About Us
Motopaws is an initiative started in the year 2015 by Touch Heart, a youth led organisation based out of Pune. At Motopaws, our mission is to make the streets safer for dogs as well as us, people and our vision is to eventually eradicate the issue of dog road kills and other such accidents caused by their low visibility. The Motopaws collar we make is coated with reflective fabric in order to make the wearer dog visible to us from a distance not only in the dark of the night, but also in broad daylight. The collar, harmless in nature is today worn by thousands of our street dogs situated in more than 20 cities around the country.
Motopaws’s sister initiative is “On Your Sparks”, that introduces aspiring student entrepreneurs to the values, pitfalls and principles of entrepreneurship. The courses, designed and curated by our founder Shantanu Naidu, are based on his experiences working with industrialist and well known entrepreneur and animal activist Mr. Ratan Tata in his office assisting him with venture capital and mentoring startups. All revenues received from “On Your Sparks” are employed for the welfare of the strays in the country. You can sign up for the next batch here
Inception
The rising number of road kills of dogs in the city of Pune triggered a group of young millennials to stand up for the ones without a voice. Understanding the intensity and the seriousness of this issue, they knew that spreading awareness alone wouldn’t be enough to put an end to the problem. Research brought them to the conclusion that most of these accidents were caused by the dark as it would tend to mask over the dogs. Months of hard work and the impulse to find a permanent solution for the growing problem later led to the creation of the Motopaws collar, a collar specifically and only designed for our street dogs. This collar was soon much appreciated and gained the support of animal lovers from across the country helping the initiative flourish. What started out as a group of youngsters collaring dogs around their city has today turned into a nation-wide campaign.
However, as the founder pursued his individual career, Shantanu joined Mr. Tata’s office after his Cornell MBA bringing back excitement and experiences about entrepreneurship. He wished to employ these in Motopaws. When working at Mr. Tata’s office and interacting with youngsters, Shantanu realized the immense fear and lack of direction young students in India faced in Entrepreneurship. Unaddressed, their potential would go to waste, which is why he studied and researched the different knowledge gaps and based on what would relate to them the most and “On Your Sparks” was born, where these students through heartwarming stories learn the spirit and foundational values of being an entrepreneur, equipping them for their startup journey. All proceeds from “On Your Sparks” go towards manufacturing Motopaws collars or funding feeding drives for stray animals, especially in the lockdown.
How We Operate?
We are a volunteer run, non profit organisation based in around 16 cities across 3 countries. We manufacture retro reflective collars and organize monthly collaring drives in all the center cities. As a part of Promise Movement, we also work on medical rescues and rehabilitation. While most of the drives are a Motopaws initiative, we attend to requests from other animal lovers as well. As a part of “On Your Sparks”, we teach young aspiring entrepreneurs how to enter this space with the right values, principles avoiding the most likely pitfalls that all startups face.
Motopaws has been kickstarted by funding provided by Mr. Ratan Tata. Now, the organisation is independently run on funds from its sister initiative “On Your Sparks” and volunteers.
