As a former Director of Health and Human Welfare Services of Karnataka state, Dr. Cheluvaraj’s administration was responsible for delivery of health and human services to primary, secondary and tertiary health care centers, statewide training and dissemination of disease trends and health practices to physicians and health care workers. Prior to this role, he served as a Medical officer and epidemiologist at the village, taluk and district level health centers for 25 years. His expertise includes public health education in HIV/AIDS, other tropical communicable diseases, health care management, health systems technology and healthcare workers rural outreach training. He holds a M.D. in preventive and social medicine.Dr. Cheluvaraj’s immense breadth and depth of experience in rural health care is critical to our health initiatives. His thoughtful approach to our child wellness program is invaluable.

As a senior lecturer in psychology, Malathi, regularly mentors and counsels rural students on higher education, mental health, and career choices. Her extensive experience is invaluable to our understanding of challenges facing rural students applying to our scholarship program and role played by social and economic factors in educational outcomes of rural students.Malathi has been teaching at the PA First Grade College and Kalpatharu PG center, Tiptur, (Tumkur District, Karnataka) for 20+ years. She coordinates and conducts seminars and workshops for college lecturers working in rural areas and distance education. She also served as the NCC (National Cadet Corps) officer training rural undergraduate students. During her tenure, Kalpatharu students received Governor’s recommendation for excellent community service.

In this chapter of life, Seema has largely focused her professional efforts on giving back to community. Currently an independent business consultant, Seema previously worked in the corporate sector for more than two and half decades as manager of marketing and communications at the Hewlett Packard’s head quarters in Delhi.In her professional role, Seema oversaw executive external & internal communications, crisis communications, corporate events & communications, public relations, advertising, channel, trade, CSR, promotional events, digital/social media strategy and execution. Seema has an MBA in international marketing with an Economics honors from Jesus and Mary College, Delhi. An avid reader and traveler, Seema’s unique talent is to bring diverse group of people to see eye to eye be it social or professional ideas. Combined with this talent, Seema’s strong business, marketing, and communicate skills are powerful assets that help share our work with larger community.

Pravin our youngest and dynamic advisory board member, studied at the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India. He is currently studying Ph.D. in Aeronautical Engineering program, at the University of Manchester, UK. His research focus is on designing and building a class of satellites called Cubesat. Prior to this, Pravin completed masters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the University College London, UK. After completing 10th grade, Pravin became Pestalozzi-Scholar to study International Baccalaureate in the UK. He was a recipient of the Pestalozzi International Village Trust, UK.Born in a family of farmers, Pravin is the first generation degree holder in his family. Having grown up in a small town, Dewarde, Maharashtra, Pravin experienced and saw what it is to lack access and resources in K -10 education in rural schools. For the last 5 years, Pravin has mentored 9 low income, rural students toward their higher education. He has helped them secure fully funded scholarships to study abroad for higher education.