Alina Alam, Founder and CEO of MITTI Cafe

Alina Alam is the founder and CEO of Mitti Cafe, which offers individuals with disabilities experiential training as well as a place to be effective and demonstrate their potential. She founded Mitti Cafe in 2017 with locations in Hubli and Bengaluru with the intention of empowering and presenting opportunities to people with disabilities. Since that time, Mitti Cafe’s roots have spread widely over several areas of the nation.

Mitti is a network of cafés run solely by people with special needs who come from low-income families and battle physical, mental, and emotional issues. Alina had the idea for Mitti Café while working as an intern in Bengaluru for the Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled. All of Alina’s employees used to call her when they were at home because they wanted to work with dignity. The cafés started out with little capital, no cash on hand, and were initially supported by grants, community donations, and NSRCEL, the incubator run by IIM-Bangalore.

Through its flagship initiative, Karuna Meals, Mitti Café’s staff of persons with disabilities has prepared, packaged, and distributed over four million meals to those who are most in need. When its cafes were forced to close due to the pandemic, it switched to cafés in hospitals and other public areas, fed the hungry by four million meals, and launched a giving campaign.

116 adults with physical, intellectual, or mental health challenges currently manage 13 cafes. Many hats are worn by Alina Alam. Entrepreneur, speaker at TedX, one of Forbes’ 30 under 30, and finalist for the Commonwealth Youth Award. Her zeitgeist is winning prizes; the list is vast and remarkable and includes the Microsoft Nipman Award, the NCPEDP Mindtree Helen Keller Award, and others.