Nipun Mehta
The Journey
Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, a global community working at the intersection of technology, volunteerism, and gift culture. As a designer of large-scale social movements rooted in small acts of service and powered by micro-moments of inner transformation, his work has catalyzed networks of community builders grounded in their own localities — cultivating deeper connection with themselves, each other, and larger systems. Today, ServiceSpace reaches millions every month, is powered by thousands of volunteers, and keeps blossoming into local and virtual projects that aim to ignite a “whole greater than the sum of its parts.”
Soon after college, Nipun felt called to trade Silicon Valley’s Internet potential for the “Inner-Net” potential of his own heart. In April 1999, ServiceSpace began as an experiment — four friends helping a homeless shelter build a website. Through larger arcs of serendipity, it quickly drew thousands of volunteers, and while the projects spread over the next 25 years, what was perhaps most pioneering was the process: three creative constraints — no paid staff, no fundraising, no impact measurement — that paved the way for radically uncommon solutions.
At the heart of the work is a simple idea: everyone has gifts to offer, and when those gifts are shared freely, a “many-to-many” field of heart intelligence emerges — revealing regenerative ways to meet the needs of the world. Tending such a field is the art of social permaculture, and a shift from leadership to laddership, where changing oneself is the first step toward changing the world.
This work, intertwined with his own deepening inner practice, has drawn many honors — from the Goi Peace Award to the Dalai Lama’s Unsung Hero of Compassion. Nipun has advised public initiatives like President Obama’s Council on Poverty and Inequality, been featured in over 50 books by wide-ranging luminaries, and spoken everywhere from corporate boardrooms to United Nations halls to Awakin Circles in ordinary living rooms.
“I want to live simply, love purely, and give fearlessly. That’s me.”
A few mile-markers
A brief timeline
Following the previous year’s Gandhi 3.0, we host another — back to back. The hunger for social permaculture feels more present than ever.
Our Compassion Bot pilot comes alive as we flesh out the Awakin.AI portal — supporting voices of wisdom that might bend the arc of our culture toward compassion.
The pandemic hits while I’m in a 30-day meditation retreat. ServiceSpace responded. We launched Karuna News to showcase people meeting suffering with compassion — and then came peer-learning Pods, which changed how online learning was done.
We changed our name from CharityFocus to ServiceSpace. The first talk after the change is still our most popular — Designing for Generosity.
Karma Kitchen begins — a pop-up restaurant where the menu has no prices. Your meal was a gift from someone before you, and you’re invited to pay it forward for the next. Stories went viral, sparking hundreds of “priceless pricing” experiments and UC Berkeley research.
Six months into marriage, Guri and I left home to journey across India by foot — living on a dollar a day, eating wherever food was offered, sleeping wherever a flat surface was found. An unscripted pilgrimage to greet life in the farthest corners of our own consciousness.
At the height of the dot-com heyday, a few friends gathered over pizza. BMWs as signing bonuses, eighteen-hour workdays — and this meeting was about something so simple it was radical: giving. ServiceSpace started.
Started DailyGood during my first (and only) job at Sun Microsystems, when I realized I could send automatic emails at 4am. Soon after, Awakin Circles began in our living room — which my parents hosted for 23 straight years, then rippled to hundreds of living rooms worldwide.
Grew up with the goal of becoming either a tennis pro or a Himalayan yogi. At seventeen, my spirit’s calling overtook the default dreams, and service became the thrust of my focus.
In his own words
A couple of talks
For organizers
Introducing Nipun
Sharing a gathering with your community? A few words at different lengths, a welcome to read aloud, and photos — each one click to copy or download — now live together on Introducing Nipun.