Angeli Kapoor Puri (2010-11)
Angeli Kapoor Puri is an artist, business entrepreneur, socialite and a social worker dedicated to several causes. She has made an impressionable mark in the field of Jewelry as an International designer. Artistic creativity is in her soul and as such she has made significant contributions in many fields. She is the promoter of Miss India Angel World contest and advocates women’s rights. She is the founder of Angel Foundation which fights for the cause of female foeticide and crime against women. She believes that there is nothing more satisfying for her than saving the life of a girl child. The Angel foundation aims at not only saving the life of girl child but also helping her to live a life of dignity by being financially independent. She organizes various shows and exhibitions through which the money is raised for her foundation.
Kayzad Namdarian (2009-10)
Kayzad Namdarian’s story is both of exposure and donation towards action. He led an effort to expose a new-tech, new age approach to Civil Action through the Internet by starting an online Internet group. He has actively worked for various causes like World Hunger, notably Child Hunger, and has constantly been involved in spreading awareness about special charity websites. His efforts have been successful in igniting world’s sympathy towards the cause of Hunger in a new way and this is evident from the big charity contributions that have been a result of his work. Working with a mantra of ‘being aware, spreading awareness and then undertaking action’, he has helped people FEEL and done as much good for the society as he possibly can.
Mallika Dutt(2009-10)
Mallika Dutt has been a pioneer in the field of human rights for more than two decades. She has worked tirelessly to reduce global pandemics like violence against women and HIV/AIDS, and to remove obstacles to women’s full participation in society from the grassroots level to UN global public policy. While women’s rights have been a primary focus of her work, Mallika has also been at the forefront of advocating for immigrant rights, racial justice, and religion and peace, particularly in the aftermath of September 11th. For the last decade, Mallika’s commitment to advancing human rights has been implemented through her creative and visionary leadership of a new kind of non-profit organization, Breakthrough: building human rights culture, which she launched in 2000 with the path-breaking album and music video, Mann ke Manjeere, an album of women’s dreams. . In keeping with Mallika’s vision that men and women must be joint partners to end the pandemic of gender-based violence, Breakthrough’s Bell Bajao campaign calls on men and boys to take proactive action to intervene in situations of domestic violence. Mallika believes that an effective human rights approach is needed to uplift the voices of those who are marginalized and abused, and simultaneously involve all sectors of society to find meaningful solutions for lasting change.
Dr. Venkat Pulla (2008-09)
Dr Venkat Pulla has been a practicing social worker for the last three decades. A graduate of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Community Development, he has taken social work into varied situations with his practice. Along with a number of his colleagues, his work in Strengths-Based Practices (SbPs) concentrates on the inherent strengths of individuals, families, groups and organisations deploying peoples' personal strengths to aid their recovery and their empowerment. Dr. Venkat Pulla has founded the Brisbane Institute of Strengths Based Practices, which innovates and advances a variety of training methodologies that actively interact and manage change. He is currently the Vice President of the Australian Association of Social Workers and is a member of the accreditation panel for schools of social work in Australia. To Venkat, there is only one perspective of human rights: ‘That no one is ever abused, harmed and ever violated’
Dr. Sailesh Rao(2008-09)
Dr. Sailesh Rao is the Founder and President of Climate Healers, Inc., a non-profit corporation registered in California, USA. The primary goal of Climate Healers is to design and deploy meaningful and sustainable grassroots solutions to combat global climate change. Prior to founding Climate Healers, Dr. Rao, a serial entrepreneur, founded and led a number of successful ventures in the field of communications technologies. He was responsible for developing the world’s first single-chip real-time MPEG video encoder, the IEEE 100BASET2 Ethernet standard, and the IEEE Gigabit Ethernet on Copper (1000BASE-T) standard that is currently deployed in millions of computers worldwide. Climate Healers has designed an incentive based scheme to drive the adoption of solar cookers in communities, providing solar cookers, LED lights and mobile phones at no cost to community members. Climate Healers is funded by patrons, who are typically individuals and organizations interested in solving the climate crisis with grassroots approaches that also have the potential to empower and emancipate the 2 Billion people at the bottom of the pyramid. Their contributions can be viewed as a voluntary carbon offset mechanism and are used exclusively for the project
Pavan Sukhdev (2007-08)
Pavan Sukhdev is the Managing Director in the Global Markets division of Deutsche Bank AG, based in London. He was deeply involved in the evolution of India’s currency & interest rate markets from 1993 to 1998. He pioneered the introduction into India of an ‘Overnight Index Swap’ (OIS), now India’s most liquid interest rate derivatives instrument. He has also been deeply committed to environmental protection in India and has pursued this interest through his contribution to various organizations including Green Indian States Trust (GIST), Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG) and India Environment Trust.