KMS Ahluwalia
Trustee
Titoo Ahluwalia holds the unique distinction of having headed the three largest market research companies in India – IMRB, of which he became Chief Executive at the age of 30; then MARG, which he set up in 1983, and subsequently ORG, which merged with MARG in 1996. He started his career as a social researcher at Research Services Ltd in London. In 2004, Titoo Ahluwalia took early retirement from his position as CEO of ACNielsen ORG-MARG, to pursue on a full-time basis his interest in issues concerning civil society. He is now Managing Trustee of Citizens for Peace and Trustee of four other voluntary organizations involved with work in many different areas such as communal harmony, urbanization education, rural development and accountability in public institutions. He is also Chairman of Conscious Food Pvt Ltd, India’s first organic food company.
Nandita Das
Trustee
Nandita Das has acted in more than 40 feature films in 10 different languages. She made her directorial debut with Firaaq in 2008 and Between the Lines marks her debut as a playwright and theater director. She is an advocate for issues of social justice and human rights. She was the Chairperson of Children’s Film Society between 2009 and 2012. Nandita Das was the first Indian to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of the International Women’s Forum. She has also been conferred the ‘Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters’ by the French Government. She was at Yale as a World Fellow in 2014.
Smruti Koppikar
Trustee
Smruti Koppikar, an award-winning Mumbai-based journalist and currently the Founder Editor of Question of Cities, has over three decades of experience in reporting and writing on a range of subjects from communal riots and crime to general elections, development issues, gender, malnutrition. She has led newsroom and reporting teams for national newspapers and magazines including The Indian Express, Outlook, Star News, and The Hindustan Times besides reporting for The Statesman and India Today. She is a recognised independent columnist, editorial consultant, and television panelist on urban issues, urban ecology and society.
Outside journalism, Smruti has spent considerable time focusing strongly on marginalised groups and urban issues, advocating for social justice, inclusive environments, and people's right to the city. This reflects, among other things, in her work on gender and city (she was a key member of the Women and DP Group in Mumbai which successfully intervened to include gender in the city's Development Plan 2034), in her contribution of chapters to various books on urban issues, and in the columns she has written in the past many years.
Smruti has been teaching journalism and media studies at undergraduate and postgraduate courses including the nuts and bolts of storytelling at Social Communications Media, Sophia, for more than 25 years, and at Liberal Arts colleges including at the NMIMS, Mumbai. She has developed courses and conducted workshops on media and freedom movement in India, information regimes, media literacy, ecology in cities, and chronicling cities. She serves on the Board of Studies of colleges and is a founder-member of the Dr Aroon Tikekar Centre of Advanced Studies of The Asiatic Society of Mumbai.
Aakash Sethi
Trustee
Aakash Sethi has over 18 years of experience in the education and youth development sectors. As the Founder-CEO of QUEST Alliance, he steers the organizational mission to impact 4 million learners and educators with 21st century skills for self-learning, through the effective use of education technology, capacity building of educators and leaders, and partnerships with NGOs and government to transform learning ecosystems for youth learners, especially girls, to successfully transition from school to work. Through his journey, he has served in leadership and network-building roles at organizations like AIESEC, Ambuja Cement, Microsoft and International Youth Foundation -- where he designed, implemented and facilitated multi-stakeholder partnerships for social and economic growth. He is also an Ashoka fellow & Asia 21 young leader and serves on the board of Dalit Shakti Kendra–a vocational training center in Ahmedabad and Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness in Bangalore. He has a graduate degree in Economics from St. Xaviers College, Ahmedabad.
Rama Shyam
Trustee
Rama Shyam PhD, co-founder, SAHER and Director with SNEHA's Adolescent and Youth Programme and the Collaborations and Partnership Domain is an ethnographer by training and has over 22 years of experience in both grassroots’ and international organisations, working on peace building and community-based leadership. She has played a key role in consolidating both quantitative and qualitative evidence based learning on adolescent and youth programmes and regularly contributes to advocating integrated adolescent programming based on a gender transformative approach across national and global platforms. Currently she is leading three large interventions with young people and communities from urban informal settlements in Mumbai, on scaling and school and public systems based model, scaling a stepped care model to address adolescent mental health concerns and facilitating people's access to social protection schemes. Rama invests in building capacities of community volunteers on issues of citizenship, democracy and governance. She was awarded Ashoka’s Changelooms Award in 2006, YouthActionNet Fellowship in 2007,the Martii Ahistari Peacebuilder Award in 2012, for her peace-education activities in Mumbai, and the Dasra Social Impact Village Capital Award in 2010.
