Dr Sapna Poti is the Director, strategic alliances in the Principal Scientific Advisor’s Office, Government of India. Her primary role is to promote Scientific R&D and Innovations for social impact and to address industry problems through Industry, Foundations and Government channels. This includes engaging Science & Technology institutes and the entire start up ecosystem to meet National Missions & National priorities including COVID 19, doubling farmers income, make in India, water mission, waste management mission etc. Dr Poti is a PhD from IIT Madras with a dissertation in Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP)and has around 26 years of experience in Industry, Consulting and Government. Her previous stints were with Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Tata Trusts and National Skill Development Corporation (under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship) in the social development and Government sector. Dr. Poti also has industry and consulting experience with ITC, Hewitt Associates, Deloitte, Toyota Kirloskar, Tatas and Crompton Greaves. Dr Poti is a member of Niti Aayog’s Expert Group on ‘Skill Development for Mountain States’, Member of GIZ MSME committee, Member of Jaipur Literature Festival (JLT) Be Inspired committee, Member of USAID Samriddhi, and MESA’s advisory committees. Further, Dr Poti is a Chevening Awardee 2015. She is also a member on the Board of studies of skill development and educational institutes. She has authored national and international journal papers. 

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Will be updated soon...

Dr. Yogesh Kumar Dubey holds a Postgraduate degree in Wildlife Sciences (Aligarh Muslim University) and Doctoral degree from FRI deemed University, Dehradun.  He had worked with Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun from 1993 to 2001. During this period, he has worked on the impacts of iron ore mining on elephants in Singhboom district, Jharkhand. He has worked in Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra on establishing spatial databases for Enhancing decision making in protected areas in India as a part of his Doctoral thesis. His Postdoctoral work has been mainly in the area of the environmental impact assessment with special focus on biodiversity impact assessments and wildlife conservation.

From 2001 onwards, he is working with the Institute. He is currently working as Professor, and has being actively involved in teaching courses like Environmental Assessment, Wildlife conservation and Management, ecotourism & nature conservation, principles of sustainability, Environmental certifications Environmental policy & Governance and  to Management Graduates of PGDFM and PGDSM programs.

He is also actively involved with industries in providing consultancy advice to various corporates in the areas of mining, thermal power projects, hydropower projects and Highway projects with special reference to biodiversity inclusive impact assessment and preparation of comprehensive wildlife conservation & management plans. He has also been a member to the Independent Management Effective Evaluation (MEE) Committee for Protected Areas as constituted by MOEF & CC since 2010. He has also been member to various committees of NGT. He is also the member of State level Environmental Award selection committee for the state of Madhya Pradesh. He currently chairs the Center of excellence on human wildlife conflict management at the IIFM.

Prof. Amitabh Pande is the Chairperson of International Centre of Community Forestry (ICCF). Presently, he is a member of the Madhya Pradesh Wetland Authority of the Government of Madhya Pradesh. Dr Amitabh has done PhD from the University of Hyderabad (Anthropology) and Masters from University of Allahabad (Physics). He is an Environment Anthropologist, with a focused area of research in Collective action in NRM, Public Policy Analysis, Corporate governance and Biodiversity Conservation and Negotiation. For the past 27 years, he has been an active Researcher, Consultant, and Trainer. He has done about 50 research and Consultancy projects, funded by international and national organisations like World Bank, GIZ, UNDP, UNICEF, JICA, WRI, JSDF, European Union, ICSSR, DST, MOEFCC, MOTA, etc. He was a member of the committee that drafted National Forest Policy 2018. He has trained senior officers of the SAARC countries (Bhutan and Bangladesh). He has conducted more than 100 training sessions for international, national and state organisations. His recent publication is “Corporate Biodiversity Management for Sustainable Growth: Assessment of Policies and Action Plans"" edited book published by Springer Nature. Besides this, he has more than 30 publications in journals, book chapters and reports and four more books to his credit.

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Will be updated soon...

For more than a decade, Charu has worked with grassroot nonprofits and social entrepreneurs across Asia and Africa exploring how technology can improve access to utilities and healthcare. During this time, she was employed with organisations such as GSMA, JLL, The University of Georgetown as well as the School of Planning and Architecture. More recently, she was part of the public policy team at Facebook working in the areas of privacy and emerging technologies. Charu is trained as an architect and has completed her MBA from University of Oxford. She is a Shell Foundation, Acumen Regional and Kautilya Fellow.

Anurag Saxena, Chief Operating Officer, EasyGov and Co-founder, Digital Economy Foundation

Anurag is Chief Operating Officer of EasyGov, a subsidiary of Jio Platforms Limited. EasyGov is a GovTech startup focussed on technology-led citizen empowerment. EasyGov platform leverages Artificial Intelligence to design a progressive family-centric welfare model based on preferences, needs, and socio-economic status. The clients include Government of Karnataka, Government of Chhattisgarh, Government of Tripura, Government of Bihar, MyGov (Government of India), and Reliance Jio. 

Anurag is an alumnus of NIT Trichy, IBM, PwC Consulting, Accenture Strategy, and MicroSave Consulting. He also founded Digital Economy Foundation, a not for profit organization focussed on technology led social impact. He has worked with several clients in the Government and corporate sectors across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the US.

Anurag is keen to leverage strong partnerships across Government, Private Sector, Philanthropy, CSR, and Startups to create sustainable impact at scale for underserved or unserved citizens. 

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Professor Prana Krishna Biswas holds 38 years of academic and administrative experience. He has served as the Dean for IMT Ghaziabad for various projects. Among many other prestigious positions, he has also served as Vice Chancellor, Skyline University - Nigeria, Director, Institute for Financial Management & Research (IFMR) - Chennai/Sricity, Director, Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management (LBSIM) - Delhi. He specializes in Public Policy, Rural Finance, Corporate Social Responsibility, Micro Finance and Livelihoods, Development Management , Civil Society & NGO Management, Participatory Management and etc. Prof. PK Biswas has worked on 50+ research projects, 48 research papers and 3 books. He has received various awards like “Bharat Jyoti” and “Shiksha Rattan” Awards by India International Friendship Society, Honored by Times of India Group as “Educator” and “Trail Blazers 2014”, Best B-School Award for IFMR for Social Initiatives by ASSOCHAM in February 2016, Gold Award for “Academic Leadership in Research” at IIM Ahmedabad in August,2016, in Indian Management Conclave, Award for the work on “Cutting Edge Work in preparing Talent for the Future” at the 4th edition of Industry – Academia Conference, Delhi, February 28, 2020.

Sarika is passionate about building inclusive business creating a positive social and economic impact. She has over 20 years of experience having worked with firms such as Merrill Lynch & ICICI Bank. She has deep experience across Investment banking handling clients across India, Europe, USA & SE Asia.  
In 2011, Sarika decided to follow her passion in social innovation and successfully built BeyonDiversity, a purpose driven social enterprise. She is an Economics graduate from St Xaviers College, Kolkata and did her MBA from MDI, Gurgaon. Sarika has been awarded with many Awards and industry recognitions including Global Leadership in Mentoring” award by Hillary Clinton & Vital Voices USA in  2014, Listed amongst "Top 10 Global Diversity Consultants" in 2015, 2016 &2017 by The Economist & The Guardian, “Exceptional Women of Excellence" Award in 2017 & 2019 by the Women Economic Forum, Top 100 global women leaders impacting change by Vital Voices as #VV100 Fellow, Featured in Top 50 Indian Women to follow on Twitter by WowAsia, Nominated by US Embassy for the prestigious Fortune Most Powerful Women Mentoring Program held in the US.

Ms. Sushama Oza is the Advisor for CDMC-MICA. She retired on December 31, 2019 as a Director, Strategy & Sustainability at Adani Foundation, Ahmedabad. She was also the CEO of Adani Foundation from May 2007 to October 2014 and has been playing a pivotal role in shaping the CSR for Adani conglomerate for more than thirteen years. She has represented the organization at many national and international forums. Ms. Oza has over 37 years of experience in the development field, out of which 21 years have been as head of the organization in India and USA. She has strategized and spearheaded projects in sectors of education, community health care and sustainable livelihood development. She has led several capacity building programs all over India in the field of CSR. Before retirement she was spearheading two centre of excellence projects Swachhagraha and SuPoshan which were being implemented nationwide. She continues to support Sustainability efforts and reporting as part of Sustainability leadership committees and as a consultant for Adani Group of companies for Sustainability and CSR. She is also on the boards of a not for profit organization and for profit companies.

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Shalini is a rural development and agriculture specialist with a keen interest in rural enterprises for their role in empowering women. She continues to work at the interstection of research, policy and practice. Shalini has been working across Asia for over twenty years, designing, researching and implementing programs for the vulnerable and marginalised rural poor especially smallholders. She has rich expereince in the use of information and communication technology tools for strengthening farmer knowledge system to improve market linkages, productivity and incomes. This has involved working across multiple themes of agriculture, agribusiness, and food security with key stakeholders including the communities, their institutions, governments and experts. She is a trained economist and enjoys living in Goa.

Kartik is a seasoned development finance leader with 17 years of experience in investment banking, private equity, venture capital and economic policy and is considered a pioneer of impact investing in India. He graduated with a BSc Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and with Masters in International Affairs from SIPA, Columbia University. He has built a track record of raising and deploying private capital across high quality social enterprises in sectors including financial inclusion, education, health, agriculture, waste, affordable housing and energy access and consistent policy advocacy for building the blended finance ecosystem in India. He previously acted as Executive Director of Asha Impact, an impact investment and policy advocacy organization for Indian business leaders. He has been a three-time elected board member of the Impact Investors Council of India, member of the Prime Minister’s Champions of Change and Parliamentarians and Innovators Covid Response Taskforce for India. Kartik is also a founder and mentor to NGOs in the inclusion, digital media and mental health space and an active angel investor in social enterprises working in remote or underserved parts of India. Kartik joined KOIS as a partner in September 2021 to lead KOIS advisory business across the Asian region.

Chintan Bakshi is Partner | Incubation at CIIE.CO (www.ciie.co) India’s leading startup incubation centre, leading the regional incubation vertical at the organization. Chintan brings a unique experience of starting and scaling social enterprises and tech start-up companies primarily in the rural / Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) space. Chintan has 6 years of project management experience in companies like Feedback Ventures, Maruti Suzuki and the Taj Group and 19 years of startup founder and startup incubation experience. Chintan has co-founded two startups in the past - an electronic procurement platform in 2001 and a mobile-enabled rural distribution startup in 2006. Chintan joined CIIE.CO in 2013 to lead the incubation vertical of the organization based out of Jaipur, Rajasthan. Chintan is an Engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Chintan is passionate about the adaption of experiential/alternative education systems and the revival of Indic and indigenous knowledge and spiritual traditions of India.

Preethi Rao oversees the leveraging evidence function (collaborations, training, learning and communications, and innovations) and contributes to strategic decision-making at LEAD. Preethi has served the organization in various capacities such as Head – Innovation, Senior Operations Manager and Researcher (MSME).

As an Innovation Champion, she drives new initiatives and is responsible for conceptualizing new areas of interest for the organization. Apart from donning multiple hats at LEAD and its initiatives such as Catalyst-AIC and IWWAGE, Preethi has undertaken interdisciplinary studies on access to finance for small and medium scale enterprises and the influence of macroeconomic policies on the low-income populations. She has also been involved in developing, designing and leading research studies and short term projects in open data, financial inclusion and MSMEs.

Preethi holds a Master’s Degree in Management from IFMR Graduate School of Business where her focus areas were Finance and Marketing.

Shagun comes with more than 13 years of experience in social policy and development research, focusing on improving gender equality and health in India. Over the years, Shagun has led a portfolio of projects to support governments to scale evidence-based solutions, has designed evaluation research, created capacity building programs in monitoring and evaluation, and provided technical advisory on evidence-informed policy design. Before joining WomenLift Health, Shagun was the Director of Policy, training and communication at J-PAL SA and the Director of CLEAR SA. She led engagements with governments, donors, and civil society organizations to initiate new research, disseminate policy lessons, and scale up evidence-based programs. She completed her Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard University.

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