India's development challenge
spent annually on rural development programs
Are we spending trillions without knowing what & how it works?
Development Paradigm in India
Not one-time gestures — they are sequences.
Not all equal — some move the needle, most don't.
Not isolated — every action shifts every other in the ecosystem.
Not universal — what works in one geography fails silently in another.
Larger spending has never guaranteed larger impact.
Yet for decades, decisions worth crores have been made on instinct, annual reports, and incomplete data. Development has been treated like charity — when it demands the rigour of business.
Development interventions are not a philanthropic act.
Not anymore.
The team behind Development Catalyst saw this gap from the inside — having worked at India's leading development institutions and held senior roles at large, publicly listed financial companies.
Because development done right was never charity.
It is — and always should have been — one of the most serious businesses in the country.
The problem
Field data exists.
Insight doesn't.
The Catalyst Thesis
Think Global.
Act Village.
The only way to achieve global development goals is to measure and act at the ground level —
every family, every village, every intervention, every rupee.
Development Catalyst
A field data platform that connects every household, every scheme, and every intervention — so you can prove what works.
* AI layering was designed and trained by professionals holding global CERISE Social Performance Management & Social Stock Exchange (NISM) certifications.
Live app · not a mockup
Dashboard & Field Analytics
916 households · 4 villages · real data from Tamil Nadu
Intelligence layer
SDG Goals & Development Scorecard
17 UN SDGs scored · composite development index · trajectory tracking per village
Spatial intelligence
Household Map & Village Resource Map
BPL/Non-BPL household clusters · water, health, education, agri & 9 more facility types
Everything in one platform
Built for Every Layer of Development Work
Built for multiple stakeholders
One Ground Truth. Many Beneficiaries.
One verified dataset · Shared across sectors · Multiplied impact
Step 1 — Onboarding
Field workers ready
in 60 seconds
No IT setup. No training week. A field coordinator signs up, sets up their organisation and village — and starts surveying households immediately.
Organisation setup
Name your NGO, add districts and blocks in one step.
Village registration
Select state → district → block → village. Auto-linked to government geo-codes.
Role-based access
Field staff, supervisors, and admins see only what they need.
Step 2 — Real-time dashboard
Your entire field picture,
at a glance
↑ Live data from Nallur, Shanmugapuram & 2 other villages · Dindigul, Tamil Nadu
Step 3 — Deep profiles
Every family.
Fully understood.
Each household profile captures 40+ data points — from caste and income to durables, amenities, and financial relationships.
Individual members
Age, gender, education, health, employment for every person.
Financial inclusion
Bank access, insurance, formal vs. informal credit — per member.
GPS-tagged location
Every house plotted on a map. Reach analysis included.
Step 4 — Scheme intelligence
Track 3,800+
enrollments at once
Connect households to the government schemes they benefit from. Cross-reference eligibility, enrollment, and impact — across all programs simultaneously.
- ✓PM-KISAN farm income support
- ✓PMJDY bank account linkage
- ✓PMAY housing scheme
- ✓NREGA employment guarantee
- +35 more schemes tracked
The insight layer
What actually
moved the needle?
Development Catalyst doesn't just store data — it answers the question every funder and policymaker asks: which interventions drove real change?
By tracking the same household longitudinally across surveys, schemes, and assessments — we can compute what changed and why.
Sample: Income improvement by scheme combination (Nallur, 2024-25)
* Illustrative projection based on survey methodology. Live analytics in app.
The Mission
Scaling to
10,000 villages by 2027
Development Catalyst is infrastructure for the development sector — a longitudinal database that makes impact provable at village, district, and national scale. For the first time: evidence that development interventions work as intended, by knowing what works and how it works through objective & granular measurements.
Target villages by 2027
Households to be profiled
Schemes to be tracked
* AI layering was designed and trained by professionals holding global CERISE Social Performance Management & Social Stock Exchange (NISM) certifications.
AI Intelligence Layer
From raw data to actionable intelligence
Pattern Detection
AI identifies which interventions correlate with score improvements — across villages, districts, and time periods.
Score Simulation
Simulate what a village's SDG and welfare scores look like after a proposed scheme, SHG, or intervention rollout.
Targeting Engine
Ranks households and villages by need and intervention readiness — so field teams and funders know exactly where to act first.
Powered by longitudinal household data — not assumptions
* AI layering was designed and trained by professionals holding global CERISE Social Performance Management & Social Stock Exchange (NISM) certifications.
Score Simulation
Visualize impact before it happens
Current State · Village X
Overall SDG score · Moderate
⚠ 3 SDGs critically low
Simulate
SHG formation
+ PMAY enrolment
+ ASHA visits
24-month
projection
Projected State · Village X
✓ All critical SDGs above threshold
* AI layering was designed and trained by professionals holding global CERISE Social Performance Management & Social Stock Exchange (NISM) certifications.
The Core Thesis
Simulate. Target.
Predict.
Development Catalyst doesn't just record what happened —
it tells you what to do next.
By combining longitudinal household data with AI scoring models, Development Catalyst becomes the first platform that can predict development outcomes before spending a rupee — and prove impact after every intervention.
Evidence-based development · At village, district & national scale
* AI layering was designed and trained by professionals holding global CERISE Social Performance Management & Social Stock Exchange (NISM) certifications.
Join us.
We're looking for partners, state government collaborators, and mission-aligned stakeholders to take Development Catalyst to scale.
Try the live demo · karthik.nithin.kavi@gmail.com
Get in touch