Community Service

Narayanan Krishnan

Narayanan Krishnan was a bright, young, award-winning chef with a five-star hotel group, short-listed for an elite job in Switzerland. But a quick family visit home before heading to Europe changed everything.

"I saw a very old man eating his own human waste for food," Krishnan said. "It really hurt me so much. I was literally shocked for a second. After that, I started feeding that man and decided this is what I should do the rest of my lifetime."

Krishnan was visiting a temple in the south Indian city of Madurai in 2002 when he saw the man under a bridge. Haunted by the image, Krishnan quit his job within the week and returned home for good, convinced of his new destiny.

"That spark and that inspiration is a driving force still inside me as a flame -- to serve all the mentally ill destitutes and people who cannot take care of themselves," Krishnan said.

Krishnan founded his nonprofit Akshaya Trust in 2003. Now 29, he has served more than 1.2 million meals -- breakfast, lunch and dinner -- to India's homeless and destitute, mostly elderly people abandoned by their families and often abused.

Dr. Vikram D. Bakhru – Founder, Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children

Dr. Vikram D. Bakhru currently serves as a Director at New York Presbyterian Hospital/The University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell in New York City. Vik founded the Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC, www.fimrc.org) in 2002, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing health care access to children in underserved areas of the developing world. FIMRC now boasts a team of over 3,000 full-time staff and volunteers who work hard to further develop FIMRC's self-sustainable revenue model and the world's first non-monetary model of micro-health insurance. Prior to medical school, Vik earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from The George Washington University as part of the Seven-Year Integrated Medical Program. Upon graduation from medical school, Vik pursued a surgical residency in Philadelphia and subsequently earned a Master of Business Administration degree in Health Care Management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Raj Gilda – Co-Founder, Lend A Hand India

Raj Gilda is a serial entrepreneur involving pioneering ventures ranging from launching a non-profit to provide vocational training to over 10,000 young boys and girls from rural India to part of the team which pioneered equity based futures and Options trading in India or selling life insurance while studying engineering to pay for his tuition.

Having worked in three continents (Asia, Europe and North America), he has variety of experience of over 15 years with Citibank, Deloitte Consulting in New York, Mahindra British Telecom in Belfast, National Stock Exchange and IL&FS in Mumbai.

His passion lies in bringing the world of corporate sector and non-profit together. He co-founded a nonprofit, Lend A Hand India (www.lend-a-hand-india) which provides job and life skills training to boys and girls from high schools in rural India. Having started with seed contribution of only $500, the nonprofit venture has now grown to work with 10,000 kids from 61 villages.
Raj is an Electronics Engineer from University of Pune, CFA, and MBA from University of Texas at Austin.

Earlier in Jan 2011, Raj quit his job as SVP with Citigroup to launch a social enterprise in India as well as to focus on his nonprofit venture Lend A Hand India. Currently, he divides his time between Pune, India and New York, USA.

Raj Shah - Chairman, Nanubhai Education Foundation

A reserve F-16 Pilot in the US Air Force, Raj is also is the Vice President of Federal Systems, a defense-focused investment firm. Now in its 6th year, Nanubhai impacts 8,000 students in rural India and has sent over 25 American teachers to India. In the USAF, Raj served two tours of duty in Iraq flying 38 combat missions. Raj has also worked as a Special Assistant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Previously Raj worked at McKinsey & Co. serving both private and public sector clients. Raj has had a life-long passion for adventure – he has led a 4,000-mile flying safari through Africa, completed a marathon, and motorcycled through the Himalaya. Raj holds an AB from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Soros Fellow.

NetIP supports Raj's nomination for Volunteer of the Year in the StayClassy Awards, please vote here http://classyawards.stayclassy.org/classy-awards/voting

Dr. Piya Sorcar - Founder and CEO, TeachAIDS

Dr. Piya Sorcar is the founder and CEO of TeachAIDS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that has developed a breakthrough approach to HIV/AIDS prevention education. Started as her Ph.D. research project at Stanford University, and spun out as an independent nonprofit in 2009, TeachAIDS creates educational technology which solves numerous persistent problems in HIV/AIDS prevention around the world. Today, its software is being used by governments, NGOs, and educational institutions in over 30 countries, including Botswana, China, India, South Africa, and the United States. It is supported and funded by numerous institutions, including Yahoo!, UNICEF, Barclays Bank, Time Warner, Google, and many national governments around the world.

Prior to TeachAIDS, Sorcar was a founding member of XRI Inc. (a medical and literacy media technology nonprofit), a program advisor for Stanford's Learning, Design & Technology master's program, and an economic research analyst with Analysis Group. She has also been a screenplay consultant for many international award-winning children's educational programs, and was nominated for a Regional Emmy Award for Lead Actress.

Sorcar received her Ph.D. in Learning Sciences & Technology Design and her M.A. in Education from Stanford. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a B.A. in Economics, B.S. in Journalism, and B.S. in Information Systems. She has been an invited speaker at numerous universities including Caltech, Columbia, Tsinghua, Utrecht, and Yale.

Rajesh Anandan - Vice President, Private Sector Partnerships and UNICEF Ventures- UNICEF USA

Rajesh Anandan serves as the UNICEF U.S.A.’s Senior Vice President, Private Sector Partnerships and UNICEF Ventures. Since joining in 2009, Rajesh has led the development of a broad range of cross-sector initiatives with corporations, foundations and academia, resulting in a portfolio that generates over $350 million annually in funding and in-kind resources for UNICEF programs across a 150 developing countries. In 2011, Rajesh launched a new practice area, UNICEF Ventures, which aims to develop new financing vehicles, launch new business ventures, and accelerate efforts to deploy and scale innovations in the field.

Previously, Rajesh served as the Head of Private Sector Partnerships at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in Geneva, where he led a full spectrum of public-private collaborations, including large-scale co-investments, access and pricing initiatives, and resource mobilization efforts such as (PRODUCT)RED. Prior to the Global Fund, Rajesh served as the Director of Strategy for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

Before entering the non-profit arena, Rajesh held a broad range of roles in the private sector, including product development and marketing at the Microsoft Corporation, corporate strategy and private equity consulting at Bain & Company, and senior management engagements in technology-related start-ups. He is also the founder of üba, an innovative cause-related brand platform which promotes peace and human security (www.whynotpeace.com; www.ubawear.com), and WeCare, a grass roots service organization focused on children affected by conflict in Sri Lanka, his home country.

Rajesh moved to the U.S. to pursue higher education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he obtained Bachelors and Masters degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, and has since lived and worked in North America, Western Europe and Southern Africa.

Anju Bhargava – Founder, Hindu American Seva Charities

Mrs. Bhargava is a Strategic Business Transformation and Risk Management senior professional and management consultant with over two decades of experience in consulting and working for major companies globally. She has provided thought leadership in the public and private sectors, published papers and received many awards. A change catalyst pioneer and social entrepreneur, she now volunteers with the Livingston Township, Board of Education, Interfaith Clergy Association and diverse residents to build healthy communities with cross-cultural inclusion. An ordained pujarin, she strives to combine philosophy and practice from a contemporary view. She is the Founder of Hindu American Seva Charities, President of Asian Indian Women in America, member of President Obama’s Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and Trustee of Council for a Parliament of World Religions.

Rhonda Binda - Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to Special Representative Reta Jo Lewis, Office of Global Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of State.

Ms. Binda was formerly a senior associate at Alston & Bird LLP in Energy, Infrastructure, Climate and Technology and CEO of the IOC technology consulting group. She served on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team, was a Legislative Staff Assistant on the Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Leahy and was Special Assistant to the Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison and to the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Ms. Binda received her J.D. from Georgetown University where she was an editor for the Poverty and Law Journal, was a Lord Rothermere Scholar at New College, Oxford University and has a B.A. in economics and public policy, with a minor in African-American studies, from Duke University. Ms. Binda is a member in good standing of the District of Colombia and New York bars.

Anant Shah, MPH - Program Officer Global Health Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Anant is a Program Officer on the Vaccine Delivery team in the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Focused on policies and programs related to vaccines in the developing world, Anant currently manages an effort to improve maternal, newborn, and child health in India. His work centers on innovation to realize game-changing improvements in rural health service delivery and a policy and advocacy agenda to support government decision-making for the inclusion of new vaccines into India’s national public health immunization program.

Prior to joining the foundation in mid-2008, Anant was a public health advisor at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA. Anant received his Bachelor of Science in Public Health, Health Policy and Administration, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2000), and his Master of Public Health in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from Yale University (2007). He enjoys tennis, photography, SCUBA diving, and all-things Carolina.

Ashni Mohnot - Founder, Enzi

Ashni Mohnot is Founder and CEO of Enzi, that lets people invest in students' education in return for a share in their future income for a fixed period of time. Enzi is developing a new financial instrument and a new asset class where human potential is collateral. She is a 2010 Echoing Green Fellow, and Enzi has been featured in notable publications, including Forbes, The Economist, and SmartMoney.com.

After living in Mumbai, India for 18 years, Ashni attended Stanford University, where she studied Human Biology (International Health focus) and English (fiction focus) undergrad, and International Education (Administration and Policy Analysis track) for her graduate degree. Ashni was Director of Education for Stanford’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute for four years. She was also the first Director of Gumball University at nonprofit Gumball Capital and a key member of the Executive team at social venture Mobile Metrix. Ashni was also a contributing writer for PopTech on social entrepreneurship, international development and innovation, covering SoCap09, and has helped judge Stanford’s Social Entrepreneurship Challenge in ’09 and ‘10.