Welcome to Project Starfish. Greetings from the founder: Subhashish Acharya ( a.k.a. Subs)
Brief Bio :
Subhashish ( or Subs) was born in Calcutta, India. From childhood, Subhashish, who is sighted has had several friends who were blind. His family owns eye hospitals, and he has met thousands of blind people while growing up. India probably has the highest number of blind people globally; however, he was appalled to see the plight of them in India. There was no inclusion with society, no jobs or employment, high social stigma, low acceptance, no financial support, but most prominent, there were hardly any opportunities available for the blind to succeed.
Subhashish came to the United States in 2007 with his wife Soumita, who is also the co-founder. On the third day in an absolutely new country, they started volunteering for several organizations dealing with Blindness. The biggest thing they believed – “how can they make a difference based on their talent and experience”?
Subhashish, who has a bachelor’s in Engineering from India. He graduated from the Harvard Business School PLD/ an Exec MBA alternative program in 2020.
EXPERIENCE: 20 years of business experience in Programming, Business Consulting, Management Consulting, Six Sigma, Operations, Business Development, Marketing, and Strategic Alliance Industry experience. His Linkedin profile is here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sacharya/. Currently, he works as a Director at PTC managing Industry 4.0 market and partner development globally, after his 13-year stint at Oracle.
Subhashish and Soumita looked at the unemployment among the blind from a very different angle. They believed a new way, a very creative way needs to be propounded to solve the impending problem. That is how the Project Starfish model of employment was born.
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Soumita Acharya is a Filmmaker, a Philanthropist, and an awesome mother.
Soumita, a business graduate from Calcutta, is passionate about film making. A socially conscious person, Soumita is a believer of socio-economic equality. A resident of Lowell, she met several artists who were talented but weren’t marketing themselves. Soumita used a different technique called the “biography” method, where artists talked about their journey unfolding into art. The series on Artists were telecast via several local TV channels, and it was an instantaneous hit. Soumita didn’t stop at that. She realized there was a need to promote the City of Lowell. Branding a city is a concept that exists only in big cities. Utilizing the same concepts a complete website for the City of Lowell was built.
Taking the skills from film-making, Soumita wanted to put her efforts into spreading awareness about blindness. She believed that the identity of the blind in the USA was exceptional compared to similar people outside the United States. It perhaps makes sense to showcase select events in the United States and spread it across the world. Soumita made 3 accessible films to illustrate the success of blind professionals. In total, she has made over 15 short and long films totaling over 2000 hours of filmmaking work.
Currently, Soumita works at LTC Lowell and manages film production. She is exceptionally connected to the city. She has won several awards as a #1 film maker in the Eastern Region and has several Board of Trustee positions including one at Girls Inc: https://girlsinclowell.org/about/leadership/
