Programme Team - Powering Livelihoods Programme Team | Powering Livelihoods Humane ClubMade in Humane Club
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Programme Team

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Powering Livelihoods, a CEEW-Villgro initiative, aims to boost India’s rural economy by scaling up the penetration of clean energy, powered appliances for livelihoods. Over three years, the initiative will support at least five enterprises to undertake large-scale commercial deployment of their solutions and use the generated evidence to catalyse the sector.

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10000ft for Data Dashboard: Team
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Abhishek Jain

Abhishek built and leads The Council’s practice on Energy Access, where, along with his team, he focuses on provision of modern forms of energy for all, especially the deprived. He leads CEEW’s flagship research effort, ACCESS survey.

He holds an MPhil in Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge and a BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Roorkee.

Jenaan Lilani

Jenaan is a development professional with over a decade’s experience in strengthening small to medium-sized NGOs, CSR advisory, and women’s health. At Villgro, she looks after operations and leads the organisation’s Diversity & Inclusion efforts.

She holds an M.A. in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK.

Ananth Aravamudan

Ananth’s career spans over two decades in technology development, product R&D and more recently, deployments of technology-driven social impact programs. He was responsible for the creation of SELCO Foundation which looked into the use of renewable energy and sustainable technologies.

Ananth has an Engineering degree from Bangalore University and was a fellow with Said Business School, University of Oxford.

Wase Khalid

An economist-turned-development professional, Wase’s work at The Council focuses on energy access and rural livelihoods. He is engaged in programmes supporting commercialisation of clean energy innovations for livelihoods.

Wase holds a Masters in Social Work with specialisation in Livelihood and Social Entrepreneurship from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Jamia Millia Islamia,Delhi.

Anubha Sharma

Anubha supports social entrepreneurs at Villgro in building gender-inclusive business strategies across their value chains. She is a development professional with prior experience of promoting entrepreneurship in rural areas at Kudumbashree – National Resource Organisation.

She also serves as a board member of Vitamin Angels, India. She holds a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and is an alumnus of Initiatives of change (IofC), Switzerland.

Shashikanth Subramanya

Shashikanth Subramanya has seven years of experience in the impact space, apart from 3 years of business development for a hydraulic systems manufacturer. His key area of interest lies in the intersection of entrepreneurship and rural livelihood generation.

Having started a non-profit (sanitation and social awareness) and a for-profit startup (agri value chain), his learning about ground realities is something that inspires him to continue working in the impact space.

Sreejith

Sreejith is a renewable energy professional with 14 years hands-on experience in design and implementation of off-grid, industrial and utility scale Solar PV projects. Sreejith has previously worked with social enterprise SELCO.

At SELCO, he has been part of incubating social enterprise start-ups in the energy access sector and has led technology innovations including powering rotary appliances used in rural livelihoods.

Divya Gaur

Divya is a social impact professional focussed on working towards augmenting the positive socio-economic environmental changes at the grassroot level with a data-driven approach. Divya looks into the impact measurement along with supporting on integrating gender inclusivity in the initiative.

Previously, Divya has worked with Sattva consulting as a Social Impact Consultant in their Impact Measurement and Advisory team, where she evaluated multiple development programs implemented by social sector organizations and helped in maximising their impact on ground through data-driven decision making.

Pratim Raha

Pratim has almost six years of experience in the development sector in the energy access space. His key areas of interest include the intersection of innovation, energy & entrepreneurship. Prior to this, at SELCO Foundation, he was involved in R&D of decentralised renewable energy-based technology and business models.

Pratim is an Engineer by training. He holds a Masters degree in Public Systems Management with Energy specialisation from Indian Institute of Social Welfare & Business Management (IISWBM), Kolkata.

Prachi Singhal

Prachi looks after the gender integration within the programme. A recent policy grad from SOAS University of London on the Chevening Scholarship, she is passionate about bottom to top policy making and wants to contribute towards creating a thriving support ecosystem for policy, politics, systemic, and behavioural change.

Prior to joining CEEW, she was heading gender inclusion and diversity initiatives at Zone Startups, an international start-up accelerator.

Gowtham Sundara Raju

Gowtham has worked with the founding team of Teach For India, Bengaluru as Alumni Impact and Fundraising Associate. He was also a Teach For India Fellow at an Affordable Private School in Hyderabad and has also been with Infosys as a Systems Engineer. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore.

Angarika Gogoi

Angarika is a Communications Associate at the Council and is involved in outreach activities for the Powering Livelihoods Programme. Previously, she worked as a journalist at The Better India (TBI) and 101 Reporters, media organisations based in Bengaluru.

At 101 Reporters, she reported on a range of topics from climate change to politics and business. While at TBI, she reported on startups and small businesses providing novel solutions to pertinent challenges across various sectors.

Priyatam Yasaswi

Priyatam, a renewable energy professional, works on assessing the impact of deployments of clean energy technologies within the Powering Livelihoods programme. He holds a Masters degree in Renewable Energy Engineering & Management from TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi.

He previously worked in Sustain Plus, a collaborative platform conceptualised by SELCO Foundation, Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI) and Social Alpha, for scaling decentralised renewable energy technologies to improve livelihoods of marginal communities.

Kalyani Krishna

Kalyani is a development professional with over 6 years of experience in content development, entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem. At Villgro, she works as Analyst to strengthen the Diversity & Inclusion efforts. She is a Civil Engineering graduate with a M.Tech in Environmental Geotechnology from National Institute of Technology, Calicut.

Mousumi Kabiraj

Mousumi is engaged in integrating gender inclusion and writing knowledge products within the programme. She is a Young Women Leaders Fellowship fellow and has experience in developing project ideas on natural resource-based, gender-focused livelihood opportunities for rural communities.

She holds a Masters degree in Conservation and Livelihood Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Lady Brabourne College, Calcutta.

Ramesh Veluru

Ramesh works as a Programme Lead at the programme. Previously, he worked at the World Bank as a consultant with Agricultura Global Practice of South Asian Region, extending operational support and guidance to the Government of Bihar in the implementation of rural livelihood projects.

Ramesh joins the Council with 8 years of experience working at government agencies and multilateral donor organizations in the spheres of inclusive growth, women’s enterprise promotion, women empowerment, agricultural value chains, and rural development.

Jyoti Kumari

Jyoti is a part of the Powering Livelihood team. She is leading the team’s engagement with public and private partners in the state of Uttar Pradesh. She supports the team in evidence generation regarding the impact of this partnership with the public stakeholders’ and with end-users. She has experience in working with and within government departments and NGOs.

She holds Masters degree in Development Studies and a PG Diploma in Rural Development Management from National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR), Hyderabad.