Swathi Shetty is a Geneticist by profession & works at the Centre for Human Genetics. She trained in Kathak & was part of a contemporary dance group for a few years. Her interests extend through science, writing, design & dance.

Tara first knew she wanted to work on social justice issues working as an architect in Nepal in the early-90’s on a community-led school design project. Since then, she has employed her design skills, working with non-governmental, bilateral and multilateral entities in development, environment and human rights in Asia and beyond.

She is the Founding Director of ourGroundworks, an entity that sees design thinking at the core of problem-solving. ourGroundworks applies this approach, among others – to design programs with a design thinking approach to integrate empathy as a skill for problem-solving; to mentor individuals, organisations, campaigns and project teams; to design and facilitate processes and outcomes at a strategic and impact level; coach individuals, project and campaign teams, combining media making and social change.

Smita is a seasoned and successful entrepreneur with over 20+ years of experience in the technology and outsourcing sector across various geographies, having won awards in this space. She co-founded and successfully ran one of the UK’s leading digital agencies for over a decade before it was acquired by a leading UK PLC.

Growing up in India, and annual vacations to meet family in rural India, meant eventually discovering the vast difference between economies in both areas. The exit from her business finally provided the bandwidth to devote her attention to the social enterprise space. Smita currently runs Indivillage as CEO, a social enterprise with a primary focus on providing livelihood opportunities to educated youth and women of rural India as well as initiatives in Education, WASH, and Healthcare in the local communities.

Smita is an Alumnus of Harvard Business School, has a dual-MBA in Marketing and Finance and is currently attending a full-time Advanced Management Program (no end date) on life, happiness and soccer conducted by her two little boys.

Nimi Ravindran is a writer, theatre director and co-founder of Sandbox Collective, a performance and arts collective based in Bangalore, India.

She has worked in the theatre for 20 years in various capacities. She started her career as a performer while at University and very quickly moved onto directing and later producing theatre. She has directed 12 productions in the last 10 years and has produced several more.

In a country where resources for the arts are extremely limited, and traditional and classical forms are prioritized by the established, the artists and administrators at Sandbox Collective have been engaged in working towards finding alternative means of sustaining contemporary theatre arts. To build culturally vibrant cities and create access to the arts is something that the Collective has been engaged with for the last six years even as they produce and tour work that has been internationally acclaimed.

Sandbox Collective’s work involves creating, curating and presenting theatre productions and artistic programs that challenge and question existing notions. The primary focus of their present work is gender equality, inclusivity, and access.

Jyoti taught Math and Physics, on both sides of the Arabian Sea for the better part of 40 years. She started teaching in Lusaka, Zambia before she moved to Liverpool to do a second and third Masters in High Energy Physics and Education. After a few more years in India, teaching at Mallya Aditi International School and at Stonehill International School, she founded Meghshala Trust. Today, she is involved with a dizzying number of initiatives in a mind-numbing number of other NGOs.