Product Management Unit for Evidence-Based Tech and AI Experimentation
As the Product Management Unit (PMU) for Ashoka Asia, 10x Impact Labs is supporting 8 large Non-profits across 6 countries to design and develop data platforms leveraging existing Tech in their communities to solve issues across health, education, water, livelihoods and climate. We are helping Ashoka fellows achieve Product-Market Fit (PMF) by guiding them to test assumptions with real stakeholders, run lean pilots, and iteratively refine solutions based on data and community feedback, ensuring their ideas meet actual needs and drive meaningful impact. We also built Ashoka's first AI Knowledge Management Platform Product. Cost Efficiency & ROI: Building an equivalent in-house team comprising senior product, design, technology, and implementation experts would typically cost ₹1–1.5 crore+ annually. Through this engagement, organizations gain access to the same multidisciplinary expertise on a fractional basis, significantly reducing overhead while accelerating execution. Across similar PMU engagements, this model has demonstrated an estimated ROI of 1:5, with every ₹1 invested generating approximately ₹5 in measurable program value through stronger product outcomes, improved operational efficiency, faster decision-making, and reduced implementation waste.
Partner
AshokaServices
Fellows supported
Countries
Engagement
Changemakers were building impactful solutions across diverse contexts, but the gap between idea generation and evidence-backed validation kept fellows from systematically testing hypotheses or making data-informed decisions.
A dedicated PM + Developer team ran a sprint-based, MEL-aligned engagement over one year. Fellows were guided through hypothesis-driven experimentation, Samaaja deployments, stakeholder interviews and iterative learning loops, with continuous capacity building for product thinking and data usage.
Samaaja pilot deployments across multiple fellow-led initiatives, lean tech prototypes (including chatbot workflows) tailored to each fellow, ongoing experimentation frameworks, and stronger product and data capacity inside fellow teams.
Fellows are shifting from intuition-led to evidence-based decision making, scaling solutions grounded in real user data. At an ecosystem level, the initiative strengthens Ashoka's networked changemaking vision and positions Samaaja as a shared platform for citizen data and community-driven insight.