Founder, #TellMeYourStory

Author, academician, columnist and content strategist; despite donning so many hats, Koral Dasgupta finds time to get people from varied backgrounds to share their stories on her platform #TellMeYourStory. “Whichever background you come from, whether you are a good writer or bad, if you have a story to tell, do write it on our platform. I believe it is very important to document your life,” says Dasgupta.

The stories on #TellMeYourStory, a website launched in July 2016, can be as short as just 200 words. As of December 2018, they had gathered 2,154 stories.

Dasgupta wanted to do something to revive the declining reading and writing habits, and she is surprised by the kind of response she has been receiving. There’s every kind of people contributing — a 10-year-old about his fun evening and an 86-year-old sharing his life experiences. Then there are CEOs, journalists, rural headmasters and more writing in to share a slice of their lives. Dasgupta is now looking to find a way to help contributors raise some money through her platform. The website is also helping budding writers by publishing their manuscripts. She calls her efforts a brand of literary and intellectual activism.

The start-up earns through marketing campaigns, CSR partnerships and content projects. For example, they recently launched an online campaign Come Home Papa, along with Mahindra Trucks and Bus and the central government’s road safety initiative. As part of this, daughters of truck drivers were invited to write in stories about their fathers and their lives on the road.