Mekin Maheshwari is extremely passionate about discovering & unleashing human potential beyond limits. In 2017, he started Udhyam Learning Foundation, a not-for-profit an organisation that aims to develop entrepreneurial mindsets amongst youth and nano entrepreneurs to help them pursue their potential.

Mekin started his career in 2002 with Yahoo! and then went on to join Ugenie where he created weRead – a successful social network around books. He was an early team member at Flipkart where he played various roles. As Head of Engineering, he built a great tech team, which he counts as his biggest professional achievement to date. He then went on to establish two small start-ups within Flipkart and finally took on the role of Chief People Officer.

Neeraj Jain is the Country Director of PATH India. A nonprofit organisation that has been working towards strengthening public health in India for more than four decades. Neeraj oversees all operations in the country and serves as a liaison between the office in India, PATH headquarters, donors, partners, and national-level ministries. PATH has also been extensively supporting various governments in providing technical support for COVID-19 response, and advising on testing, treating and managing the outbreak.

Prior to joining PATH, Neeraj led WaterAid India through a dynamic phase of transition as its chief executive. He was instrumental in the setup of the India Sanitation Coalition as part of the governing committee and heads the Engagement with Central and State Governments Task Force for them. The coalition, launched in June 2015, is leading the sanitation conversations in India by bringing together organizations and individuals to find sustainable solutions for sanitation.

Anurag has been engaged with efforts to improve education in India for the past sixteen years. He has been a vocal advocate for the critical importance of public systems, in particular the public education system. His many years in business have given him an insider’s view in to both the possibilities and limits of markets. For the past few years he has also been engaged with environmental and ecological issues. He writes widely, including a fortnightly column for the newspaper Mint.

Anurag has earlier played leadership roles in business. As the CEO of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering, he led the business from being No. 20 in the world to being the No. 1 in 5 years. The business has operations in Europe, India, Brazil, US and China. He has been responsible for many corporate functions for Wipro including Brand, Quality and Innovation. In the early part of his career he was part of the team that built the leadership position of Wipro GE Healthcare in South Asia.

He continues to be associated with Wipro, providing oversight to the social and ecological initiatives of the Wipro Group, as its Chief Sustainability Officer. He is a member of Wipro’s Group Executive Council.

Ruha Shadab is a doctor turned public health professional turned social entrepreneur. She is the Founder of LedBy Foundation, a unique leadership incubator that works on improving equity in the workplace. She is a recent graduate from Harvard University, where she received her Master in Public Policy on a full tuition scholarship. On graduation, she was awarded the Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Award: the first Indian to receive it. During her Master’s, she served as the Co-Chair of the India Conference at Harvard, worked at Yale University as first author for a medical ethics paper, and at the Gates Foundation on a global health strategy framework.

Muhammad Yunus is a social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. He has received several other national and international honours for his work such as the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Ramon Magsaysay Award and the Congressional Gold Medal.

Faye D’Souza is an Indian journalist and a television news anchor. She worked as the executive editor of Mirror Now, which is owned by The Times Group. She rose to fame with the show The Urban Debate on Mirror Now, where she anchored on subjects of corruption, communal violence and independent press. She received the RedInk Award for ‘Journalist of the Year’ in 2018

Arunabha Ghosh is a public policy professional, adviser, author, columnist, and institution builder. As the founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW),he has led CEEW to one of South Asia’s leading policy research institutions (seven years in a row); and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks in 2013, 2014 and 2016. Arunabha advises governments, industry, civil society and international organisations around the world. This has included India’s Prime Minister’s Office, several ministries and state governments.

James Abraham is Co-Founded and Director of SolarArise, which focuses on financing, owning and managing utility-scale solar power plants. James serves on the boards of LnT Water, Vistaar Financial Services, SmartPower India, and is an Advisor to Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. He also serves on the board of International Justice Mission which rescues women and children from slavery and violence.

Shaheen grew up in 5 countries around the world and returned to India when she was 18 to start The Akanksha Foundation. For 17 years, she worked with teachers and students, building Akanksha to provide 4000 children from low- income communities the kind of education that would maximize their greatest potential. Today, Akanksha serves 6500 children through their School Project and after-school centres in Mumbai and Pune. In 2008, Shaheen founded Teach For India, with an audacious vision of providing an excellent education to all children across India through building a pipeline of leaders committed to ending educational inequity in India. Today, Teach For India directly impacts approximately 38,000 children across seven regions in India. Shaheen serves on the boards of Akanksha Foundation, Design for Change, and Simple Education Foundation. Shaheen has been an Ashoka Fellow and is the author of the book, Re-drawing India.

Karthik Muralidharan is a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, where he also holds the Tata Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Economics. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a Member of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) network, an Affiliate at the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), and a Research Affiliate with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).
Prof. Muralidharan’s primary research interests include development, public, and labour economics. Specific topics of interest include education, health, and social protection; measuring quality of public service delivery; program evaluation; and improving the effectiveness of public spending (with a focus on developing countries).

A K Shiva Kumar (Shiv), a New Delhi based development economist, is Co-Chair of Know Violence in Childhood – a global learning initiative – and senior policy adviser to UNICEF India. He teaches economics and public policy in various institutes. He was a member of the National Advisory Council, advising Government of India on social policy and legislation. He has undertaken several evaluation assignments for the UN and other agencies. He has served on the Boards of many NGOs and research organizations including Centre for Science and Environment, Institute for Human Development, Institute for Rural Development, International Center for Research on Women, and Public Health Foundation of India.

Laila Tyabji is a craft designer, writer, and Chairperson and Co-Founder of Dastkar. She has been working with grassroots artisans all over India for over four decades, creating new livelihood avenues through craft for pastoral & marginalised communities like the bonded labourers in Bihar, displaced villages in Ranthambhore, embroidery artisans in drought-hit Kutch and Banaskantha, tribals in Orissa and victims of insurgency in Kashmir.

Laila studied art in Baroda & Japan, & has worked as a freelance designer in textiles, graphics, interiors, and the theatre prior to Dastkar. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2012.

Osama Manzar is a global leader on the mission of eradicating information poverty from India and global south using digital tools through the Digital Empowerment Foundation, an organisation he founded in 2002. A British Chevening Scholar and an International Visitors Leadership Program Fellow of the US State Department, Osama is a social entrepreneur, author, columnist, impact speaker, angel investor, mentor, and sits on several government and policy committees in India and on international organisations working in the areas of Internet, access, and digital inclusion.

Osama has instituted 10 awards for recognising digital innovations for development in South Asia. He is a Member of Advisory Board for Alliance for Affordable Internet; Member of Licensing Committee for Community Radio in India at the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting; Member of Working Group – IT for Masses at Ministry of IT in India. He is Member of the Board at Association of Progressive Communication; World Summit Award; Ibtada; and Society for Labour & Development.

Adil Zainulbhai is Chairman of the Quality Council of India (QCI). He retired as the Chairman of McKinsey & Company, India, after serving the company for 34 years – the last 10 of which were spent in India. Prior to returning to India, he led the Washington office of McKinsey and founded its Minneapolis office. As Chairman, QCI, he has been involved in strengthening quality standards across various sectors of Indian industry and infrastructure. Adil is on the board of many Indian companies, including Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro and Cipla. He is also the Chairman of Network 18 and TV18. He serves on the boards of numerous non-profit organisations, including the Piramal Foundation, American India Foundation, the CII National Council, Saifee Hospital, and Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust. Adil graduated in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He also has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dr Kenwyn Smith is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and the Director of Penn’s Master’s Programme in Nonprofit/NGO Leadership. Dr Smith teaches leadership, group and intergroup dynamics, organizational politics, change management in three of Penn’s schools: the School of Social Policy & Practice, the Wharton School and the Fels Institute of Government (Arts and Sciences).

Dr Smith is an international scholar in the fields of group and intergroup dynamics, organizational change and leadership. His research experience ranges from prisons to schools, from businesses to health care institutions, from state enterprises to social entrepreneurial activities, from oppressed black townships in South Africa to agencies creating sustainable livelihoods in rural India, from pharmaceuticals in Belgium to financial services in urban America, from the World Bank to a community in Philadelphia wrestling with the anguish of people living with HIV/AIDS.