skills to help them replicate and scale-up their business models to begin new enterprises.

This runs exclusively for women enrolled in Polytechnics, Industrial Training Institutes and National Skills Training Institutes. YEP is currently being implemented in ITIs in Delhi NCR, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Assam, and Bihar and NSTIs in 10 states.

Self-Employment Program with Civil Society Organizations 

Quest provides end-to-end support to NGOs working in the self-employment space including training of trainers on self-employment, providing them all relevant curriculum and other material required on self-employment, orientation on how to support youth, women and community led businesses post training, as well as financial support to the organization to run self-employment programs.

For Funding:

If you want to support high-impact, innovative, technology-enabled programs for youth, MyQuest offers:

• Transparency – Data-driven reporting and analytics dashboards to view youth impact and project outcomes.
• Expertise – End-to-end project management and support from our experienced team of professionals. Large scale, tech-enabled program with a focus on quality.
• Leverage – Leveraging existing Quest knowledge in technology, design, media and content to design unique, youth offerings in partnership with a funder. Cross-donor leverage across different Quest funding partners, adding sustainability, scale and stability to all youth impact initiatives.

For Outreach:

If you are an educational and skill development institution such as an ITI, VTI, a NGO, or a college, MyQuest offers:

• Knowledge and Skills - Rigorous self-employment training to help identify a business idea, formulate a business plan, assess viability, and pitch to investors. Need-based access to finance and markets.
• Tools - Alumni management and support, including refresher training, and an on-demand reporting and data analysis of student learning outcomes.

For Mentorship:

If you'd like to be a mentor, fill in this form to let us know what your skill set and availability is. We'll see if we have a project you can help out with.

[Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, only online mentoring activities are currently available]