Building and Managing Urban Transport Networks

Gayathri founded NOW Venture Studio, a DeepTech and DeepScience Venture Studio, and a VC Fund focussed on Sustainability and ClimateTech. She serves as the director of RGA Infra, a leading commercial real estate company, with a track record of creating over 10M SFT of office space. Gayathri leads Investments and diversification for the group. Additionally, Gayathri is an angel investor & has invested in 10+ startups across EnterpriseTech, Edtech & other sectors. She is also the founder of KReate Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that works on the need for better Urban Planning and Development in growing cities.

Gayathri has been a part of the Global Shapers community since 2019, the World Economic Forum youth wing. She has worked on projects focused on Climate and the Environment and is also a trained Climate Reality Leader by Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project. She was chosen as one of the Davos50 – young leaders who bring voice to the issues faced by their generation at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Summit 2023. She was chosen as top 20 women in India for the Loreal Women Climate Collective Cohort 2024.

Meera K is the co-founder of Citizen Matters, the award-winning civic media platform. She is passionate about cities, community media, urban issues, local governance, and civic tech.She also helped initiate Open City, an urban data platform. She is an Ashoka Fellow, recognised for her work building open knowledge platforms that allow citizens to collaborate and improve their cities. She is active in community improvement initiatives and volunteers with projects related to transport, lake rejuvenation, organic kitchen gardening and solid waste management. Meera is also the Managing Trustee of Oorvani Foundation.

Naresh V Narasimhan is a practitioner and leader with three decades of experience in architecture and urban design. He is best known for his association with Venkataramanan Associates – an award winning architecture firm.

As co‐founder of MOD (an international collective of urban designers, researchers and curators), founder & trustee of Imagine Bangalore and founder of Cobalt (a new concept of a work and meeting space that facilitates serendipitous encounters) Naresh has fuelled a variety of progressive causes in the city.

Sathya Sankaran is a civic activist with over a decade of experience in mobility interventions and sustainable urban development. An avid cyclist, he regularly commutes up to 40 km across the city by bicycle and spends his weekends engaged in recreational cycling. Sathya has been a consistent advocate for a more sustainable Bengaluru, championing initiatives in Urban Planning, Urban Governance, Non-Motorised Transport, and Public Transport.

He has played a key role in citywide movements such as Cycle Day and the Commuter Rail campaign, and he continues to spearhead policy efforts including the Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority and the Non-Motorised Transport policy. With two decades of experience in technology, Sathya is a Computer Science graduate and a postgraduate student of Public Policy. He is committed to bringing together experts and cycling enthusiasts to advance a more inclusive, sustainable mobility future for the city.

Soumya Venkatesh is a dynamic and results-driven Human Capital Management professional with over 10 years of experience in developing and implementing strategic HR and Learning & Development initiatives that drive organizational success.

As the head of the Sustainability team at Hical she is committed to driving programs that create value for the organization & positively impact the environment and community. Soumya has previously worked in Investment Banking with Goldman Sachs in Bangalore and London. She has consulted with multi-national firms as a Learning & Development Consultant and co-founded a Bungee-Fitness company along the way. She has also volunteered with organisations dedicated to community outreach & environmental conservation.

Soumya is an avid reader, traveller, basketball player and nature enthusiast.

Madhav is a respected thinker-practitioner who has been working on issues of urbanization, climate change, transportation and environment in various countries over the past few decades. He graduated from the University of Mumbai as a civil engineer and went on to earn a Master’s degree in Transport Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. His own research and programmatic work has evolved to prefer systems thinking as an approach to negotiate with the myriad complexities of the contemporary city.

Under his leadership as Executive Director of WRI India Ross Center and prior to that as Director of EMBARQ India, the team has supported implementation of several pioneering projects. Notable successes include the Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP), the Raahgiri campaign for democratizing public streets, and the National Electric Bus Program (NEBP). The team has also informed multiple national, state, and city level policy discussions on urban and regional planning, road safety, urban transport, transit-oriented development, electric mobility and clean air.

He is a firm believer in public transport. He enjoys green open spaces. He experienced a sense of loss while growing up seeing Mumbai’s playgrounds disappear and buildings appear in their places. Madhav believes this sense of continual loss eventually led to his deep interest in environmental and developmental issues.

Srinivas is a Program Senior Fellow – Sustainable Cities and Transport in WRI India where he works on creating sustainable transport solutions and improving road safety. Srinivas drives the #Personal2Public, a nudge campaign to get people to switch to public transport from personal vehicles at least twice a week. Working with government agencies, civil society groups and corporates, Srinivas and team are trying to address the integration challenges and last mile gaps to make public transport reliable, affordable and safer.

Srinivas was a software engineer with over two decades of experience working on enterprise software product design and development with Sun Microsystems and Oracle in California and in Bengaluru. Srinivas was actively involved in various citizen movements and local governance after moving to Bengaluru. As a co-founder of Citizens for Bengaluru, Srinivas was instrumental in creating public awareness and policy changes via various campaigns #SteelFlyoverBeda #ChukuBukuBeku #BusBhagyaBeku that promoted sustainable mobility in the city of Bengaluru. As a strong advocate of empowered local government and citizen participation, Srinivas worked on reviving Ward Committees in Bengaluru.