Ms. Laxmi Lobo is a counselling psychologist, a clinical hypnotherapist and a behavioural strategist. She is an entrepreneur too with 20+ years of experience.

Being an affirmative counsellor and trainer, she is currently working for The Humsafar Trust and Mpowerminds, which is an Aditya Birla initiative. She has co-facilitated programmes for NUSSD (Govt of India) and private corporations, hospitals and schools.

Her core strength lies in helping people to master their behaviours, thoughts, feelings, and relationships by using mind-based technologies such as CBT, mindfulness, contextual therapies and therapeutic visualisation through hypnosis.

Ms. Laxmi has been trained at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) & The London College of Clinical Hypnosis (LCCH). Additionally, she attended Spring Counselling Centre -Self Awareness Program.

Prof. Udipi Shrinivasa, is a leading expert in Structures, Biofuels, Product Design & Prototyping. He was teaching in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore until July 2012. With B.Tech. and M.Tech. Degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a PhD in Structures from the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, he has worked as a faculty member from 1982 to 2012.

He has been actively involved with, and was eventually Chairman of, an erstwhile department of the Institute known as ASTRA (Application of Science and Technology to Rural Areas). During the time spent with this group, he made several significant advances in bringing viable technologies to rural areas in India, to help improve their standard of living.  Notable among these are water harvesting techniques that convert local streams into perennial water sources, gasifiers for biomass, efficient stoves, vegetable dryers for perishable goods and what he is now most well-known for - using straight vegetable oils in diesel engines to generate energy locally! He has been pursuing the latter since 1997 with his group known as SuTRA (Sustainable Transformations of Rural Areas) and is responsible for renewing interest in this technology to such an extent that it is now a nationwide phenomenon. He is a member of the Biofuel Board of the Government of Karnataka.

Prof. Shrinivasa started the Advanced Product Design and Prototyping centre at the Indian Institute of Science, a joint venture between IISc and TCS, with the aim to bring academics and the industry closer together. This group was the first to introduce rapid prototyping to India as well as find indigenous solutions to a variety of problems faced by the Indian industries.

He is currently the Chairman of Peach Engineering and also the Chief Consultant & Founder of Engyana Consulting LLP, a group that offers quick and easy access to the top experts in Engineering.

Prof. Shrinivasa was awarded the second highest civilian award in the state of Karnataka (Rajyotsava Award), in 2020, for his contribution to Rural Development, Science & Technology.

Mr. Rakesh is the Founder and Director of Virant India Services. He is also Founder & Trustee, Secretary, Vikasa Darshana. He worked for various organisations like Radiant Info Systems, Vodafone, Accenture & HSBC in key positions. His expertise lies in Strategic Planning, Sales & Marketing, Customer/Client relationship management, Risk, Emergency and Disaster management.

Mr. Rakesh is an ex-officer in Commanding-Rescue Services, Bangalore, Karnataka Civil Defence, Corporate Member, National Road Safety organisation. He has 19 years of experience and 13 years parallel experience in the field of Emergency & Disaster Management.

He is an active and a proud Civil Defence Warden who joined the Civil Defence in 2010. As a member of Civil Defence, he has actively involved himself in emergency management activities and act as the first responder to disasters. He has actively participated in many Fire calls, Rescue calls, Flood Rescue operations, Bomb blast duty, Elections, Bandobust duties, Corona duty, Trainings and Seminars.

He is a recipient of many awards like - The prestigious Karnataka Chief Minister’s Gold Medal for rendering yeomen services to the society - Civil Defence, Bangalore (Year 2016) ; The prestigious Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Award for rendering selfless services to the society in the field of Social Service (Year 2020) ; Nominated for the President of India Award ; Recipient of Social Impact Award  and Recipient of Go Green Earth Award.

Mr. Rakesh is a seasoned professional with a Vision and Motto of Serving the Nation.

Naina Padaki is the founder of True Assistive Technology. She is the CEO and manages business development, partnerships, and marketing of True Assist. She played a key role in the company's strategy for growth and GTM. She strategically rebranded the company and products to align with the growth plan. Built partnerships to enable growth and visibility.

Naina has a bachelor's degree in Engineering and has over 15 years of corporate experience in the field of technical product marketing and various lead roles.

Naina is passionate about supporting every individual and help them in living an independent life. She wants to bring in a change to the way mobility is perceived and available for our senior citizens and persons with disability and those with reduced mobility. 

Dr. Satish is a Physician & Ex-Army officer. He is the founder of Ai Highway Inc, an AI-first company that aims to make screening of chronic diseases cost-effective at the primary care clinic, which is the first point of contact for any patient.  He has been leading this venture since Feb 2018, with the vision of achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 3 of ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all by 2030. He has also with over 20 years of experience across various sectors and domains in the healthcare industry, he has developed expertise in business development, innovation, market entry strategy, cross-industry partnerships and policy.

As a veteran physician with an MBA from IIM Bangalore and a certification in mHealth from Stanford University, he is passionate about leveraging technology and data to solve global health challenges and improve access and quality of care.

Dr. Satish being a member of the Healthcare Council has contributed towards shaping the future of healthcare in India and beyond.

Smt. Anuradha is the retired Director, SATCOM Programme & Distinguished Scientist from ISRO for about 37 years.  She has handled many satellite projects, programs during her tenure at ISRO.  Her technical expertise includes System Engineering in realization of satellites and launching, Design of Embedded systems, Instrumentation & Automation, Design of interface buses and development of interface protocols, Design of Analog, Digital and Power Electronic systems. She has led Geo & communication Satellite programs for ISRO.

Smt. Anuradha was the first Woman Project Director at ISRO. She has successfully led the launch of GSAT-12 (2011), GSAT-10 (2012) GSAT-9, GSAT-17, GSAT-18, etc. She has led the launch programs in India, Russia, and French Guiana.  She has led the Satellite based communication program for planning, policy implementation and orbital spectral asset management through dialogues with various countries & ministries.

She has represented ISRO/India in national & international forums including the prestigious “Royal exhibition-Engineers Panel discussions”, London along with NASA, ESA members in 2019. She is a featured speaker in TEDx and BBC. She has been interacting with many schools and colleges to educate students on the opportunities in the STEM and SPACE field. She is an ambassador for women in STEM on several platforms. She has featured in many print media, Television talk shows and podcasts.

She has got many accolades to her credit and some of these are 2003 Space Gold Medal award by Astronautical Society of India for the services in the field of Space sciences. 2011 Suman Sharma Award by (NDRF) of IEI.  2012 ASI- ISRO Merit Award for Realization of Indigenous Communication spacecraft. 2012 ISRO Team award for being team leader for the realization of GSAT-12 (Her innovation was important to the success of GSAT-12. Her work plays a huge part in ISRO’s research.), Woman achiever in Aerospace - 2019 by Aero India, ISRO Performance Excellence Award of 2019. The list does not end here, as she has also received many other awards from professional and social bodies too.

Dr. Yogesh Ramesh Kulkarni is the Executive Director, Vigyan Ashram. He holds Mechanical Engineering Degree, Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration, MA in Distance Education, and Ph.D. in Educational communication.

Since college days, he was involved in various educational activities such as literacy movement and educating under privileged children. After his education, he worked for a multinational company for 3 years and then decided to join ‘Vigyan Ashram’ to pursue his passion for education.

Vigyan Ashram is a centre of ‘Indian Institute of Education, Pune’. It has developed a unique program - ‘Rural Development through Education System (RDES), which integrates ‘Education’ and ‘Rural Development’. The program is implemented in formal schools as well as non-formal centres. Since 2003, he is heading this unique initiative, which turned many dropped out students into entrepreneurs and inventors. He has conceptualized and headed replication of ‘RDES’ program in 72 schools in 17 districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka states of India involving more than 6000 students.

Dr. Yogesh has many achievements that include - developed many educational CD ROMs in Indian regional languages; Worked as a project leader to use of ICT for educating nomadic tribes and this project won UNESCO award in the ‘non formal education’ category in 2008; Vigyan ashram hosted the first fab lab in collaboration with MIT (USA); Received ‘Development marketplace award, 2007’ for $20,000 to develop ‘Human power-based lighting solution for nomadic tribes; Received ‘Youth to Youth innovation award 2007’ for $10,000 from World bank for establishing ‘Rural entrepreneurs network’; Received ‘Youth to Youth innovation award 2007’ for $10,000 from World bank for establishing ‘Rural entrepreneurs network’;  Received First prize of £100,000 in Evolve development idea competition constituted by M/S GKN Sinter Metal Ltd.UK in 2009.

Dr. Yogesh represented Vigyan Ashram in many International and National level seminars on “IT in Education” and “Education for Development” topics. Attended International conference on education and appropriate technologies in UK, USA, Norway and S.Africa besides almost all major cities in India.