• Rainfed agriculture
• Self-help groups
• Distributed renewable energy
• Theory of change
• Progress monitoring systems
• Programme evaluation
• Complex systems

Nikhil completed his MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He began his development sector journey at the grassroots in PRADAN in rural Madhya Pradesh. He facilitated the growth of self- help groups, leading to increase in agency of women and improvement in livelihood security.

Nikhil spent a decade in the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) niche. He also co-founded IdeasUnbound Innovations, where he partnered with large grassroots organisations like Selco Foundation and Pradan, and facilitated measurement of impact through decision-support dashboards. He worked with incubators like UnLtd in mentoring social enterprises. He recently worked on strategy evaluation with Good Energies, a philanthropy supporting Distributed Renewable Energy projects in India and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Nikhil is currently exploring research pathways into conceptualising the Governing principles of development. The approach involves identifying meaningful equivalences in natural sciences, thus enabling a systematic understanding of complex development scenarios in social sciences.