Hong Kong Indian entrepreneur out to build ‘the next Alibaba’ in Mumbai

After working as a Middle East strategist, Hong Kong-raised overachiever Akanksha Hazari moved to India to build her start-up m.Paani. She is about to get an award from Hillary Clinton’s NGO

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Akanksha Hazari, CEO and founder of m. Paani, shows the app for the charity. Photo: Bruce Yan

Published: 3:00pm, 31 Jan 2016Updated: 3:00pm, 31 Jan 2016

Akanksha Hazari’s parents were relieved when she announced in 2013 that she was moving to Mumbai on her own.

“After Palestine, India was fine,” says her mother, Anjali. “Akanksha wanted to go to Africa originally, but her father and I managed to convince her that it was probably not a good idea.”

Home for the 32-year-old former Middle East strategist turned star technology entrepreneur is Hong Kong, the city she moved to with her Indian parents when she was eight. She attended West Island School,and became so good at squash she was selected to play for Hong Kong in her teens.

“For me, Hong Kong is very much home ... I am an Indian-Hong Kong girl,” she says.

Hazari is the founder of m.Paani, a phone-based customer loyalty platform that helps to bring together small retailers andconsumers in emerging markets.

Akanksha Hazari receivws a trophy at the Hong Kong 1997 Prince Junior Closed Championships from Heather Deayton, then executive director of Hong Kong Squash.

It may sound esoteric, but as she explains in her parents’ Mount Davis flat, this is just the first step in building a global business that can help the world’s underserved “offline” population access important services from which they have been excluded. In short, she wants m.Paani to be the next Alibaba.