Access engine: How Nirmit Parikh’s Apna is changing India’s job market

The idea for Apna came to Nirmit Parikh in an unlikely setting — a movie theatre. While watching the film Gully Boy, one line stayed with him: “apna time ayega”. The phrase captured something he had been thinking about for years, that many people have ability and ambition, but lack access to the networks and opportunities that enable them to move ahead.

After completing his MBA at Stanford University, Parikh returned to India determined to build something around that idea. His view was that employment, a basic need, still functions through fragmented networks and opaque hiring processes. Technology, he believed, could lower those barriers.