22 April 2025, Dr Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi
Samajik Nyay Charcha
- Leveraging technology and industry-led solutions to improve government scheme delivery and mentorship programs
- Developing financial models and ecosystems to support entrepreneurship in marginalized communities
- Creating multi-sectoral partnerships and interventions to enhance accessibility and responsiveness for holistic development
- Establishing comprehensive pathways for education, skills development, and sustainable livelihoods
- Scaling successful pilot programs into large-scale initiatives under frameworks like DAP-SC/E-Utthan.
The event is free to attend for all registered participants. Please register through the form above.
- Leveraging technology and industry-led solutions to improve government scheme delivery and mentorship programs
- Developing financial models and ecosystems to support entrepreneurship in marginalized communities
- Creating multi-sectoral partnerships and interventions to enhance accessibility and responsiveness for holistic development
- Establishing comprehensive pathways for education, skills development, and sustainable livelihoods
- Scaling successful pilot programs into large-scale initiatives under frameworks like DAP-SC/E-Utthan.
The event is free to attend for all registered participants. Please register through the form above.
Dr Virendra Kumar
Shri Amit Yadav, IAS
Shri Amit Ghosh, IAS
Smt Caralyn K Deshmukh, IAS
Hon'ble Minister, MoSJE
Dr Virendra Kumar
Dr. Virendra Kumar, born on February 27, 1954, in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, is a distinguished Indian politician and social worker affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He holds a Master’s degree in Economics and earned a Ph.D. focusing on child labor from Dr. Harisingh Gaur University in Sagar. Dr. Kumar’s political journey commenced with his involvement in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). He served as the Convenor of ABVP in Sagar District from 1977 to 1979 and as the Divisional Organizing Secretary in Rewa from 1979 to 1982. His leadership roles extended to the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) as General-Secretary in Sagar District between 1982 and 1984, and as the Convenor of Bajrang Dal from 1987 to 1991. Elected to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996 representing the Sagar constituency, Dr. Kumar demonstrated consistent electoral success by securing seats in subsequent terms, including the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th Lok Sabha, representing both Sagar and later Tikamgarh constituencies. Throughout his parliamentary tenure, he contributed to various committees, notably serving as the Chairperson of the Joint Committee on Office of Profit and the Standing Committee on Labour and Welfare. In July 2021, Dr. Kumar was appointed as the Union Cabinet Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment in the Narendra Modi government, reflecting his dedication to social causes and public service. Beyond politics, Dr. Kumar is deeply committed to social work. He actively supports the Gau-Seva Sangh Sanstha in Sagar and has been involved in initiatives for orphanages, schools for the differently-abled, and old age homes. His personal interests include singing and playing the harmonica, and he has been recognized for his athletic achievements at the state level. Dr. Virendra Kumar’s extensive career is characterized by his unwavering commitment to public service, social justice, and community development, underscoring his significant contributions to Indian politics and society.
Secretary, DoSJE
Shri Amit Yadav, IAS
Amit Yadav is a member of the permanent civil services of the Government of India with 33 years of experience in administration and governance. He holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc), a Master of Business Administration (MBA), and a Bachelor of Law (LL.B).
He is at present working as Secretary of the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment since 11th June, 2024. During the last ten years, he has served as Joint Secretary in the Department of Communications, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce, and Chairperson of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC).
He has worked at municipal, provincial, and federal levels in various capacities and has served in the states of Delhi, Goa, and Arunachal Pradesh. He has also worked at the United Nations on secondment from the Government of India. He was the Indian representative for agricultural negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva for three years and served as Chair of the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade of the WTO for a year. He was the lead negotiator in the India-Australia Free Trade Agreement signed in March 2022.
At the provincial level, he has handled various departments as Secretary of Finance, Industry, Agriculture, Welfare, Water Resources, etc. At the federal level, he has worked in the Departments of Commerce and Telecommunications. He has also headed infrastructure development corporations in three states: Goa, Delhi, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Addl. Secretary 1, DoSJE
Shri Amit Ghosh, IAS
Shri Amit Kumar Ghosh, an I.A.S. Officer of the Uttar Pradesh Cadre holds a B.E. (Electronics) from the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, M.Sc in Public Management and Governance from London School of Economics and M.A. in Defence Studies from Meerut University. He holds the post of Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India and is responsible for formulating schemes and programmes for the welfare of the disadvantaged sections of the Society. He was Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India responsible for the administration of National Highways in India (Planning, Financing, Construction and Operations) and acquisition of land for construction of National Highways. During his tenure in the Ministry, India’s largest highway development programme called the ‘Bharatmala Pariyojana’ was conceived for construction of 34,800 kilometres of highways in 5 years with an estimated cost of USD 100 billion and this programme is currently under implementation. Before going on central deputation in the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, he worked in the State Government of Uttar Pradesh in various senior positions including that of Managing Director, UPSIDC; Director of Industries (Industry Department); Mission Director (National Health Mission) and Secretary of Health and Family Welfare Department. Besides, having served as Divisional Commissioner, Kanpur Division he has also served as the District Magistrate of Lucknow, Meerut, Moradabad and Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh and in Uttarkashi, Nainital, Almora districts in the newly created State of Uttaranchal (Uttarakhand). Shri Amit Kumar Ghosh has been Adjunct Professor at PHFI during 2016–2017 and Member of Scientific Advisory Committee for the Better Birth Project, on World’s Largest Cluster RCT (Randomized Control Trial) project by Harvard University. He delivers lectures on public health and infrastructure at various forums. He has co-authored a book on ‘Geo Strategic Importance of Indian Ocean’ and is presently working on a book on the subject of naxalism. Shri Ghosh is the Hony. General Secretary of the Central IAS Association and Member of International Goodwill Society of India. He is a Member of the National Advisory Council of Indian Space Association. He is the President of “K.D. Singh ‘Babu’ Memorial Society”, Lucknow, a Society to promote Hockey, India’s National Game amongst young children for the last 11 years and the following tournaments are conducted by the Society: i) K.D. Singh ‘Babu’ Memorial All India Sub-Junior (Under-14) Hockey Tournament; ii) Padmashri Pt. Jaman Lal Sharma State Hockey Championship (Under-14). All members of India’s National Team of Under-19 players have played in these two tournaments.
Addl. Secretary 2, DoSJE
Smt Caralyn K Deshmukh, IAS
Abhishek Singh
Amarjeet Sinha, IAS
Anurag Adarsh
Arindom Datta
Atul Satija
Azeez Gupta
Divya Khemani
Ekta Kumar
Addl Secy - MeitY
Abhishek Singh
Shri Abhishek Singh is a career civil servant with 30 years of experience in governance and policy formulation. He specializes in the use of technology for improving governance. He is presently posted as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, with responsibilities for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies, R&D in Electronics; IT and in Convergence, Communications and Broadband Technologies (CC&BT). He has previously served as CEO, Karmayogi Bharat in the Department of Personnel & Training; and CEO, NeGD, DIC, and MyGov in the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India.
He has done a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is also an alumnus of IIT Kanpur.
Former Secy - MoRD
Amarjeet Sinha, IAS
Shri Amarjeet Sinha was posted as Advisor to the Prime Minister till July 31, 2021. An IAS Officer of the Bihar Cadre (1983 batch), he retired in December 2019 as Secretary, Department of Rural Development, Government of India. He has 40 years of experience in government, largely in the rural and social sectors. He played a major role in designing the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). He coordinated the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in 2018 to deliver seven pro-poor public welfare interventions to 63,974 large villages with over 50% vulnerable social group populations.
At the state level, Mr. Sinha served in the education and health sectors. He has also been involved in training Indian Administrative Service Officer Trainees at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.
Mr. Sinha has published several articles and seven books on public policy, the most recent being The Last Mile – Turning Public Policy Upside Down. He also contributed to the Notion Press book on fifteen change-makers, The Book of Aspiration.
He has been associated with public policy at various universities and institutes and delivered the ICSSR Annual Lecture in 2022. He is an advisor to Sampark Foundation, Centre for Social and Economic Progress, and Women’s World Bank. He was a member of the jury for The Indian Express Governance Awards in 2023. He chaired a committee for suggesting reforms in MGNREGS and currently chairs the Gender Expert Committee of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub.
A student of St. Stephen’s College, he topped Delhi University and is a recipient of many national and international scholarships. He has also served as President of the St. Stephen’s College Students’ Union Society.
Sr. Engg (Android) - Google
Anurag Adarsh
Anurag Adarsh is a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Android, Google India, bringing nearly two decades of diverse experience in the tech industry. His background includes roles at Google, venture capital firms (Peak XV), and startups. At Peak XV, he served as a Senior Data Scientist and Architect, leveraging data to inform investment decisions. He has also provided early-stage consulting to numerous startups, offering expertise in design, implementation, and optimization across cloud, AI, frontend, backend, and talent acquisition.
Prior to this, he founded SpeakTribe, an ed-tech startup that reached over 1 million users across the globe, offering interactive and gamified language-learning apps. He was also a co-founder and CTO at Eskwelabs, a data science bootcamp provider that teaches data science and data engineering skills to aspiring professionals.
In his earlier tenure at Google, he spent about seven years across multiple teams including local search, search quality, enterprise, and emerging markets, where he led the teams for local search and enterprise-apps core platform.
He has a strong background in computer science, having graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and holds multiple patents in the fields of spam detection and rating systems. His mission is to use technology to create innovative and impactful solutions for health, education, skill development, and social good.
Senior Advisor - Sustainability/ Technology
Arindom Datta
Arindom Datta has over 30 years of work experience with the last 17 years at Rabobank where he was Head of Asia for Sustainability Banking initiatives on knowledge, risk management and business development. He also oversaw the development finance projects in blended finance, AgFinTech, and climate financing in the agriculture sector. His previous experience was with NABARD, IDBI Bank and CARE. Arindom has been honoured with the ‘India Sustainable Leadership’ award at the India Sustainability Leadership Summit in 2017. Arindom is a Mathematics honours graduate from St. Stephen’s College and has an MBA with a specialization in Finance and Strategy from IIM Kozhikode.
▪ Currently he is the Senior Advisor to Omnivore (India’s largest Agtech VC Fund) and SatSure (World’s leading AgFinTech company providing remote sensing solutions to Agriculture and other sectors). He is also the Advisor to Samunnati, India’s leading Agriculture financing NBFC.
▪ Current Affiliations: Investment Committee Member of the SIDBI sponsored Assam Start up Venture Capital Fund & the Tripura Start up Venture Capital Fund; Member, Working Group on Financial Linkages under 10,000 FPOs scheme constituted by Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India; Member of the FICCI Task force on Agtech; Member of the FICCI Task Force on Agri Finance; Expert Committee Member – Food Innovation Hub, India – World Economic Forum; Task force Member, Water Resource Group, World Bank; Steering Committee Member – ‘Sustainable Landscape Management for Transforming Agricultural Systems in India’, Rainforest India; Steering Council Member – The Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture Innovation (AI4AI) – World Economic Forum; Member of the Advisory Board of NAFPO (The National Association for Farmer Producer Companies); Advisory Panel of the India Livelihood Summit
▪ Past Affiliations : Steering Committee member of SAFIN (Small holder and Agri SME Finance & Investment Network); Expert Committee Member of “Green Bonds”
Founder & CEO - The/Nudge Institute
Atul Satija
After 17 years of starting and scaling various businesses, Atul started The/Nudge Foundation to do poverty alleviation work. Atul is now serving both The/Nudge and Give as their CEO.
Over his 5-year stint at InMobi as its Chief Business Officer, Atul helped scale the organization to a global leader in mobile advertising, with operations in 20+ countries. Atul also served on the Board of the Mobile Marketing Association.
Prior to InMobi, Atul was the Head of Mobile Business for Japan & Asia-Pacific at Google. He has also held general management, business development, and sales roles across technology companies including Adobe, Samsung, and Infosys.
Atul served EndPoverty, a nonprofit, as Chairperson for two years, working on water, sanitation, education, skill development, sustainability, and women empowerment. He serves on the advisory boards of various nonprofits including the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Udhyam Learning Foundation, and Parivaar.
Atul was named in the 40 Under Forty list by The Economic Times in 2017 and received the Mahatma Award for Social Impact in 2021. He regularly serves as a jury member for various social impact award panels like Forbes 30 Under 30, Business Standard Social Excellence, and UN Women WEF.
Atul holds a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the Indian School of Business and a B.Tech from the National Institute of Technology.
LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/atulsatija
Co-founder - Rocket Learning
Azeez Gupta
Azeez Gupta is a social entrepreneur and co-founder of Rocket Learning, an ed-tech non-profit impacting 4 million low-income children in India. He also serves on the Indian government’s Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Taskforce and on UNICEF’s working groups. Rocket Learning partners with central and 11 state governments at scale in India to support ECCE and foundational learning for 3-8 year olds. Their innovations have been profiled in Harvard Business School, UNESCO and Forbes case studies, studied by MIT-JPAL and Brookings, and awarded by MIT Solve, Mulago Foundation, Elevate Prize and the WEF. Azeez is a Draper Richard Kaplans Foundation Social Entrepreneur, Agency Fund Fellow and BusinessWorld’s 40 under 40 Disruptor. He started his career at McKinsey & Company, before a stint leading large-scale programs at Pratham. Azeez was a Goldsmith Fellow and Education Innovation Fellow during his MBA from Harvard, and completed his B.Tech from IIT Delhi.
Strategic Programs and Partnerships - Meta
Divya Khemani
Divya Khemani Wadhera is a seasoned commercial and technology leader with extensive experience in forging technology partnerships, driving business growth, and spearheading product innovation. In her current role at Meta, Divya drives strategic programs and key partnerships with conglomerates and government bodies across Meta’s family of apps, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
She began her career at Vodafone in 2008, excelling in strategy, sales, and business development. She helped establish the SMB vertical and led sales for Vodafone’s IoT practice, driving growth and global case studies. At Microsoft, she spearheaded telecom partnerships, deploying innovative connectivity solutions.
As a passionate advocate for technology’s potential to drive social and economic development, she has led initiatives like Meta Connectivity’s Accelerator program for connectivity start-ups.
THE/NUDGE IAF FELLOW - MOSJE
Ekta Kumar
Ms. Ekta Kumar has 25+ years of leadership across government, corporate, and advisory roles; she specializes in policy innovation, ESG strategy, and social impact. Currently, working as an Indian Administrative Fellow with the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Govt. of India, her focus is on economic inclusion, welfare access, and technology-driven governance to uplift marginalized communities. As Co-founder & Director of Binary Green LLP, she advises Fortune 500 companies on ESG strategy, compliance, and impact assessment. A CII Sustainability Assessor, she has shaped best practices across industries including energy, infrastructure, textiles, and technology. Previously, she led ESG, CSR, and business transformation at Samsung, Shell, Airtel, Deloitte, and ICICI, earning global recognition with the Prince Michael International Award (London) and the Shell Global CEO Award (The Hague). She is a frequent speaker at G20, CII, FICCI, NSE, IICA, IOD, IIM, and ISB, shaping dialogues on sustainability, governance, and inclusive growth. Her vision is to build an equitable, sustainable India—one policy, one company, and one community at a time.
Luis Miranda
Mandira Kalra Kalaan
Manish Thakkar
Manu Chopra
Nidhi Bhasin
Nilesh Shrivastava
Prateek Maheshwari
Riti Mohapatra
Co-founder - ISPP
Luis Miranda
Luis Miranda is Chairman of the Board & Co-Founder of the Indian School of Public Policy. He is also Chairman of the Centre for Civil Society and CORO and a Co-Founder of Take Charge, a mentoring programme for Catholic youth in Mumbai. Luis and his wife, are #LivingMyPromise signatories, where they have pledged to give away at least 50% of what they have to charity during their lives or in their wills. He is also on the board of Educate Girls and an advisor to non-profits like Sunbird Trust, 17000 Ft Foundation, Raah Foundation, RA Foundation, Public Affairs Forum of India, Atlas Network and SNEHA. At the University of Chicago, he is a Trustee of the University of Chicago Trust in India, member of the Global Leaders Group and the Advisory Council of the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at Chicago Booth and member of the Society Advisory Committee of the Leadership & Society Initiative. Luis is Chairman of ManipalCigna Health Insurance, Senior Advisor at Morgan Stanley and on the board of L&T Technology Services. He is also an advisor to L&T SuFin. He has been involved in setting up 2 companies – HDFC Bank and IDFC Private Equity and two non-profits – Indian School of Public Policy and Take Charge. Luis received an MBA from the Booth School of Business at The University of Chicago and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Head of Office - Purpose India
Mandira Kalra Kalaan
Mandira Kalra Kalaan leads Purpose’s work in India, overseeing campaigns on gender, electric mobility, public health, climate change, youth, and urban informal settlements. With over 20 years of experience in strategic and creative communication, she specializes in narrative and behavior change across diverse issues. A social anthropologist by training, Mandira works closely with communities, using participatory and storytelling approaches to empower them. Previously, she led communications at the Population Foundation of India and has collaborated with international organisations like UNICEF and the World Bank.
COO - Avanti Finance
Manish Thakkar
Manish is one of the founding members of Avanti. He has been involved with Avanti right from the time it was a concept emerging from the problem statement by the founders to their vision of solving the problem at the population scale. As a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, he is responsible for the operations at Avanti.
Manish has over 25 years of experience in financial services, specialising in mergers and acquisitions, deal negotiation, and transaction structuring. He turned entrepreneur after 17 years in investment banking before joining the pioneer team of Avanti.
Co-founder & CEO - Karya Inc.
Manu Chopra
Manu Chopra is working on tackling extreme poverty by providing dignified digital work to rural Indians. He’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Karya, a transformative AI collective that is enabling dignified livelihoods. In 2023, Karya was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, and Manu was nominated among Time Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential People in AI. He graduated from Stanford University in 2017, where he co-founded CS+Social Good, Stanford’s first student group focused on technology and impact. He has also taught several tech-for-good courses in Stanford’s Computer Science Department. Manu is an Echoing Green Fellow and a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Social Entrepreneur.
CEO - Digital Green India
Nidhi Bhasin
Nidhi Bhasin is one of the leading voices in the social development space with transformational leadership experience in technology for good. She firmly believes that technology can enable nation-scale social impact. In her career spanning over 25 years, Nidhi has navigated through various strategic and leadership roles – from program management to fundraising, from transformational management to creating thought leadership and from compliance management to building high performance teams. Nidhi is also sought out for views on impact financing, gender, climate change, sustainability, and diversity and inclusion issues. She is also known for prioritising women in program implementation as often they are the most impacted by issues of climate change, gender based violence, healthcare among others. Nidhi is based in New Delhi, India.
Partner - NIIF
Nilesh Shrivastava
Nilesh Shrivastava is a Partner at the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and has over 25 years of experience across private equity, debt investments, banking, and portfolio management. At NIIF, he has led the investment and buildout of NIIF’s infrastructure lending platform as well as equity investments in EV mobility and other areas. He was previously with International Finance Corporation (IFC), where he headed the financial services investments portfolio in South Asia. He was earlier with HSBC in banking roles. Nilesh has an MBA from IIM Kolkata and an engineering degree from Lucknow University.
Co-founder - Physics Wallah
Prateek Maheshwari
Prateek Maheshwari is the Co-Founder of PhysicsWallah (PW), a multinational EdTech unicorn which is focussed towards democratizing education at scale. He also holds several key industry leadership positions such as Chair of India EdTech Consortium (IEC) and co-chair of start-up committee, FICCI. Prateek is at the forefront of driving the growth and development of the EdTech sector in India. In 2020, Prateek partnered with Alakh Pandey, to build a platform that aims at bridging the gap between quality education and affordability for all. Under his leadership, PW has become a transformative force, reshaping the way students across India learn. Prateek Maheshwari, an alumnus of IIT (BHU), Varanasi, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, has spent 14 years turning ideas into innovative ventures. Before launching PhysicsWallah, Prateek founded several startups, using his expertise to develop scalable digital solutions. At PhysicsWallah, Prateek Maheshwari is a driving force, motivated by a mission to break down educational barriers. He focuses on addressing key challenges in education, such as limited internet access and hardware constraints, by harnessing the power of technology that can make learning accessible and personalized, aimed at improving learning outcomes. His efforts have not only expanded PhysicsWallah’s reach but also established it as a trusted lifelong partner in the learning journey of students across varied age groups. Recognizing the power of emerging technologies, Prateek is spearheading efforts to harness AI in education- focusing on adaptive learning, personalized content delivery, and predictive analytics to improve learner engagement and outcomes. He also champions youth empowerment, turning PW into a hub for job creation and next-gen talent in India. Also a philanthropist, Prateek supports NGOs like Kashi Utkarsh and Asha Deep Vidyashram, which work towards providing inclusive-quality education to children.
Partner - The Bridgespan Group
Riti Mohapatra
Riti is a partner in Bridgespan’s Mumbai office. She has worked with nonprofit organizations, foundations and corporate CSRs on strategy, equity and operating model design. Her recent projects include developing a system change strategy for a non-profit focused on eliminating gender-based violence, developing and executing a strategy for economically empowering millions of women, designing the operating model for a large climate-based non-profit in India and creating a strategy to incorporate equity into the program design for a maternal health non-profit. Riti leads the work on equity in the India office and has co-authored the reports on “Why Gender Matters for Funders in Any Issue Area” and “Pathways to greater social mobility for India’s Dalits and Adivasis”. She is also leading Bridgespan’s first multi-year initiative in the Global South – Community Driven Change. Previously Riti worked at McKinsey & Company, where she tackled different business problems across – real estate, retail, infrastructure, primary education, policy development and implementation, logistics, pharma manufacturing, etc. Riti has completed her Dual Degree (B.Tech & M.Tech) in Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur.
Sandeep Girotra
Samina Bano
Sanjay Modi
Saurabh Chopra
Shankar Maruwada
Independent Business Advisor
Sandeep Girotra
Sandeep’s work experience includes membership of the Board of Directors of a PE portfolio company, CEO and Region Head for telecom infrastructure businesses in India and APAC. He is also a trained executive coach. He likes to focus on the leadership bench, and the larger impact of the telecom industry on society, which he has seen drive digital inclusion and Govt2Citizen Interface across economic categories. He currently is an independent advisor to various companies to help them establish new businesses, expand, and navigate to growth. His principles are to simplify first and then execute.
Founder & CEO - Rightwalk Foundation
Samina Bano
Samina is the Founder and Director of Rightwalk Foundation, where she leads educational reform by shaping policy, system design, and government capacity to drive large-scale, sustainable change.Overcoming complex political, social, and legal hurdles, she has been instrumental in promoting social inclusion in Uttar Pradesh classrooms by activating the Right to Education Act, which mandates private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for low-income children.Samina is an Ashoka Fellow, TEDx speaker, and Kalam Award winner. She is also a computer engineer and a graduate of IIM Bangalore.
Head of Jobs & Livelihoods - Dell Foundation
Sanjay Modi
Sanjay leads the foundation’s Jobs & Livelihoods work in India, creating opportunities to improve the lives of youth and their families. Before joining the foundation, he founded Gloscout.com, a platform connecting international workers to jobs. He was also an executive vice president and managing director at Monster.com, overseeing operations in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Earlier in his career, he held leadership roles at Indiaconstruction.com, NIIT, and Ingersoll Rand. Sanjay is also an active startup investor and advisor.
Director - Central Square Foundation
Saurabh Chopra
Saurabh works as Director, Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at Central Square Foundation. His work involves working closely with various central government stakeholders and has led multiple engagements on the National Education Policy, NIPUN Bharat Mission, National Achievement Survey, DIKSHA, CBSE SAFAL, TicTacLearn, etc. Prior to CSF, Saurabh built EnglishLeap, an online English learning application with two million users. He also has experience in data analytics and has worked across continents with Fortune 500 clients. Saurabh holds a B.Com degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce and an MBA from IIM Lucknow.
Co-founder & CEO - EkStep Foundation
Shankar Maruwada
Shankar Maruwada is the Co-Founder and CEO of EkStep Foundation, a philanthropy he co-founded with Nandan Nilekani and Rohini Nilekani. Shankar has three decades of experience across corporate, entrepreneurial, government, and development sectors. This allows him to bring the best of thinking from different perspectives, which he uses to shape EkStep’s strategic choices for achieving population-scale impact.
Shankar is passionate about a ‘People Plus’ approach to innovations that leverage technology for large-scale societal transformation, keeping the citizen at the center, as seen in EkStep Foundation’s work. EkStep operates at the intersection of cutting-edge techno-social ideas like digital public infrastructure, open digital networks, and Artificial Intelligence, creating solutions that impact billions in collaboration with governments, for-profits, non-profits, academia, and other philanthropies.
Shankar was part of the founding team of Aadhaar in 2009; in fact, he was responsible for naming it.
He serves or has served on multiple government committees on education, urban governance, digital transformation, Digital Public Infrastructure, and AI, including the NCF National Steering Committee, DIKSHA, NDEAR, and iGOT.
He is also Co-Chair of the Centre for Open Societal Systems at IIIT Bangalore.
As a successful entrepreneur, he co-founded one of India’s earliest data analytics startups in 2002.
He is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
The format includes panel discussions and fireside chats bringing together representatives from government (Sarkar), business (Bazaar), and civil society (Samaaj) to discuss these challenges and solutions.
10:30 – 11:30
Duration: 60 mins
Anurag Adarsh
Divya Khemani
Manu Chopra
Samina Bano
Sandeep Girotra
Sr. Engg (Android) - Google
Anurag Adarsh
Anurag Adarsh is a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Android, Google India, bringing nearly two decades of diverse experience in the tech industry. His background includes roles at Google, venture capital firms (Peak XV), and startups. At Peak XV, he served as a Senior Data Scientist and Architect, leveraging data to inform investment decisions. He has also provided early-stage consulting to numerous startups, offering expertise in design, implementation, and optimization across cloud, AI, frontend, backend, and talent acquisition.
Prior to this, he founded SpeakTribe, an ed-tech startup that reached over 1 million users across the globe, offering interactive and gamified language-learning apps. He was also a co-founder and CTO at Eskwelabs, a data science bootcamp provider that teaches data science and data engineering skills to aspiring professionals.
In his earlier tenure at Google, he spent about seven years across multiple teams including local search, search quality, enterprise, and emerging markets, where he led the teams for local search and enterprise-apps core platform.
He has a strong background in computer science, having graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and holds multiple patents in the fields of spam detection and rating systems. His mission is to use technology to create innovative and impactful solutions for health, education, skill development, and social good.
Strategic Programs and Partnerships - Meta
Divya Khemani
Divya Khemani Wadhera is a seasoned commercial and technology leader with extensive experience in forging technology partnerships, driving business growth, and spearheading product innovation. In her current role at Meta, Divya drives strategic programs and key partnerships with conglomerates and government bodies across Meta’s family of apps, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
She began her career at Vodafone in 2008, excelling in strategy, sales, and business development. She helped establish the SMB vertical and led sales for Vodafone’s IoT practice, driving growth and global case studies. At Microsoft, she spearheaded telecom partnerships, deploying innovative connectivity solutions.
As a passionate advocate for technology’s potential to drive social and economic development, she has led initiatives like Meta Connectivity’s Accelerator program for connectivity start-ups.
Co-founder & CEO - Karya Inc.
Manu Chopra
Manu Chopra is working on tackling extreme poverty by providing dignified digital work to rural Indians. He’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Karya, a transformative AI collective that is enabling dignified livelihoods. In 2023, Karya was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, and Manu was nominated among Time Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential People in AI. He graduated from Stanford University in 2017, where he co-founded CS+Social Good, Stanford’s first student group focused on technology and impact. He has also taught several tech-for-good courses in Stanford’s Computer Science Department. Manu is an Echoing Green Fellow and a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Social Entrepreneur.
Founder & CEO - Rightwalk Foundation
Samina Bano
Samina is the Founder and Director of Rightwalk Foundation, where she leads educational reform by shaping policy, system design, and government capacity to drive large-scale, sustainable change.Overcoming complex political, social, and legal hurdles, she has been instrumental in promoting social inclusion in Uttar Pradesh classrooms by activating the Right to Education Act, which mandates private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for low-income children.Samina is an Ashoka Fellow, TEDx speaker, and Kalam Award winner. She is also a computer engineer and a graduate of IIM Bangalore.
Independent Business Advisor
Sandeep Girotra
Sandeep’s work experience includes membership of the Board of Directors of a PE portfolio company, CEO and Region Head for telecom infrastructure businesses in India and APAC. He is also a trained executive coach. He likes to focus on the leadership bench, and the larger impact of the telecom industry on society, which he has seen drive digital inclusion and Govt2Citizen Interface across economic categories. He currently is an independent advisor to various companies to help them establish new businesses, expand, and navigate to growth. His principles are to simplify first and then execute.
12:00 – 13:00
Duration: 60 mins
Explore the use of technology & AI as well as innovative models and private-public partnerships (PPPs) to improve visibility and awareness, widen breadth and depth of reach, and simplify application and disbursement processes for MoSJE and other govt programs and schemes targeting underserved and marginalised communities.
Shri Amit Yadav, IAS
Amarjeet Sinha, IAS
Atul Satija
Secretary, DoSJE
Shri Amit Yadav, IAS
Amit Yadav is a member of the permanent civil services of the Government of India with 33 years of experience in administration and governance. He holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc), a Master of Business Administration (MBA), and a Bachelor of Law (LL.B).
He is at present working as Secretary of the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment since 11th June, 2024. During the last ten years, he has served as Joint Secretary in the Department of Communications, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce, and Chairperson of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC).
He has worked at municipal, provincial, and federal levels in various capacities and has served in the states of Delhi, Goa, and Arunachal Pradesh. He has also worked at the United Nations on secondment from the Government of India. He was the Indian representative for agricultural negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva for three years and served as Chair of the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade of the WTO for a year. He was the lead negotiator in the India-Australia Free Trade Agreement signed in March 2022.
At the provincial level, he has handled various departments as Secretary of Finance, Industry, Agriculture, Welfare, Water Resources, etc. At the federal level, he has worked in the Departments of Commerce and Telecommunications. He has also headed infrastructure development corporations in three states: Goa, Delhi, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Former Secy - MoRD
Amarjeet Sinha, IAS
Shri Amarjeet Sinha was posted as Advisor to the Prime Minister till July 31, 2021. An IAS Officer of the Bihar Cadre (1983 batch), he retired in December 2019 as Secretary, Department of Rural Development, Government of India. He has 40 years of experience in government, largely in the rural and social sectors. He played a major role in designing the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). He coordinated the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in 2018 to deliver seven pro-poor public welfare interventions to 63,974 large villages with over 50% vulnerable social group populations.
At the state level, Mr. Sinha served in the education and health sectors. He has also been involved in training Indian Administrative Service Officer Trainees at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.
Mr. Sinha has published several articles and seven books on public policy, the most recent being The Last Mile – Turning Public Policy Upside Down. He also contributed to the Notion Press book on fifteen change-makers, The Book of Aspiration.
He has been associated with public policy at various universities and institutes and delivered the ICSSR Annual Lecture in 2022. He is an advisor to Sampark Foundation, Centre for Social and Economic Progress, and Women’s World Bank. He was a member of the jury for The Indian Express Governance Awards in 2023. He chaired a committee for suggesting reforms in MGNREGS and currently chairs the Gender Expert Committee of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub.
A student of St. Stephen’s College, he topped Delhi University and is a recipient of many national and international scholarships. He has also served as President of the St. Stephen’s College Students’ Union Society.
Founder & CEO - The/Nudge Institute
Atul Satija
After 17 years of starting and scaling various businesses, Atul started The/Nudge Foundation to do poverty alleviation work. Atul is now serving both The/Nudge and Give as their CEO.
Over his 5-year stint at InMobi as its Chief Business Officer, Atul helped scale the organization to a global leader in mobile advertising, with operations in 20+ countries. Atul also served on the Board of the Mobile Marketing Association.
Prior to InMobi, Atul was the Head of Mobile Business for Japan & Asia-Pacific at Google. He has also held general management, business development, and sales roles across technology companies including Adobe, Samsung, and Infosys.
Atul served EndPoverty, a nonprofit, as Chairperson for two years, working on water, sanitation, education, skill development, sustainability, and women empowerment. He serves on the advisory boards of various nonprofits including the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Udhyam Learning Foundation, and Parivaar.
Atul was named in the 40 Under Forty list by The Economic Times in 2017 and received the Mahatma Award for Social Impact in 2021. He regularly serves as a jury member for various social impact award panels like Forbes 30 Under 30, Business Standard Social Excellence, and UN Women WEF.
Atul holds a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the Indian School of Business and a B.Tech from the National Institute of Technology.
LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/atulsatija
14:00 – 15:00
Duration: 60 mins
Shri Amit Ghosh, IAS
Arindom Datta
Ekta Kumar
Manish Thakkar
Nilesh Shrivastava
Addl. Secretary 1, DoSJE
Shri Amit Ghosh, IAS
Shri Amit Kumar Ghosh, an I.A.S. Officer of the Uttar Pradesh Cadre holds a B.E. (Electronics) from the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, M.Sc in Public Management and Governance from London School of Economics and M.A. in Defence Studies from Meerut University. He holds the post of Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India and is responsible for formulating schemes and programmes for the welfare of the disadvantaged sections of the Society. He was Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India responsible for the administration of National Highways in India (Planning, Financing, Construction and Operations) and acquisition of land for construction of National Highways. During his tenure in the Ministry, India’s largest highway development programme called the ‘Bharatmala Pariyojana’ was conceived for construction of 34,800 kilometres of highways in 5 years with an estimated cost of USD 100 billion and this programme is currently under implementation. Before going on central deputation in the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, he worked in the State Government of Uttar Pradesh in various senior positions including that of Managing Director, UPSIDC; Director of Industries (Industry Department); Mission Director (National Health Mission) and Secretary of Health and Family Welfare Department. Besides, having served as Divisional Commissioner, Kanpur Division he has also served as the District Magistrate of Lucknow, Meerut, Moradabad and Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh and in Uttarkashi, Nainital, Almora districts in the newly created State of Uttaranchal (Uttarakhand). Shri Amit Kumar Ghosh has been Adjunct Professor at PHFI during 2016–2017 and Member of Scientific Advisory Committee for the Better Birth Project, on World’s Largest Cluster RCT (Randomized Control Trial) project by Harvard University. He delivers lectures on public health and infrastructure at various forums. He has co-authored a book on ‘Geo Strategic Importance of Indian Ocean’ and is presently working on a book on the subject of naxalism. Shri Ghosh is the Hony. General Secretary of the Central IAS Association and Member of International Goodwill Society of India. He is a Member of the National Advisory Council of Indian Space Association. He is the President of “K.D. Singh ‘Babu’ Memorial Society”, Lucknow, a Society to promote Hockey, India’s National Game amongst young children for the last 11 years and the following tournaments are conducted by the Society: i) K.D. Singh ‘Babu’ Memorial All India Sub-Junior (Under-14) Hockey Tournament; ii) Padmashri Pt. Jaman Lal Sharma State Hockey Championship (Under-14). All members of India’s National Team of Under-19 players have played in these two tournaments.
Senior Advisor - Sustainability/ Technology
Arindom Datta
Arindom Datta has over 30 years of work experience with the last 17 years at Rabobank where he was Head of Asia for Sustainability Banking initiatives on knowledge, risk management and business development. He also oversaw the development finance projects in blended finance, AgFinTech, and climate financing in the agriculture sector. His previous experience was with NABARD, IDBI Bank and CARE. Arindom has been honoured with the ‘India Sustainable Leadership’ award at the India Sustainability Leadership Summit in 2017. Arindom is a Mathematics honours graduate from St. Stephen’s College and has an MBA with a specialization in Finance and Strategy from IIM Kozhikode.
▪ Currently he is the Senior Advisor to Omnivore (India’s largest Agtech VC Fund) and SatSure (World’s leading AgFinTech company providing remote sensing solutions to Agriculture and other sectors). He is also the Advisor to Samunnati, India’s leading Agriculture financing NBFC.
▪ Current Affiliations: Investment Committee Member of the SIDBI sponsored Assam Start up Venture Capital Fund & the Tripura Start up Venture Capital Fund; Member, Working Group on Financial Linkages under 10,000 FPOs scheme constituted by Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India; Member of the FICCI Task force on Agtech; Member of the FICCI Task Force on Agri Finance; Expert Committee Member – Food Innovation Hub, India – World Economic Forum; Task force Member, Water Resource Group, World Bank; Steering Committee Member – ‘Sustainable Landscape Management for Transforming Agricultural Systems in India’, Rainforest India; Steering Council Member – The Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture Innovation (AI4AI) – World Economic Forum; Member of the Advisory Board of NAFPO (The National Association for Farmer Producer Companies); Advisory Panel of the India Livelihood Summit
▪ Past Affiliations : Steering Committee member of SAFIN (Small holder and Agri SME Finance & Investment Network); Expert Committee Member of “Green Bonds”
THE/NUDGE IAF FELLOW - MOSJE
Ekta Kumar
Ms. Ekta Kumar has 25+ years of leadership across government, corporate, and advisory roles; she specializes in policy innovation, ESG strategy, and social impact. Currently, working as an Indian Administrative Fellow with the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Govt. of India, her focus is on economic inclusion, welfare access, and technology-driven governance to uplift marginalized communities. As Co-founder & Director of Binary Green LLP, she advises Fortune 500 companies on ESG strategy, compliance, and impact assessment. A CII Sustainability Assessor, she has shaped best practices across industries including energy, infrastructure, textiles, and technology. Previously, she led ESG, CSR, and business transformation at Samsung, Shell, Airtel, Deloitte, and ICICI, earning global recognition with the Prince Michael International Award (London) and the Shell Global CEO Award (The Hague). She is a frequent speaker at G20, CII, FICCI, NSE, IICA, IOD, IIM, and ISB, shaping dialogues on sustainability, governance, and inclusive growth. Her vision is to build an equitable, sustainable India—one policy, one company, and one community at a time.
COO - Avanti Finance
Manish Thakkar
Manish is one of the founding members of Avanti. He has been involved with Avanti right from the time it was a concept emerging from the problem statement by the founders to their vision of solving the problem at the population scale. As a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, he is responsible for the operations at Avanti.
Manish has over 25 years of experience in financial services, specialising in mergers and acquisitions, deal negotiation, and transaction structuring. He turned entrepreneur after 17 years in investment banking before joining the pioneer team of Avanti.
Partner - NIIF
Nilesh Shrivastava
Nilesh Shrivastava is a Partner at the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and has over 25 years of experience across private equity, debt investments, banking, and portfolio management. At NIIF, he has led the investment and buildout of NIIF’s infrastructure lending platform as well as equity investments in EV mobility and other areas. He was previously with International Finance Corporation (IFC), where he headed the financial services investments portfolio in South Asia. He was earlier with HSBC in banking roles. Nilesh has an MBA from IIM Kolkata and an engineering degree from Lucknow University.
15:10 – 16:10
Duration: 60 mins
Azeez Gupta
Smt Caralyn K Deshmukh, IAS
Mandira Kalra Kalaan
Nidhi Bhasin
Riti Mohapatra
Co-founder - Rocket Learning
Azeez Gupta
Azeez Gupta is a social entrepreneur and co-founder of Rocket Learning, an ed-tech non-profit impacting 4 million low-income children in India. He also serves on the Indian government’s Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Taskforce and on UNICEF’s working groups. Rocket Learning partners with central and 11 state governments at scale in India to support ECCE and foundational learning for 3-8 year olds. Their innovations have been profiled in Harvard Business School, UNESCO and Forbes case studies, studied by MIT-JPAL and Brookings, and awarded by MIT Solve, Mulago Foundation, Elevate Prize and the WEF. Azeez is a Draper Richard Kaplans Foundation Social Entrepreneur, Agency Fund Fellow and BusinessWorld’s 40 under 40 Disruptor. He started his career at McKinsey & Company, before a stint leading large-scale programs at Pratham. Azeez was a Goldsmith Fellow and Education Innovation Fellow during his MBA from Harvard, and completed his B.Tech from IIT Delhi.
Addl. Secretary 2, DoSJE
Smt Caralyn K Deshmukh, IAS
Head of Office - Purpose India
Mandira Kalra Kalaan
Mandira Kalra Kalaan leads Purpose’s work in India, overseeing campaigns on gender, electric mobility, public health, climate change, youth, and urban informal settlements. With over 20 years of experience in strategic and creative communication, she specializes in narrative and behavior change across diverse issues. A social anthropologist by training, Mandira works closely with communities, using participatory and storytelling approaches to empower them. Previously, she led communications at the Population Foundation of India and has collaborated with international organisations like UNICEF and the World Bank.
CEO - Digital Green India
Nidhi Bhasin
Nidhi Bhasin is one of the leading voices in the social development space with transformational leadership experience in technology for good. She firmly believes that technology can enable nation-scale social impact. In her career spanning over 25 years, Nidhi has navigated through various strategic and leadership roles – from program management to fundraising, from transformational management to creating thought leadership and from compliance management to building high performance teams. Nidhi is also sought out for views on impact financing, gender, climate change, sustainability, and diversity and inclusion issues. She is also known for prioritising women in program implementation as often they are the most impacted by issues of climate change, gender based violence, healthcare among others. Nidhi is based in New Delhi, India.
Partner - The Bridgespan Group
Riti Mohapatra
Riti is a partner in Bridgespan’s Mumbai office. She has worked with nonprofit organizations, foundations and corporate CSRs on strategy, equity and operating model design. Her recent projects include developing a system change strategy for a non-profit focused on eliminating gender-based violence, developing and executing a strategy for economically empowering millions of women, designing the operating model for a large climate-based non-profit in India and creating a strategy to incorporate equity into the program design for a maternal health non-profit. Riti leads the work on equity in the India office and has co-authored the reports on “Why Gender Matters for Funders in Any Issue Area” and “Pathways to greater social mobility for India’s Dalits and Adivasis”. She is also leading Bridgespan’s first multi-year initiative in the Global South – Community Driven Change. Previously Riti worked at McKinsey & Company, where she tackled different business problems across – real estate, retail, infrastructure, primary education, policy development and implementation, logistics, pharma manufacturing, etc. Riti has completed her Dual Degree (B.Tech & M.Tech) in Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur.
Smt Caralyn K Deshmukh
Nidhi Bhasin
Azeez Gupta
Riti Mohapatra
16:30 – 17:30
Duration: 60 mins
This session will explore how using technology aids, like a Digiyatra-equivalent, can be used to revolutionise access to education and skill initiatives, scholarships and employment opportunities.
Abhishek Singh
Luis Miranda
Prateek Maheshwari
Sanjay Modi
Saurabh Chopra
Shankar Maruwada
Addl Secy - MeitY
Abhishek Singh
Shri Abhishek Singh is a career civil servant with 30 years of experience in governance and policy formulation. He specializes in the use of technology for improving governance. He is presently posted as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, with responsibilities for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies, R&D in Electronics; IT and in Convergence, Communications and Broadband Technologies (CC&BT). He has previously served as CEO, Karmayogi Bharat in the Department of Personnel & Training; and CEO, NeGD, DIC, and MyGov in the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India.
He has done a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is also an alumnus of IIT Kanpur.
Co-founder - ISPP
Luis Miranda
Luis Miranda is Chairman of the Board & Co-Founder of the Indian School of Public Policy. He is also Chairman of the Centre for Civil Society and CORO and a Co-Founder of Take Charge, a mentoring programme for Catholic youth in Mumbai. Luis and his wife, are #LivingMyPromise signatories, where they have pledged to give away at least 50% of what they have to charity during their lives or in their wills. He is also on the board of Educate Girls and an advisor to non-profits like Sunbird Trust, 17000 Ft Foundation, Raah Foundation, RA Foundation, Public Affairs Forum of India, Atlas Network and SNEHA. At the University of Chicago, he is a Trustee of the University of Chicago Trust in India, member of the Global Leaders Group and the Advisory Council of the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at Chicago Booth and member of the Society Advisory Committee of the Leadership & Society Initiative. Luis is Chairman of ManipalCigna Health Insurance, Senior Advisor at Morgan Stanley and on the board of L&T Technology Services. He is also an advisor to L&T SuFin. He has been involved in setting up 2 companies – HDFC Bank and IDFC Private Equity and two non-profits – Indian School of Public Policy and Take Charge. Luis received an MBA from the Booth School of Business at The University of Chicago and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Co-founder - Physics Wallah
Prateek Maheshwari
Prateek Maheshwari is the Co-Founder of PhysicsWallah (PW), a multinational EdTech unicorn which is focussed towards democratizing education at scale. He also holds several key industry leadership positions such as Chair of India EdTech Consortium (IEC) and co-chair of start-up committee, FICCI. Prateek is at the forefront of driving the growth and development of the EdTech sector in India. In 2020, Prateek partnered with Alakh Pandey, to build a platform that aims at bridging the gap between quality education and affordability for all. Under his leadership, PW has become a transformative force, reshaping the way students across India learn. Prateek Maheshwari, an alumnus of IIT (BHU), Varanasi, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, has spent 14 years turning ideas into innovative ventures. Before launching PhysicsWallah, Prateek founded several startups, using his expertise to develop scalable digital solutions. At PhysicsWallah, Prateek Maheshwari is a driving force, motivated by a mission to break down educational barriers. He focuses on addressing key challenges in education, such as limited internet access and hardware constraints, by harnessing the power of technology that can make learning accessible and personalized, aimed at improving learning outcomes. His efforts have not only expanded PhysicsWallah’s reach but also established it as a trusted lifelong partner in the learning journey of students across varied age groups. Recognizing the power of emerging technologies, Prateek is spearheading efforts to harness AI in education- focusing on adaptive learning, personalized content delivery, and predictive analytics to improve learner engagement and outcomes. He also champions youth empowerment, turning PW into a hub for job creation and next-gen talent in India. Also a philanthropist, Prateek supports NGOs like Kashi Utkarsh and Asha Deep Vidyashram, which work towards providing inclusive-quality education to children.
Head of Jobs & Livelihoods - Dell Foundation
Sanjay Modi
Sanjay leads the foundation’s Jobs & Livelihoods work in India, creating opportunities to improve the lives of youth and their families. Before joining the foundation, he founded Gloscout.com, a platform connecting international workers to jobs. He was also an executive vice president and managing director at Monster.com, overseeing operations in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Earlier in his career, he held leadership roles at Indiaconstruction.com, NIIT, and Ingersoll Rand. Sanjay is also an active startup investor and advisor.
Director - Central Square Foundation
Saurabh Chopra
Saurabh works as Director, Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at Central Square Foundation. His work involves working closely with various central government stakeholders and has led multiple engagements on the National Education Policy, NIPUN Bharat Mission, National Achievement Survey, DIKSHA, CBSE SAFAL, TicTacLearn, etc. Prior to CSF, Saurabh built EnglishLeap, an online English learning application with two million users. He also has experience in data analytics and has worked across continents with Fortune 500 clients. Saurabh holds a B.Com degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce and an MBA from IIM Lucknow.
Co-founder & CEO - EkStep Foundation
Shankar Maruwada
Shankar Maruwada is the Co-Founder and CEO of EkStep Foundation, a philanthropy he co-founded with Nandan Nilekani and Rohini Nilekani. Shankar has three decades of experience across corporate, entrepreneurial, government, and development sectors. This allows him to bring the best of thinking from different perspectives, which he uses to shape EkStep’s strategic choices for achieving population-scale impact.
Shankar is passionate about a ‘People Plus’ approach to innovations that leverage technology for large-scale societal transformation, keeping the citizen at the center, as seen in EkStep Foundation’s work. EkStep operates at the intersection of cutting-edge techno-social ideas like digital public infrastructure, open digital networks, and Artificial Intelligence, creating solutions that impact billions in collaboration with governments, for-profits, non-profits, academia, and other philanthropies.
Shankar was part of the founding team of Aadhaar in 2009; in fact, he was responsible for naming it.
He serves or has served on multiple government committees on education, urban governance, digital transformation, Digital Public Infrastructure, and AI, including the NCF National Steering Committee, DIKSHA, NDEAR, and iGOT.
He is also Co-Chair of the Centre for Open Societal Systems at IIIT Bangalore.
As a successful entrepreneur, he co-founded one of India’s earliest data analytics startups in 2002.
He is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Abhishek Singh
Luis Miranda
Saurabh Chopra
Prachi Jain Windlass
Prateek Maheshwari
Shankar Maruwada
The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment is entrusted with the welfare, social Justice and empowerment of disadvantaged and marginalized section of the society viz. Scheduled Caste, Backward Classes, Persons with Disabilities, Senior Citizens, and Victims of Drug Abuse etc. Basic objective of the policies, programmes, law and institution of the Indian welfare system is to bring the target groups into the mainstream of development by making them self-reliant.
The Ministry is headed by Dr. Virendra Kumar, Cabinet Minister and ably assisted by two Ministers-of-State namely Shri Ramdas Athawale and Shri B L Verma.
There are two departments viz. Department of Social Justice and Empowerment and Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. Shri Amit Yadav (IAS) is the Secretary of Department of Social Justice & Empowerment. Mr. Rajesh Aggarwal (IAS) is the Secretary of Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. Shri Amit Kumar Ghosh (IAS, UP:1994) and Ms. Caralyn Khongwar Deshmukh (IAS, MP:1996) is the Additional Secretary of Department of Social Justice & Empowerment.
Date: 22 April 2025, Tuesday
Time: 9:00 AM onwards
Venue: Dr Ambedkar International Centre, 15, Janpath Road, Windsor Place, New Delhi, Delhi 110001
Refreshments and lunch will be provided
Join Us at the Convening
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