Our Team & Mentors
We are lucky to be supported by our advisors, mentors and trainers who are extremely passionate towards exposing young people to social issues that India is facing and involving them in nation building
Rahul Nainwal
Rahul is the Founder of iVolunteer and introduced the concept of formal volunteering in India. He has done pioneering work in placing Indian volunteers across the country as well as overseas. In 2010, through the India Fellow program, Rahul led the learning component of the then first of its kind fellowship in India.
He is also the founder of Cashrelief which is experimenting with direct cash transfers in India. A TED Fellow, Rahul is an alumnus of both Institute of Rural Management IRMA and the Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership – THNK. He is also the head of the UPES School of Business and the Runway Incubator. His expertise lies in entrepreneurship and human centered design. He is a marathon runner, a cyclist and an avid trekker.
Anupama Pain
coFounder of the fellowship, Anupama is an ICICI Fellow and with the team since 2014. She has four years of work in corporate consulting, after a bachelor in engineering from Mumbai University. Between 2010 to 2014, she worked on participatory design and implementation of products for women collectives in areas of rural finance and pro poor value chains. She also has experience of setting up an agri value chain based enterprise – FreshFromFarms, connecting farmers from rural to urban consumers.
Anupama is currently part of the academic advisories and various other social ventures. She is a generalist, and strives to keep her curiosity intact through inventive learning and work engagements.
Dr. Nachiket Mor
He is the inspiration behind the India Fellow program. He was the leading force behind the ICICI Fellows program. Nachiket has experience in the areas of finance, healthcare and education; as a practitioner as well as systems thinker.
Currently he is designing national and regional health systems. He is also the visiting scientist at the Banyan Academy, taking a course on mental healthcare. Prior to this, he served as the board chair of CARE India and a member of board of Reserve Bank of India and CRISIL. He was also heading the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation in India amongst many other things.
Dr. Rajeshwar Mishra
A social psychologist, Dr. Mishra started his career with the A. N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies and then assumed an international assignment leading an Indo-Dutch project – North Bengal Terai Development. There, he spent long years before establishing Center for the Development of Human Initiatives (CDHI), which he still mentors and nurtures. His interests lie in field based action research through participatory pedagogy. He has worked as a consultant and adviser to many international organisations. A prolific author, he has published several books, articles, proposals etc.
At the fellowship, he guides the pedagogy and also conducts workshops with the team and alumni on reflective writing and understanding communities.
Swati Saxena
A 2016 India Fellow, is a commerce graduate from Lucknow University. She further did an MBA in Finance from ICFAI, and worked with Deloitte for five years. It was during a year-long break from corporate when she got to know about the fellowship while volunteering with non-profits and start-ups.
At India Fellow, Swati supports with strategic thinking, pedagogy development, training, nurturing key partnerships and the team, outreach and communication. Swati enjoys reading, writing and exploring new places – all of which she gets to do amply here!
Mohit Satyanand
He is a multi-potentialite. After a masters from Delhi School of Economics, he joined Hindustan Lever, establishing India’s first snack food brand, Crax. From 1981-89, he was with Theater Action Group (TAG), where he acted, handled sound and light design and the business end. Since 2009, he is with the theatre group, Wide Aisle.
In 1990, he co-founded Teamwork Films that focuses on performing arts, and produces several arts festivals, including the Jaipur Literary Festival. Mohit is consulting editor, Outlook Money. Mountain-lover and life-long trekker, recently taken to half-marathons and angel investing.
At the fellowship, Mohit inspires our fellows towards better story telling and impactful communication through his workshop.
Manali Shah
Mana is a facilitator of meaningful meetings and participatory strategy. She has worked with various organizations including BullzI Inc, AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit, GIVE Network (Voluntary Services Overseas) and Sir Ratan Tata Trust. In her own words, “my focus in every engagement is to create and sustain alignment within the group about the larger purpose, the values, the vision, stakeholder participation and overall process management”.
At the fellowship, Mana conducts regular workshops with the team and fellows on facilitation and fueling meaningful conversations and spaces in our respective community and teams.
Inir Pinheiro
Inir is the founder of Grassroutes Journeys Pvt. Ltd where his aim is to trigger a more conscientious society through rural engagements. He is a social entrepreneur involved in experiential learning programs, responsible tourism, micro-entrepreneurship development and livelihoods. Inir has been recognized amongst fifty social entrepreneurs changing India by Outlook Business. He has also been awarded the Karamveer Puraskar for social justice and citizen action in 2008 by ICONGO & Kemka Foundation.
At the fellowship, Inir conducts workshops on social enterprise and livelihoods. A true believer, dreamer and nurturer, he is friendly to all, except the camera.
Sanyukta Saha
Sanyukta is a founding member of Aagaaz Theatre Trust, an applied theatre practitioner. She primarily works with children and young people through drama to imagine and discover ways of acting to work towards their realisation. She has a postgraduate degree from the University of Leeds in Theatre and Development Studies as an Inlaks Scholar.
Her journey in applied theatre includes working with pandies’ theatre, Aga Khan Foundations Nizamuddin urban renewal Initiative, and Theatre Professionals Education. She has also been devising shows and performing them for young audiences.
Mihir Mathur
He is the founder director of DESTA Research LLP a research and consulting firm specializing in applications of systems thinking and dynamics modelling with an aim to develop systemic solutions. His expertise is in systems thinking, system dynamics modelling, group model building, climate change adaptation and natural resource management – which is also what he engages our fellows with.
Mihir began his career in banking and stock markets, and moved into the world of sustainability in 2009. He worked in the climate change adaptation programme of Watershed Organisation Trust, before moving to The Energy And Resources Institute (TERI). He has written book chapters, journal papers and presented his work in several conferences worldwide.
Kalpana Pant
In the India Fellow program, she has helped us see the ethos of collectives also shape how we have imagined our cohorts and been a mentor to many of our fellows who have worked with her.
Nikita D’cruz
Nikita is the founder of Koshika, which works for the health of women and children of tribal villages within the Panna Tiger Reserve (Madhya Pradesh). Koshika is building better health practices through one-to-one counselling, access to health services and support during emergencies to tackle extremely high infant death rates.
An alumni from the founding cohort in 2010, she is a former Young India Fellow. She holds a master’s degree from the Habitat School of Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Nikita has been a part of the program team, as well as a resource person and friend, philosopher and guide to fellows across cohorts.
Saurabh Mehta
“Imagine a world where our everyday tools do more than fulfill their purpose—they help preserve our planet. That’s the world I am committed to creating. Having spent over 18 years in environmental sustainability, from renewable energy to sustainable corporate gifting with bioQ, my journey has been driven by a passion to learn from the earth and apply its wisdom to solve human challenges.”
Al alumni from our founding cohort, Saurabh Mehta is an entrepreneur and supports the fellowship cohorts with concepts of design thinking and entrepreneurship.
A lifelong student of nature, always eager to share the intricate ways nature addresses complex problems, Saurabh advocates for looking to the natural world for inspiration and solutions, rather than reinventing the wheel.
Dr. Sudha Kothari
She is one of India’s most acknowledged authorities on self help group (SHG) federations in the country. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology and has a rare blend of strong grassroots and institutional experience. In 1993, she cofounded Chaitanya, a non profit organization which pioneered the SHG federation movement in Maharashtra. It subsequently partnered with programs like Mahila Arthik Vikas Mandal (MAVIM) and National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and the work has laid foundation to policies in the space of financial inclusion and women led enterprise development.
Chaitanya has been hosting fellows since our inception and Sudha Tai has always encouraged our fellows and been an eager advisor.
Rajiv Khandelwal
Rajiv is the co-founder of a consortium of organzation like Aajeevika Bureau, Basic Healthcare Services and Shram Sarathi in south Rajasthan. Over the course of his thirty year career, he has held leadership roles in a range of non-profit organisations. He has implemented programmes, conducted research and provided advice and guidance to non profits, donors and govt. in Rajasthan. He was named an Ashoka Fellow (2005) and India Social Entrepreneur of the Year (2010).
At the fellowship, we trust him with opening up our fellows, cohort after cohort to the notions of labour rights, migration and social inclusion. He has also been an encouraging support to the team.
Ashish Shrivastava
He is the founder of Shiksharth, that works closely with conflict affected children and towards improving quality of education in tribal areas through contextual education solutions and approach. As a communications engineer-turned-education professional passionate about serving in rural areas, Ashish has over fourteen years experience working across multiple domains using technology and education. He is also an Acumen India Fellow and A Wipro Foundation Fellow.
Ashish is also a full time volunteer and is associated with movements like the Daan Utsav. At the fellowship, we look at him to guide our fellows in understanding conflict and role and state of education in India.
Dr. Aquinas Edassery
She is the founder of Swasthya Swaraj. At sixty one years of age, Dr. Aquinas took up the most challenging assignment of her life after her retirement. She went all the way from working in Bangalore’s St. John’s hospital to the forests of Thuamul Rampur block, of Kalahandi region in Odisha to serve the neediest people. It is currently active in seventy five villages and helps more than twenty thousand people in the community. Women in these villages are also being trained to provide primary healthcare services to the people.
Our network of health organizations is thanks to her introductions and we count on her to help our fellows look at healthcare as a key thematic area of development.
Amruta Huddar
A mental health professional and entrepreneur with 6+ years of experience using different creative arts therapy modalities in various settings ranging from psychiatric institutions, schools, shelter homes, and care homes.
Apart from being an avid traveller and performer, she is certainly a perennial learner. Amruta is perpetually exploring the various facets of the world in depth. While having a background in performing arts and history, Amruta has found her calling in the work that sees the intersection of expressive arts and psychology in a therapeutic setting.
A 2017 India Fellow, Amruta helps our fellows create meaningful spaces amongst themselves. At the same time, her own journey with stuttering and finding a space to interact with it has been beautiful.
Sushma Iyengar
Sushma founded Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, the well-known women’s collective in the late eighties. During the past four decades, she has founded and led organizations in the area of gender justice, indigenous cultures, traditional livelihoods, local governance, and post disaster rehabilitation. Her publications include Picture This! Painting the Women’s Movement (University of Chicago, 2013). She is the lead curator of the exhibition Living Lightly – Journeys with Pastoralists. It is an outcome of her longstanding interest and experience with indigenous communities, including nomadic pastoralists.
In the fellowship, Sushma talks to fellows on empowerment and has helped us build the Kutch ecosystem with partners and mentors.
Dharmesh Chaubey
Dharmesh is a 2019-20 alumni of India Fellow. He worked in Bhuj with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, in gender justice and livelihoods. Dharmesh has done his masters in English from the University of Allahabad and leads RAQS – support group working with queer persons and women on the issues of gender, sexuality and mental health.
He has written for several newspapers and magazines including Pink Advocate, Business Standard, The Leaflet, Sadaneera and Baya. Dharmesh has also translated for G.N Devy’s Linguistic Survey of India, Grindr’s Sexuality Resource, Nishikant Kolge’s Gandhi Against Caste, an other articles. He lives with anxiety and depression, enjoys reading poetry, fantasy fiction and philosophy. Besides that, he loves preparing elaborate meals and exploring the depths of the internet for cringe content.
