Thanks, for making the October Gala2025 a Grand Success! 

The WGF Gala event, held on 4th^th October at Marriott Marquis New York, was a culmination of tireless work by so many of the WGF team for nearly 6-months, into a great success from all angles, a success that deserves nothing short of wholehearted pat and celebration. The WGF team thanks all the invitees who participated and contributed.

The Gala was a joyful celebration of both the journey taken but also what is achieved and was a success with full capacity and >85% of invited key guests showing up. It provided an opportunity to engage with accomplished alumni and strategic partners very closely and elevate the overall awareness and visibility of WGF’s work.

The invitees got an opportunity to witness how WHEELS and its partners in India & USA are making a compelling impact on lives:

♦ Noblest work of tackling pervasive malnutrition & stunting to ensure newborn avoids lifetime handicap of mental & physical underdevelopment

♦ Giving schools in rural & remote under-resourced schools not just the level playing field but exceeding it through comprehensive education

♦ Helping farmers get three crops of year, rather than crushing debt burden

♦ Enable women weavers of ‘humane silk’ triple their livelihood and earn dignified income, on path to contribute 20% of State GDP

♦ Transforming lives in tier 3/4 towns (like Clarksdale, Mississippi) with good-paying digital jobs for youth

♦ Advanced college education plus mentoring for bright minds coming from families in financial ruin

♦ Highly replicable food kitchen model to serve seniors and needy.

All of these are already impacting thousands & millions of lives, leveraging unique WHEELS strengths that enable scale – technology, access, business model expertise for complex programs, public-private partnerships.

However, each of these (and many more programs as shown on https://wheelsglobal.org/projects/) needs your generous support to achieve an exciting scaling ramp to millions more – not a decade later – but now.

We are happy to share some of the highlights of the event:

1. The Gala evening kicked off with the Opening Movie on Testimonials from Partners. In his opening remarks, Mr. Ratan Agarwal, President, WGF thanked the organizing committee of the Gala and all the invitees. He also shared the message from Mr. Arjun Sen, Founder & CEO of  Zenmango and some of the flagship programs of WHEELS.

Mr. Suresh Shenoy, Founder & Vice Chairman, WGF introduced Mr. Sharad Tak, an entrepreneur and technologist having founded and steered several companies to leadership positions in their respective industries, and provided extraordinary value and returns to investors, shareholders, employees, and the communities. In his accepting speech as the Chairman, WGF, Sharad shared his insights. He felt that the bright minds and big hearts would make the WHEELS spin for the generations to come. Watch Mr. Tak’s acceptance speech here.

Arvind Sangar – Keynote Speaker, Founder, Geosphere Capital. He was a Portfolio Manager at SAC Capital with 15-year career as top-ranked oil services analyst. He shared his insights in all the six domailns WGF is working in and applying new tools like AI to create impact. Watch the speech here.

1. Recognition of lifetime contributions:

Dr. Hitendra Ghosh, President Emeritus of WHEELS Global Foundation was recognized with the Lifetime Contribution Award – Listen to his speech. 

Other awardees included:

b) Dr. Vinod Shah is an expert in healthcare operations and strategic leadership and founder of Health Prime International LLC and the CEO of Shah Associates, MD PA. 

c) Dr. Ishan Shivanand is the founder of Yoga of Immortals (YOI), a Mental Health researcher and professor and
Developed non-invasive wellness protocols.

d) Dr. Chintu Patel is the co-founder of Amneal Pharmaceuticals, inspired by father’s Gandhian values and pharmaceutical legacy.

e) Dr. Chirag Patel is the Joint CEO of Amneal Pharmaceuticals and investor in biopharma ventures of Asana, Kashiv, Prolong, Adello. He is also the co-founder of NextGen Technologies and Veriprise Wireless.

f) Indrajit Chatterjee is the Chair, WGF Energy Council & Global Co-convenor with 45+ years of experience in strategy, manufacturing, and rural innovation. He is the creator of “Intelligent Village” concept.

g) Vikram Gupta is the founder & Managing Partner of IvyCap Ventures, a VC fund investing via alumni ecosystems with 30+ years of leadership across PE/VC, M&A, strategy, and operations in healthcare, education, tech, and consumer sectors.

i) Frank Islam is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and civic leader. He heads FI Invest Group, serves on boards of Kennedy Center, US Institute of Peace, Brookings. Author of two books on American renewal and civic engagement.

Hillary Clinton, American politician, lawyer, and diplomat, thanked WHEELS for its work and also congratulated Frank Islam for the Award.

Watch the Awards Video

Recognition of Partners:

a) Nupur Panjabi founded Anna Sudha kitchen in 2021 as a divine calling to dedicate the rest of her life to serving people, spreading Love through food in the DMV area. What started as a single person initiative has now snowballed into a community wide volunteering effort with an impact of $350,000 and over 80,000 meals donated in 2023.

b) Latha Narayannan – Vice Chairperson, Shooting Stars Foundation, encouraging young girls to step into STEM, one girl at a time. Shooting Stars Foundation’s mission is to use STEM to transform the lives of young people in both the U.S. and India.

b) Rah Thomas is the Managing Director & Senior Cloud Delivery Lead at Accenture overseeing Northeast region. He has 20+ years of experience in IT project management and large-scale delivery. Rah shared about his work with People Shores.

c) Zachary Emnet is the Executive Director at Morgan Stanley, heading Innovation, Emerging Technology & Strategic Programs. He is the key driver of inclusive culture, strategic partnerships, and centers of excellence. Zachary shared the experience of working with People Shores.

Watch the video to listen to them speak at the Gala