Abhishek Thakore

Abhishek Thakore co-founded The Blue Ribbon Movement. He is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. His corporate stints include consulting at Hay Group and Boston Consulting Group, where he worked across diverse sectors.

He has represented global youth at the United Nations in New York. He has also participated in World Youth Congress (Turkey), Youth Encounters in Sustainability (Japan) and Dialogue on Science (Switzerland). He has been involved with organizations like India Against Corruption, Initiatives of Change, Center for Civil Society, and Rotaract Movement in different capacities.

He has authored 3 books on personal development, certified in several personal growth techniques and trained youth across geographies.

At BRM, he is responsible for overall strategy, program design and delivery, international engagement and partnerships.

Akshat Singhal

Akshat Singhal is a Co-Founder of The Blue Ribbon Movement.

Before starting-up, he worked with Third Sector Partners as the Project Lead of Barefootjobs.org - a job portal for the social development sector. He has also worked with Crossword Bookstores and CinnamonTeal Publishing in the past. An MBA from SSIMS, Goa, he was conferred with a special award for his social consciousness. He has been involved in capacity building initiatives for various NGOs and mentoring early stage social entrepreneurs.

Akshat is an UnLtd India alumnus and a semi-finalist of Echoing Green Fellowship. He was selected as one of the 50 Shapers to represent the Global Shapers Community at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum at Davos in 2014.

His interests vary from the roots (farming) to the stars (astronomy), from extreme adventure sports to travel. A triathlete, he has been on a cycling expedition from Mumbai to Goa.

Ayushi Banerji

Ayushi Banerji is CEO of The Gender Lab. Her passion led her to represent India at the G(irls)20 Summit 2015 in Turkey where she, along with 25 other young delegates, discussed gender issues globally with respect to economic empowerment of women. In 2016, she returned to G(irls)20 Summit China as an alumni to mentor the new cohort of delegates.

Her grassroots experience, in combination with her global exposure, gives her a unique perspective on gender issues and approaches to address them. She sees service learning as a unique and effective approach to address gender issues as it gives participants an opportunity to develop themselves by 'doing', 'observing' and 'reflecting' on their actions and behaviors. She believes this breaks stereotypes within and empowers them.

During her college days at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, she interned in different capacities with Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Akanksha Foundation. Ayushi brings with her lot of passion and commitment to contribute to the development sector. She loves to travel and engage in adventure sports, bunjee jumping in Nepal being her most memorable experience. She hopes to champion the cause of gender equality in every step of her life.

Vaishali Jethava

Vaishali has been working with BRM for the Avanti Young Women Leadership Program since 2014. She also manages Finance for the organisation. She has completed her Masters in Accounts and Finance from Mithibai College and the University of Mumbai.

She participated in the world’s longest train journey called Jagriti Yatra for 15 days with 450 participants from across regions. Jagriti Yatra helps to build the nation by creating future entrepreneurs through a life-transforming journey. She represented The Blue Ribbon Movement Organization at “The 5th Global Partners Meeting of Sustainaware 2.0” in Gaeta, Italy from 24th November to 2nd December 2015.

She also loves old era songs from Bollywood films, exploring new places and having fun with her friends. Once she starts doing the work she loves, she becomes very focused.

Travelling and serving/giving knowledge to girls to enable their growth is at the core of her professional dreams.

Kejal Savla

Kejal joined the Blue Ribbon Movement as a Fellow of the Community Connect Fellowship (CCF), which she now leads. Following her passion for self- growth and experimenting, she co-anchors other initiatives of BRM as well.

She has explored diverse parts of the social space by participating in the Youth Vikalp Sangam, Bharatiya Chhatra Sansad, SDG’s Train the Trainer and other events. Internationally, she was selected as the youth representative of India at the World Forum for Democracy 2015, France.

Kejal has engaged with NSS, TMM, CIF and PDMDS while pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree from Jai Hind College, Mumbai. Currently, she is figuring out life through experiments, travel and the social sector. She loves meeting new people and having deep conversations over coffee and not chai.

Anupama Ray

Anupama came into BRM family as a fellow of the second batch of the GenderLab Fellowship in the year 2016. As part of her fellowship, she delivered the Avanti Young Women Leadership Program and monitored 595 girls in the 8th standard from 12 different schools in Mumbai. She got a chance to explore her interests during the fellowship, and as a part of her long term vision, she is now working to set up the Avanti program for 8th standard girls in Delhi-NCR. She got a new name at the closing bootcamp of her fellowship - A-New-Pama - which she believes truly defines her journey.

She did her graduation in English Hons. from Hindu College, University of Delhi. While in college, she volunteered and participated in different programs of Youth Alliance of India, Delhi. In the third year of her graduation, she was the Co-President of Women Development Cell, Hindu College.

She is an artist at heart always filled with a lot of energy and smiles. Being with kids fills her with heart with joy and she enjoy moulding their thoughts and ideas. She loves to talk endlessly and enjoys dancing and making others dance too.

Ankita Redkar

Ankita’s journey with The Blue Ribbon Movement began right after she graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. She co-ordinated the delivery of The Avanti Young Women Leadership Program for a year which cemented her passion to further the cause of gender equality. She went off to pursue a Masters in Development Studies from Azim Premji University, Bangalore and two years later, is back with The Blue Ribbon Movement to lead the Impact and Communications vertical along with assisting other programs.

Those two years helped her connect theoretical knowledge with practical experience gained during and post her stint at The Blue Ribbon Movement. She considers being able to develop a district wide training program for women self-help groups belonging to the Mishing tribe on Majuli Island, Assam to be her biggest personal achievement.

Internationally, she has represented The Blue Ribbon Movement at the ‘Strengthening Political Youth Organisations 2014’ Conference by International Academy for Leadership held at Gummersbach, Germany.

Ashank Desai

Ashank is the founder and former Chairman of Mastek Ltd. Mastek is amongst the top 20 – 25 IT companies in the country. Mastek is a $150-million plus, publicly-held IT player with global operations providing Enterprise Solutions to Insurance, Government, and Financial services organizations in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. He also guides Mastek Foundation, whose mission is to enable “Informed Giving and Responsible Receiving”. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.

Kunal Verma

Kunal has been raising funds for fighting injustice and creating a more dignified world order, for over 15 years. He is a dynamic leader and a qualified fundraiser with functional experience cutting across corporate and non-profit organizations. Currently, he is an active consultant to the NGOs and non-profit bodies, supporting them with fundraising, marketing and communications initiatives.

Kunal has successfully established fundraising operations in India for three of the most respected NGOs: ActionAid, Christian Children’s Fund and Oxfam. He has successfully developed, established and nurtured these brands in India by creating awareness around their work with the key constituencies including individuals, corporates, private trusts and foundations besides the government.

Paula Mariwala

Paula Mariwala, an alumnus of Stanford University, is the Managing Director of Seedfund Advisors, Mumbai India and Promoter/Director of Hinditron Group of companies.

Founded in 2006, Seedfund is one of India’s first Early Stage Venture Capital Funds, which has invested in over 30 innovative start up companies in India, across various sectors. In her role as Managing Director since inception of Seedfund, Paula has worked closely with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India to source, evaluate and mentor early stage companies. Her primary focus is on education, healthcare and technology sectors and she works closely with portfolio companies to take them to their next stage of growth.

Paula has a rich experience of over 20 years with leading high technology companies in USA and India, having worked with large companies like Tektronix and start ups like Aurionics and Optivideo Corp. She is a Director on the board of The Hinditron Group, India’s first IT and high technology company, where she has been responsible for starting and managing the Telecommunication and Broadband business of the Group and for driving new business innovations.

A physicist by training, she has graduate degree Applied Physics from Stanford University (’90) and Bachelor’s degree in Physics from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay. She has several publications to her name in the area of Fiber Optics and optical communication.

Paula is actively associated with IEEE (Life Member), TiE (Charter Member), Computer Society of India, Stanford University Alumni Association and works closely with Incubation Cell at IIT, Mumbai, ICT, TIFR, etc. She is an Advisor on Board of Curriculum of St. Xaviers College Physics Department and on Boards of two schools in Mumbai.

Paula enjoys reading, writing, trekking, sketching and spending time with her family. Keenly interested in Science and Maths teaching and application of technology in education, she is closely involved with several schools, colleges and NGO.

Ashraf Patel

Ashraf Patel is one of the Founder and Board Member of Pravah and Commutiny The Youth Collective.

Ashraf is the co–founder of Pravah and ComMutiny – The Youth Collective (CYC). Both organisations together are building vibrant eco-systems across India to launch young social entrepreneurs, changemakers and active citizens. They promote a youth-centric approach to development called the ‘5th Space’.It focuses on transforming young people by engaging them in social change and promoting their social action experiments. Over 22 years, Pravah and CYC have worked directly with 100,000 youth across rural and urban India to train them in the principles and processes of the 5th Space and incubated 300 young social entrepreneurs and social experiments across 20 states. The collective on ground and online reach of these organisations has been over 15,00,000 people. Pravah and CYC together were among the 4 finalists for the Schwab Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2015. Prior to setting up Pravah, Ashraf was with Escorts Finance and SRF Ltd. A post graduate in HR from XLRI, she is an Ashoka Fellow. She is also been a representative on a number of working groups appointed by the Government and other National and International organisations to inform programs and policies on youth development and social entrepreneurship.

Manish Jain

Manish Jain is deeply committed to regenerating our diverse knowledge systems and cultural imaginations. He has served for the past 19 years as Coordinator and Co-Founder of Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development based in Udaipur, India and is co-founder of the Swaraj University,Creativity Adda, Learning Societies Unconference, Walkouts-Walkon network, and Udaipur as a Learning City in India. He is a featured speaker/advisory member of the Economics of Happiness network for localization. He recently helped to launch the Ecoversities Network. He has edited several books on Vimukt Shiksha (liberating learning) on themes such as learning societies, unlearning, gift culture, community media, and tools for deep dialogue. Prior to this, Manish worked as one of the principal team members of the UNESCO Learning Without Frontiers global initiative. He has also been a consultant to UNICEF, World Bank, USAID in Africa, South Asia and former Soviet Union. Manish also worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. He has been trying to unlearn his Master’s degree in Education from Harvard University and a B.A. in Economics, International Development and Political Philosophy from Brown University. He and his wife Vidhi have been unschooling themselves with their 13 year old daughter, Kanku. Manish is passionate about urban organic farming, filmmaking, simulation gaming, bicycling, group facilitation and slow food cooking.

Rajagopal P.V.

Rajagopal P. V., a Gandhian activist, is former Vice Chairman of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, and former president and founding member of Ekta Parishad. Son of a Gandhian worker, studied agriculture at Seva Gram in Wardha. In the early 70s he worked in the violence-ridden area of Chambal (Madhya Pradesh) helping to rehabilitate dacoits. In the years that followed, Rajagopal travelled to several tribal areas and developed an understanding of plight and needs of India`s tribal people. Their cause became part of his lifetime mission. After setting up a number of training organizations across Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa, the subsequent mobilization led to the consolidation of a people`s organization, namely, Ekta Parishad in 1991. This organization is focused on people`s control over livelihood resources in an environment where land is being grabbed, and where forest rights are not being implemented. This is making the Gandhian vision of the advancement of self-reliant communities and local governance, more challenging. After consolidating a membership across states, Rajagopal began using the Gandhian technique of foot-march to galvanize greater support among the poor.

Hemang Panchmatia

Hemang Panchmatia desires to impact the social sector, especially in education, and is a Trustee for The Blue Ribbon Movement Trust. He co-founded Blue Ribbon Movement in 2000 and served as its Chairperson for 3 years. An MBA from NMIMS (Batch of 2005), he has worked across Financial Services and Education.

He loves reading, watching Hindi movies and is a Sachin Tendulkar fan.

Kartik Kothari

Kartik is an Academic Head – Endevaour, Borivali.

Served as an Assistant Professor for 5 years at St. Francis Institute of Engineering, he has also founded an NGO called Help-a-School where he meets the needs of low income schools by matching them with resources.

Kartik was a Co-Founder of The Blue Ribbon Movement in its earlier version from 2000 to 2005 and is presently a Trustee at The Blue Ribbon Movement Trust.

Vaibhav Mathur

Vaibhav has 9 years of consulting and strategic management experience in profit/ non-profit sector. A graduate (Director's Merit List) from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, he is currently working as Manager in the Management Consulting Practice of Deloitte. He is experienced in sectors including, Education, Skills, Social Impact, Retail, Economic Development, CSR, Smart Cities etc.

Vaibhav is committed to the cause of South Asian prosperity and youth-led development. He is pursuing this cause through the South Asian Youth Conference he co-founded and organized in South Asian capital cities. A Teach for India (2009) Fellow, Vaibhav served students in a low income school in Mumbai during his fellowship.

Suruchi Aulakh

Suruchi Aulakh helps individuals and organizations tap into their inner potential through the medium of theatre. She has a rich theatre experience – a career spanning over 15 years, both on stage and in teaching the dramatic arts. She studied Theatre and Psychology at Loyola University, Chicago. Coming back to her roots in India, she acted in successful plays like Seagull, 3 Sakina Manzil and Collaborators. She has also worked in television and films but theatre continues to be her original passion. She ran her theatre company for over 10 years – performing, travelling, managing and conducting workshops. She recently received the Vinod Doshi Fellowship for Theatre. She is also a trained Bharat Natyam dancer. This enables her to blend elements of dance and theatre effectively. She regularly conducts workshops for groups ranging from children to corporate professionals. She brings her unique style and insight to help participants push their boundaries and passionately believes in the power of theatre to transform lives.