Kumar Bahukhandi
Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of CarePal Group and Impact Guru, has been awarded the 2025 Alumni Innovation Award from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Alumni Board at Harvard University. Piyush, a graduate of the 2013 Master’s in Public Policy Program at HKS, was chosen from a highly competitive pool for his transformative contributions in healthcare financing in India.
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Piyush Jain being felicitated at Harvard Kennedy School
Over the last decade, Impact Guru, which was incubated at the Harvard Innovation Labs, has already supported over 50,000 patients and engaged 4.5 million donors globally, establishing Piyush as a leader who has creatively used technology-based innovation for creating large-scale social impact by tackling complex challenges in healthcare.
The Award recognizes HKS alumni who demonstrate exceptional leadership, creativity, and dedication to create positive change for individuals and communities using technology. Beyond his contributions at Impact Guru, Piyush has also co-founded CarePal Money – a healthcare lending marketplace and CarePal Secure – a health protection and insurance marketplace. CarePal Money offers 0% interest healthcare loans in India and has already enabled over 1,200 patients within 18 months to access non-critical treatments without financial distress by partnering with healthcare providers and lending institutions. CarePal Secure provides innovative health benefits and insurance plans for over 200,000 customers, addressing critical gaps for India’s underinsured middle class and lower-income population.
Piyush was honoured with the award at the Harvard Kennedy School on Friday, May 16, 2025, in the Forum during the alumni reunion weekend.
Piyush Jain, Co-founder and CEO of CarePal Group, said, “I’m deeply honored to receive the Alumni Innovation Award from Harvard Kennedy School. This recognition holds special meaning for me, as ImpactGuru (and CarePal) was first ideated during my time as a student as part of a PAE (Policy Analysis Exercise) project and incubated at Harvard Innovation Lab. What began as an academic exploration has grown into a real-world mission – to make healthcare more affordable and accessible for millions of families across India and beyond. I’m sincerely grateful to the faculty, classmates, and the ecosystem at HKS and Harvard that encouraged bold ideas and purpose-driven entrepreneurship.
I am privileged to share this incredible honour with my co-founders, dedicated teammates, supportive investors, compassionate hospital partners and doctors, brave patients and their families, generous donors, and all our insurance and lending partners who have always believed in our mission. We are committed to working tirelessly on our mission to ensure that no one dies due to a lack of funds for healthcare in India and positively supporting over 1 million customers healthcare financing needs by 2030.”
Other award winners at Harvard this year include Natalia Gavrilita, former Prime Minister of Moldova, who received the Alumni Public Service Award. At the same time, Sebastian Burduja, Romania’s Minister of Energy, was honored with the Emerging Global Leader Award. Carol Finney, Director of Harvard University’s MPA/ID Program, was awarded the Julius E. Babbitt Memorial Volunteer Award, and Lisa B. Sloane was recognized with the HKS Fund Outstanding Alumni Award.
About CarePal
CarePal is an integrated healthcare finance ecosystem that combines a medical lending marketplace solution (CarePal Money), insurance and protection solutions (CarePal Secure), and a crowdfunding technology platform (Impact Guru) for healthcare financing. We aim to make critical and elective treatments accessible and affordable to every household in India.
