Mr. Daljit Mirchandani, born in Karachi in 1947, has a career spanning 40 years in the corporate world in India. He retired in 2010 as the Chairman of Ingersoll-Rand (India) Ltd. Post-retirement, he continues to serve on the advisory and statutory boards of various Indian corporates and MNCs working in biofuels, water and wastewater, infrastructure development, infrastructure finance, auto components, and energy management systems. While staying engaged with the corporate world, he established Gyan Prakash Foundation in 2011, with a mission to work with the hierarchy of various state education and PRI systems to bring sustainable change from rote-based learning and assessment to competency-based education in rural government primary schools.

Ms. Farida Lambay is an educator and social activist with 25+ years of experience in the field of women’s and children’s rights. She was Vice Principal of Nirmala Niketan
School of Social Work when she initiated the Municipal School Project, which led to a cadre of social workers becoming instituted within the Mumbai Municipal Corporation structure, and spearheaded initiatives like YUVA (Youth for Voluntary Action) and Prerana (a project for sex workers’ rights in Mumbai). In 1994, she co- founded Pratham with Dr. Madhav Chavan, which aims to transform the educational landscape for children in India. In 2015, she received the Indira Gandhi Memorial Award. She has served on the Maharashtra State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights and currently serves on the GOI Committee on Child Labour & Research in Education.

Ms. Ingrid Mendonca has been the Regional Coordinator for South Asia of Terre des Hommes Germany since 2015. She has been active in many networks, coalitions and campaigns on children’s rights and women’s rights. She has actively contributed to the movement for banning amniocentesis and sex-selective abortions in India. Equal rights for marginalised communities, enhancing livelihood in poverty pockets, and organic agriculture are her special areas of interest. Her mission is to focus on youth for environmental protection and to develop a young cadre for promoting a just and equitable world. Besides an M.Phil in Dalit Studies, she has an MSW in Rural and Urban Community Development from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Mr. Pradeep Bhargava has 3 decades of experience in the consumer and industrial sectors, with leadership positions at Bharat Forge, Kalyani Sharp, GE Lighting, and Cummins India. He has also worked for the Government of India for a decade, with the Atomic Energy Commission, BHEL, the Electronics Commission, and consulted with UNDP and the World Bank. He has served as President of MCCIA, Pune, and is associated with leading academic institutions like IIM Ahmedabad and Bangalore, and Symbiosis University. His engagement in various agendas of civil society and the social sector notably includes conceiving and steering the ‘Pune Power Model’, currently serving as an independent director of the Pimpri Chinchwad Smart City Lighthouse Communities, and various endeavours in Skill Development and Labour Relations. He is also a trustee of KEM Hospital, Pune, and Lila Poonawalla Foundation.

Ms. Mini Shrinivasan taught in primary and special schools for several years before joining CLR as a teacher educator. At CLR she was involved for almost 2 decades in
the development of teaching-learning materials, designing and implementing capacity building of teachers, and action research. She was Assistant Director and Training Head, CLR, before she left to work as an independent consultant. She has worked with UNICEF, NEG-FIRE, and several other NGOs and funding agencies in the field of primary education. Her work has involved project planning, supervising project implementation and staff capacity building, as well as project reviews. She is currently a consultant with the Tata Trusts. She is also an award-winning children’s  writer and has been involved with campaigns for child rights.

Mr. Janak Nabar heads the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Economic Research (CTIER), and has been leading CTIER’s research efforts. He has
previously worked as an economist and investment strategist in the private sector in Singapore. Janak’s work experience includes two years with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Serbia. He was a member of the Thematic Group on Innovation, National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2020 and is presently a member of the CII National Committee on Technology, Innovation and Research. Besides an M.Sc degree from LSE, he has an MA in Mathematics from the University of Oxford (as a Radhakrishnan Scholar)