We are a small team with a big vision to solve the global water crisis within a decade
Save Groundwater
Solve the Global Water Crisis within a decade
Scale is the real climate challenge
Groundwater is the most precious resource we have – it supports our ecosystems and our economies. Severe depletion of the water table plus climate urgency means we need nation-scale approaches to rapidly address this challenge – i.e. scale is the real problem for us to solve.
Designed with massive scale in mind, JalTara’s “one recharge pit per acre” approach has been proven to improve water tables, virtually eliminate crop spoilage due to floods and significantly improve farmer incomes.
At SGF, we believe that actual work done on the ground, even if it is minor or only “good enough”, trumps everything. And hence our sole focus is to implement the JalTara scalable methodology across as many acres as possible, as rapidly as possible.
Save Groundwater Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
JalTara Impact
Numbers Speak For Themselves
92
Villages
45K
Recharge Pits
27
Billion Liters
Team
The Save Groundwater Foundation has a strong and dedicated team focused on one thing – solving groundwater at scale using the proven JalTara methodology of a large number of small recharge pits, one in each acre of arable land.
Manu Namboodiri
Founder and President, DirectorManu Namboodiri has worked in product, strategy and marketing leadership roles in several startups and large technology firms including Sun, Microsoft, and Qualcomm.
Passionate about solving the global water crisis, Manu focused on scalable, low-cost methods. JalTara’s “one recharge pit per acre” and “500 pits per village” approach was the result of learnings from multiple water projects and visits to drought hit regions across India.
Manu has an MBA from Kellogg and an MS in Computer Science from UT, Austin. He travels between India and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Akiva Elias
Co-Founder and Vice President, DirectorAkiva started his career in Morgan Stanley IT where he spent 15 years, first in New York and then Mumbai, in a number of leadership roles. It’s where he and Manu met as grad trainees. Akiva then joined Avendus Capital as their COO, before moving to Berkeley with MSCI. Most recently, Akiva co-founded Semlr, a software startup, where he is currently the COO.
Akiva has an MBA from Wharton, an MS in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Team – India
Roy de Souza
Director, IndiaRoy de Souza is a tech and biotech entrepreneur. His company, BreakBio Corp, aims to solve one of the big remaining problems of our lifetime: cancer. Previously Roy was the founder of ZEDO Inc which he sold to Warner Bros Discovery.
Roy has a Masters in Engineering and Economics from Oxford University and an MBA from Kellogg. Roy was recently recognized by the American Cancer Society for his work on curing cancer.
