"The Aligned Career"—A Sneak Peek at Conversation with Nepalese Youth

On November 28, young minds from across Nepal will gather as Prof. Ujjwal K. Chowdhury leads a landmark session entitled "The Aligned Career: Building a Life of Purpose and Passion in the South Asian Context." The event shall focus on the crucial questions every South Asian youth will face on entering the world's most dynamic labor market.The discussion will bring into sharp view the challenges to be overcome and the opportunities that present themselves. 

Will this generation fuel a historic economic rise? Or will it become the casualty of a widening “purpose gap”? This question sits at the heart of The Aligned Career, a landmark report that redefines how young South Asians can navigate careers, expectations and identity in the world’s most complex cultural landscape.

The Two Fires: Passion and Purpose

For decades, the career debate has been framed as a binary—“Follow your passion” versus “Choose stability.” But South Asia’s lived reality exposes the limitations of this oversimplified advice. South Asia, unfortunately, mass-produces the latter.

Theme 1: The STEM Revolutionaries — Science & Technology as Service

This theme highlights one powerful truth: a STEM career isn’t just technical—it's a pathway to purpose, public service, and world-shaping innovation.

Dr. Anandibai Joshi (India):
Her purpose was born from tragedy. At 14, she lost her infant son due to lack of medical care. That pain became her “why.” Pushing through brutal 19th-century patriarchy, she became the first Indian woman to earn a Western medical degree—so future women would never face what she did.

Dr. Firdausi Qadri (Bangladesh):
A champion of “science for nation-building.” She dedicated her life to creating affordable vaccines for cholera and typhoid—diseases that impact millions of children. Battling gender biases, she built a world-class research ecosystem and mentors countless young women scientists.

Dr. Kalpana Chawla (India):
Her curiosity in small-town Haryana became a cosmic mission. As an aerospace engineer and the first woman of Indian origin in space, she pushed the boundaries of human exploration and continues to inspire generations toward aeronautics and space science.

Dr. Swati Mohan (India):
The face behind NASA’s Mars Perseverance landing. Her purpose evolved from engineering mastery to mentorship—guiding young women into STEM and opening pathways she once had to carve alone.

Dr. Gagandeep Kang (India):
A trailblazer of “science in service of public health.” Her pioneering virology work helped develop India’s rotavirus vaccines, saving children’s lives globally. Her purpose: using research to strengthen public health systems.

Neha Narkhede (India):
From co-creating Apache Kafka to co-founding Confluent, her purpose grew from building technology to enabling innovators. Today, she mentors and funds women-led startups, fueling the next wave of global tech disruption.

Dr. Babita Paudel (Nepal):
Her purpose was ignited by a single statistic: only 7.8% of STEM researchers in Nepal were women. She founded a national network to train, fund, and mentor female researchers—committed to transforming Nepal’s scientific landscape.

Jayanti Mala Chapagain (Nepal):
A software engineer driven by accessibility. As the lead developer of the “Nepali Speech Synthesizer,” she empowers visually impaired users with access to news, books, and digital content. Her purpose: making technology a bridge, not a barrier.

Theme 2: The Grassroots Innovators — Purpose Born from Empathy & Personal Pain

These leaders did not discover their purpose in classrooms or corporate boardrooms. Their “why” emerged from lived struggle, everyday injustice, and a deep empathy for their communities.

Arunachalam Muruganantham (‘Pad Man’, India):
His purpose began with a simple question rooted in love: Why is my wife using old rags during her periods? Shocked by the high cost of sanitary pads, he set out to build a low-cost alternative—only to face unimaginable stigma. His wife and mother left, the village called him “insane,” and he was ostracised. Yet he kept going. When he finally succeeded, he refused multimillion-dollar corporate offers and chose instead to sell his machines exclusively to women’s self-help groups—turning innovation into dignity, livelihood, and social change.

Anju Thapa (Nepal):
Like Muruganantham, her purpose emerged from pain. Using old rags during her first period led to an infection that made her allergic to commercial pads. That personal suffering became her mission. She quit her banking job, spent two years experimenting, and in 2019 set up her own factory to produce reusable sanitary pads. Today, she runs a thriving enterprise that employs and empowers other women—turning a private struggle into a public solution.

Shahnaaz Ansari (Nepal):
Nepal’s first female Muslim civil engineer, her purpose was shaped by childhood memories of watching her mother stay up all night collecting drinking water during crises. Determined to solve foundational problems, she entered a field where women rarely worked. As a District Road Maintenance Engineer, she confronted another barrier—women from marginalised groups were not hired as labourers. She broke that norm too, creating all-women road maintenance teams and merging technical expertise with a courageous mission: engineering pathways to women’s empowerment.

Theme 3: The Non-Traditional Changemakers — Purpose in Storytelling, Society & Justice

These leaders demolish the myth that only STEM or “safe” careers create real impact. Their lives prove that humanities, arts, and social sciences can transform nations, uplift communities, and rewrite systems of justice.

Kailash Satyarthi (India):
The ultimate rebel against the “safe career” script. Trained as an electrical engineer, he walked away from a promising future after witnessing children trapped in bonded labour. His empathy became a movement—Bachpan Bachao Andolan—which has rescued more than 130,000 children from slavery and trafficking. His non-traditional path, once dismissed as impractical, earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh):
The economist who rewrote the rules of economics. His purpose was simple yet revolutionary: use finance to uplift, not exploit. By founding Grameen Bank and pioneering microcredit, he enabled millions of poor women to become financially independent. His idea created a global development model—and won him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rakonda Sai Teja (India):
He chose architecture over mainstream engineering, honouring an early passion for art and heritage. His purpose lies in preserving South India’s architectural traditions, and his award-winning thesis on the Chettinad Cultural Heritage Centre stands as a testament to the power of culturally rooted design.

Bipana Dhakal (Nepal):
Her “why” comes straight from lived experience—growing up in a rural, marginalised community. She founded The Learning Fortress, a grassroots organisation providing non-formal education, soft-skills training, and creative learning spaces for children who are unable to attend school. Her path shows how community-driven education can transform futures.

Bhadai Tharu (Nepal):
A leader whose purpose was born from tragedy. After losing sight in one eye in a tiger attack, he did not choose revenge—he chose understanding. Realising the deeper truth of human–animal coexistence, he became a conservationist and anti-poaching leader. As he famously says: “The tiger attacked me because I went into its home. Otherwise, it never attacks humans.” His journey reflects one of the most profound transformations—turning personal loss into compassionate activism.

The South Asian Battleground

In this region, a career is rarely a personal choice. It is a family strategy, a cultural legacy and a social announcement. The famed “Trinity” of safe careers—medicine, engineering, and law/finance—remains a powerful force. 

From Pressure to Purpose: A Psychological Pivot

Drawing from Self-Determination Theory, the report uncovers why so many young people feel “stuck” despite academic success. When autonomy, competence and relatedness are suppressed, motivation collapses. This is not a personal failing but a systemic design flaw.

The report provides a blueprint to reverse this: reclaim autonomy, understand your inner “why,” prototype real-world career ideas, and build a long-term roadmap grounded in both purpose and practicality.

Portraits of Purpose: South Asians Who Defied the Script

To bridge research with reality, The Aligned Career presents vivid portraits of leaders from India, Nepal and Bangladesh. From Dr. Anandibai Joshi’s pioneering medical journey born of tragedy, to Arunachalam Muruganantham’s grassroots engineering revolution, to Muhammad Yunus’s economic imagination that reshaped global poverty interventions—these stories illuminate a crucial truth:

Purpose is not discovered. It is forged—through conflict, empathy, injustice, curiosity or personal pain.

A Practical, Culturally Grounded Blueprint

The report then shifts from insight to action, offering a 4-phase system tailored for South Asian realities:

Discovery – identifying values, strengths, and deep motivations.

Ideation & Prototyping – testing career ideas in low-risk ways.

Execution – building a 10-3-1 roadmap with mentors and concrete milestones.

Practice – implementing the weekly “5-3-1” habit system.

The speech will by and large envelope a powerful “South Asian Reality Toolkit” strategies to navigate financial constraints and respectfully negotiate parental expectations without rupturing family bonds.