LIVE Webinar
Webinar Co-Chairs
Ms. Gauri Kumar ~ Former Secretary – Govt. of India & Chair – Wheels Water Council
&
Mr. Suresh Shenoy ~ President – WHEELS Global Foundation
Webinar Moderator
Prof. Ranjan Ghosh ~ Faculty – IIM Ahmedabad
Webinar Panelists
Mr. Yogesh Andlay ~ Director – WHEELS Global Foundation – India, Co-Chair – WHEELS Water Council
Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni ~ Founder Trustee & Executive Director – ACWADAM
Mr. Debashish Sen ~ Director – People’s Science Institute
Mr. Rasam Singh ~ Director – Manav Vikas Sansthan
&
Prof. Sumit Sen ~ Faculty – IIT Roorkee
Theme: To catalyze holistic rural resurgence through Structured Collaborative Governance for rural infrastructure, with technology as the enabler.
Connect with us LIVE on ZOOM
Saturday ~ September 24th, 2022
11 am EST, 8 am PST 8:30 pm IST
(Registration is Free)
You can join the webinar 15 min early (i.e. 10:45 AM EST OR 7:45 AM PST OR 8:15 PM IST) to watch the slide show on WGF-related projects & videos.
Mr. Yogesh Andlay is a founding team member of several leading well-known companies in IT, consultancy and education field. He is Co-founder of Nucleus Software, Grow Talent Co Ltd., and School of Inspired Leadership. Yogesh, an alumni of IITD 1979 batch, was President of IIT Delhi Alumni Association during the year 2006-07. He has also been an active participant in PanIIT Alumni activities.
Yogesh serves on the board of SOIL – School of Inspired Leadership (www.soilindia.net). SOIL has been recognized as a pioneer in leadership education and has won laurels for its unique approach to leadership development. It is founded on five pillars of mindfulness, ethics, compassion, diversity and sustainability.
Yogesh has been an advisor to Millennium Alliance program of FICCI. Millennium Alliance is a fund set up jointly by USAID, DST, DFID (UKAID), and several other organizations. In the last five years, Millennium Alliance has supported more than 120 social sector innovations impacting about 10 million people. These have been selected from amongst about 5,000 applicants who applied for this catalytic funding. These enterprises have been in the field of education, healthcare, agriculture, energy, and water and sanitation, etc. In addition, he served as a Co-Chair of Startup Committee of FICCI and a member of Science and Technology Board of FICCI. He is a sought after mentor by the entrepreneurs incubated at FICCI supported incubators and accelerators.
Yogesh is an active participant in Mission Samriddhi. Mission Samriddhi is a Social Development and Acceleration project in India. Yogesh is member of the Executive Council of Mission Samriddhi. Yogesh serves on the board of WHEELS Charitable Foundation. He is a member of the team working on the Pilot Project for Integrated Water Management based on Scientific Data and Evidence for Himachal Pradesh. Yogesh is a certified Executive Coach.
Mr. Debashish Sen was born in Kharagpur, Midnapore, West Bengal in India. He holds a Bachelor of Technology Degree (1988) in Agricultural Engineering from Allahabad Agricultural Institute (now Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology & Sciences), India. After his graduation, he started his career as a research assistant at the People’s Science Institute (PSI), a non-profit research and development organization based at Dehradun, India. He was heading the Centre for Participatory Watershed Development (CPWD) at PSI from 1996 to 2010. Between 2010 to 2015, he did his PhD from the Wageningen University, The Netherlands, researching System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and farmer’s interactions. He took over as the Director of PSI in January 2015.
Dr. Sen has research interests in sustainable livelihoods, natural resources management (including rejuvenation of springs in the mountain states of India), agro-ecological practices, and environmental impact assessments. He has authored more than 50 papers and articles on issues related to natural resources management, participatory watershed development, mountain appropriate technologies, traditional water sources and drought management. He is a member of several national level networks like (i) Spring Initiative & PGWM, (ii) Water Practitioner’s Network, (iii) India Rivers Forum, (iv) National Consortium on SRI, (v) National Coalition on Natural Farming, (vi) Revitalizing Rainfed Area Network – Agro-Ecology, and (vii) Him –RRA, Himachal Pradesh
Mr. Rasam Singh is the director at Manav Vikas Sanathan at Kalol, Distt. Bilaspur – Himachal Pradesh. He holds 28 yrs of work experience. Manav Vikas Sanstha is a mission-driven organization working towards the socio-economic development of the marginalized section of society. Our strategic approach caters to diverse thematic areas including Quality Education, Livelihood Development, Skill Development, Quality Healthcare & Nutrition, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Women Empowerment, Agriculture Development, and Environment Sustainability, among others.
Prof. Sumit Sen is an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee – Uttarakhand, India. Prof. Sumit Sen held the position of Head, Centre of Excellence in Disaster Mitigation and Management. He is also an associate professor of Ecohydrology at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.
His interests include Field and modeling experiments to investigate water movement through various watershed components, Understanding Surface Runoff Generation Mechanisms; Rainfall-Runoff Modeling; Hillslope Hydrology; Watershed Management; Low-cost hydrometry instrumentation.
Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni has led ACWADAM, a not-for-profit knowledge institution and think-tank on groundwater since 1998. He is a hydrogeologist by qualification and has been working on aquifers and groundwater across India’s diverse groundwater typology for more than 35 years. ACWADAM has partnered with a variety of organizations on piloting and mainstreaming the ideas of participatory groundwater management and springshed development across India, Nepal, Bhutan and Vietnam and has begun work in Africa. Under him, ACWADAM’s work has followed brought communities closer to their aquifers, managing groundwater as a common pool resource. Before co-founding ACWADAM, Dr Kulkami worked at Pune University for 13 years and then in the corporate sector. He continues to teach, guide and mentor students while also publishing his work. He has supervised two PhDs and many MSc dissertations. He has held many advisory positions on Indian Government committees. He is currently a member of the committee which is drafting India’s new National Water Policy. Through ACWADAM, he has steered the concept of hydrogeology-based springshed management that has now become so important from the local to national level.
Mr. Suresh Shenoy is Executive Vice President at Alyxtech, Inc., Inc., a Virginia-based systems consulting and Technology Company. He recently completed two terms as Chairman of the National Capital Region of the American Red Cross and currently serves on the boards of The Kevric Company, IMC Global Services, The Capital IIT Alumni Association, and the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Shenoy also serves on the TechAmerica Board of Directors, the Board of Directors for Fairfax 2015 – the biennial World Games of Police and Fire Fighters with 12,000 athletes competing from 80 countries.
His distinguished career includes being the Program Committee Chairman of the PanIIT Global Conference held in Washington, DC in 2005. Mr. Shenoy served as co-President of the PanIIT Alumni Association in North America for the 2006-2008 Term. He also represented Dranesville District on the Fairfax County IT Advisory Board for six years. Mr. Shenoy is a Fellow of the Information Management Congress (Europe) and AIIM International (USA). He has been recognized by IBM Corporation as ‘Information Champion’ for his contributions to Enterprise Content Management technologies for three consecutive years 2009-2012 and received the Distinguished Service Award from his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. In 2010, Mr. Shenoy and his brother Sudhakar were honored by the Northern Virginia Community Foundation for their leadership and contributions to Fairfax County. He is on the adjunct faculty of the School of Information Technology & Engineering at George Mason University, where he teaches a course in Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation.
Mr. Suresh V. Shenoy is the President of WHEELS Global Foundation (WGF) and serves on its board to provide valuable advice and direction for the activities of the non-profit organization. Mr. Suresh Shenoy has been an active supporter of the Capital IIT and Pan IIT Alumni associations and has continued to give his time and talent to WGF as its trusted advisor.
Mr. Shenoy has traveled widely throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1972), and an MBA from the University of Connecticut (1975).
Ms. Gauri Kumar is a retired member of the 1979 batch of Indian Administrative Services (IAS). She was Secretary (Coordination and Public Grievances), Cabinet Secretariat and served as Member/Chairperson of the Public Enterprises Selection Board, post her retirement. In the course of her distinguished career, she served as Secretary in the Union Ministry of Labour & Employment and in the Ministry of Home Affairs (Border Management). She has served as Special/Additional Secretary, Ministry of Mines and Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor, Ministry of Environment and Forests. She has also been Principal Secretary, Urban Development; Principal Secretary, Industries & Mines, Industries Commissioner and Secretary, Education Department in Government of Gujarat. She also held the position of Director General, National Institute of Fashion and Technology, Ministry of Textiles.
Gauri Kumar holds a degree of BSc in Physics, Mathematics and Statistics from Allahabad University. She completed her MSc in Mathematics from Lucknow University and was awarded seven gold medals in the course of her studies, for exceptional academic distinction. She also holds a Master in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She was awarded the Littauer Fellowship by Harvard University, for commitment to excellence, academic achievement and public service.
She is currently an Independent Director on the Boards of Gujarat State Fertilizers & Chemicals Limited (GSFC), Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd (GNFC), TVS Supply chain Solutions and Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation Ltd (GMDC). She is appointed by CVC as Independent External Monitor in National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).
She is the Founder of an Edu tech startup which has launched an integrated Learning Platform for the whole education eco-system, encompassing teachers, students, parents and schools. It’s positioned as a medium for making quality education accessible at scale. She is a Special Invitee on the Management committee of Bangalore chamber of industry & commerce (BCIC). She is the Founder Trustee of Vayah Vikas, an organisation for the elderly, based in Bengaluru. She is on the Advisory Board of Pahle India Foundation. She is a Member of the Board of Governors of Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration, Ahmedabad.
She is the Delhi Public School (DPS) Society nominee on Management Committees of several DPS schools in Gujarat and UP. She has contributed a Chapter on ‘Industry and Labour’ in the recently published book ‘Accelerating India: 7 Years of Modi Government’, edited by Shri K J Alphons, Member of Parliament and foreword by Shri Ajit Doval, National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of India.
Prof. Ranjan Kumar Ghosh is a faculty member and chairperson at the Center for Management in Agriculture at IIM Ahmedabad. His research and teaching interests lie in the areas of sustainable and healthy food system transformations, natural resource management and property rights. He has published in globally reputed journals and has been an advisor and consultant to several national and international agencies and ministries. Prior to joining IIMA, he worked and taught at SLU Uppsala, Sweden. He holds a PhD from Humboldt University Berlin and is an affiliated researcher with the Elinor Ostrom Workshop, IU Bloomington, independent director on the board of a large public sector enterprise and member of the governing council at WGF Water Council.