Arvind Gupta left a factory job to pursue his passion; making science fun for children! He has written 30 books on science activities, translated 400 books into Hindi, and presented 125 films on science activities on Doordarshan. He worked at the Children’s Science Center at IUCAA, Pune for 11 years. The Centre produced 8,600 short videos on simple experiments and science toys in 20 different languages. The videos have been viewed by over 72 million children worldwide. Every day, over 12,000 books are downloaded from his website arvindguptatoys. In 2018, he was awarded the Padma Shri and he also has to his credit, several awards including the inaugural Govt. of India Award for Science Popularization among Children, IIT Kanpur Distinguished Alumnus Award and Indira Gandhi Award for Science Popularization.
DR. Pratima Murthy, Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS took charge as full-term Director of the Institute on 18th June 2021.
DR. Murthy received her MBBS degree from Bangalore Medical College in 1985. She obtained DPM and MD (Psychological Medicine) from NIMHANS in 1987 and 1989 respectively. She joined as a faculty at her alma mater in 1993, and has worked in various academic capacities since then. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP)-Glasgow.
DR. Murthy brings about 30 years of extensive experience and exceptional accomplishments in the field of mental health. A well-recognized leader in addiction psychiatry, she has been instrumental in the successful development of state-of-the-art Centre for Addiction Medicine at NIMHANS.
She has served as a consultant to prominent international agencies such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), where she is presently a member of the Strategic Technical Advisory Group (STAG) on mental health, neurological and substance use disorders. She has also served as a resource person for various flagship training programmes in substance abuse prevention and tobacco cessation in the country, and across the globe.
DR. Murthy is also recognised for her contribution in improving care for persons with mental illness through her work with the National Human Rights Commission on quality assurance in mental health care both in institutions and in the community. She has been providing leadership for the national Tele MANAS programme and the Brain Health Initiative at NIMHANS.
In recognition of her research and academic excellence, DR. Murthy has received numerous awards and honours including the prestigious DR. Raja Ramanna State Award by the Government of Karnataka and Lifetime Achievement Award from Rotary. She was honoured with the WHO Regional Director’s Special Recognition Award on ‘World No Tobacco Day 2021’ for her remarkable service in tobacco control. A prolific author, she has more than 300 research publications in various international indexed journals and scientific books to her credit.
Sairee Chahal is a serial entrepreneur, mom, angel investor, evangelist for #womensinternet and a board member. She currently runs SHEROES - an online ecosystem for women, offering support, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities, content and community at www.sheroes.com and the SHEROES App and Mahila Money - a community neobank for women.
Sairee serves on the board of Milaan Foundation, Paytm Payments Bank and US based Women in Cloud.
Sairee is credited with building up an ecosystem to support women in their journeys as entrepreneurs and leaders. Sairee built a strong technology play to solve the problems of gender disparity in India.
A technology entrepreneur, Sairee has straddled the best of both worlds in her ventures Newslink, Fleximoms and now SHEROES. Her community-meets-platform approach has made SHEROES a globally formidable platform, changing the game for women and their aspirations.
With an M.Phil from JNU, and a PGDBM from IMT Ghaziabad, Sairee kickstarted her professional career while still in college before cofounding her first startup. She went on to also work at corporates like Heidrick and Struggles and CII.
An Aspen Leadership Fellow, A Braddock Scholar, she has been recognized for her achievements globally, Sairee is a Devi Award winner, apart from the Femina Achievers Award, Cartier Award, Editor’s choice for L’Oreal Femina Women’s Award, Business Today and Most Powerful Women in Indian Business.
Sumit Virmani, Chief Marketing Officer, Infosys is responsible for realizing the Infosys brand ambitions globally. He joined Infosys in 2004 and has since held multiple strategic positions including the Head of Infosys Products & Platforms marketing as well as the Global Head of Corporate marketing. He champions marketing effectiveness and enjoys the challenge of building strong connects between marketing metrics and business outcomes. Sumit comes with over 19 years of experience in international marketing. Prior to joining Infosys, he has worked with Polaris Software and the Tata Group where he acquired his specialist skills in brand development, marketing communications and demand generation.
Sunil Kumar Dhareshwar is currently Executive Vice President, Finance at Infosys Ltd.
He is responsible for Global Taxation, Corporate Accounting, Treasury & Group Head Infrastructure, Facilities and Physical Security. He is also the Global CFO for the Consulting, BPM, Products and Platform businesses. He is the Trustee of the Infosys Foundation the philanthropic arm of the Infosys Group.
Sunil has worked with Infosys for about 16 years and has previously worked with 21st Century FOX based out in Hong Kong.
He was awarded with the Stars of the Industry award for Best Automation in Finance, conferred with Best In-house Tax Director in Asia award by International Tax Review (a Euromoney Publication) in 2021 and, is the recipient of the CFO Next 100 award instituted by CFO India. He is a speaker at both National & International forums and is on the editorial panel of international tax review. He is the Chair of the Direct Tax Committee of Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
Sunil is qualified Chartered Accountant, a Rank Holder from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India also trained at the National Defense Academy in India.