Today we’d like to introduce you to Cian Patel
Cian, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
While on vacation with family, I visited a school in rural Gujarat, India. What I found shocked me: kids who were so happy and whose curiosity ran wild, despite their circumstances. I still remember a little kid asking me about what my iPhone was. Seeing those kids reminded me of how opportunity across our world isn’t evenly distributed and the lack of internet and resources the school had, essentially disconnected from the rest of the world, made me want to develop a solution to improve their circumstances. It inspired me to create Siatech, a nonprofit organization working to bridge communities to education and other global societies with the power of technology.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It most definitely hasn’t. Everything from working with legality to managing our funds has been a challenge. I had to learn website development and continuously conduct outreach, sending hundreds of emails with limited responses. Oftentimes, it would be hard to find groups willingly to allocate the time and resources necessary to collaborate internationally; it took me almost two years to secure a partnership and project with Shanti Bhavan. Raising the funds was difficult too. We needed to gather funds and hold fundraisers in places in India and locally here in Houston. Working with vendors in India and shipping the laptops also posed setbacks. Finding trustworthy suppliers and shipping costs needed to be factored into our plan, ensuring that our donation got to Shanti Bhavan safely. These are just some of the struggles our team experienced on the way, but our passion for helping others made our work worthwhile.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Siatech is my nonprofit organization that works to connect rural and disconnected areas of the world to education and other global societies via technology. The India Project is our first initiative that focuses on rural Tamil, Nadu India, where we’ve researched and planned a solution to aid a portion of the gap. With our local online and in-person fundraising events here in Houston as well as our fundraising efforts in India with our dedicated volunteer team, we raised $5,000 and partnered with the Shanti Bhavan School, a rural school outside of Bangalore, to fuel their incoming class with 15 laptops. These children now have access to complex courses like coding and access to the internet. In addition to this, our local team hosted a fundraiser at a local convention in India, and we raised enough to feed a school of children in rural Gujarat, India. I’m also Texas President of the Shanti Bhavan Student Alliance here in Texas and founder of the Houston Club, hosting in-person and online fundraising events for the direct purpose of the school and connecting with the school’s students through virtual classrooms. It’s these values of giving back, enabling, and connecting that keeps our organization motivated to help communities around the world. I hope to expand Siatech’s efforts to other countries and continue to support Shanti Bhavan in our future projects.
How do you define success?
Success is a vision only you can see. It’s about embracing your own path on your own timing, doing something you love–regardless of what others tell you or think of you. Something I’ve learned in my endeavors, like creating Siatech, is that every path has its uncertainty, but it’s the courage to venture into the unknown that forces you to create meaningful change. But something to keep note of is ,that in that journey, success isn’t a straight line. You’ll spend hours each day, working on a dream only you can see, failing at things that are so important to you, and trying again and again and again until it works. In those moments of struggle and doubt, remember that each failure is a lesson, each setback a chance to grow, and every step forward, no matter how small, is proof of your resilience. So, success is not about perfection, nor is it about actually achieving your goal–it’s about loving the process so much to be willing to do it all over again; to me, that’s when you know you’ve already succeeded.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.siatechglobal.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siatech_global?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
Image Credits
The Shanti Bhavan School, Siatech
