Rethink Desi

Anu Kumar is a Communications Manager at BRAC. She is responsible for the Ultra Poor Graduation Initiative’s digital communications, including the engagement and management of digital platforms. Prior to joining BRAC UPGI, Anu was the Communications Specialist for the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) focused on outreach and advocacy for issues centering racial, gender, and worker justice. Anu has supported communications efforts at think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations and New America. She also worked as a consultant at APCO Worldwide supporting projects and communications strategies for governments, corporations, and nonprofits. As a first-generation daughter of immigrants from South India, she is passionate about contributing to an organization based in and serving the Global South. Anu holds a Master’s in Intercultural and International Communication from the School of International Service at American University, and received her Bachelor’s in Journalism and International Studies from Indiana University Bloomington.

Apurva Bhandari is the Founder of SankalpTaru Foundation, a tech-enabled nonprofit whose mission is to promote sustainable development and preserve the natural environment through community engagement, education, and implementing innovative techniques. Users can choose to plant a tree, proceed to pay for it, and the organization will plant and provide users with a geo-tracker which has the trees live location on google map.

Dr. Preeti Kaushik has has completed her PhD. in Nano and Micro Technology from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. She has recently completed her postdoctoral research at Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. She talks about her journey and some of her work.

🔗 CONNECT WITH PREETI KAUSHIK 👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/preeti-kaushik-8b3a4152/ 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/nanolifetales/ 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EHUqbIUysf8 🔗 CONNECT WITH ARPITA 🎥 YouTube Channel - @arpitasartjourney 📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/artsbyarpita 💻 Website - https://arpitasharma.net 👥 Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arpita-sh... 🔗 CONNECT WITH RETHINK DESI /rethinkdesi 📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/rethinkdesi 💻 Website - https://rethinkdesi.org 🎧 LISTEN FOR FREE Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5EDxEd5...

Krishma immigrated to the United States from India when she was five years old, and like her protagonist Mira, grew up in Long Island and then attended NYU. She is a poet, writer, and public speaker. Krishma was the author of “Free Spirit,” a regular column in her hometown magazine, Brookville Living. She has an MS in education, as well as an MS in marketing. She has also worked as a high school social studies teacher for 11 years. She lives in NY with her husband and four children. She began writing From Ash to Ashes seventeen years ago, after the death of her first child. His loss was the inspiration for her book, and she has dedicated it to his memory. In addition to From Ash to Ashes, she is also writing a nonfiction book, titled Brown Girl’s Guide, a collection of essays on womanhood and motherhood as seen through the eyes of a woman of color.

Ashesh Kamdar is President of Pratham, LA Chapter. He is also the President CEO of GBS Linens, which he joined in 2006. Prior to GBS, Ashesh worked in the technology sector for over a decade. He held various product management, marketing, consulting, and engineering positions with firms such as Symantec, Nortel Networks, Deloitte Consulting, and Hewlett-Packard. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Michigan. Pratham, established in 1995 to provide education to children in Mumbai slums, is now one of the largest and most successful non-governmental education organizations in India.Working in collaboration with governments, communities, parents, teachers, and volunteers, Pratham focuses on innovative interventions to address gaps in the education system. The clarity of our mission—“every child in school and learning well”—drives us to make an impact on the lives of India’s children and extends from our leadership to our team in the field.Pratham USA is a volunteer-driven organization with 14 chapters across the United States that raise awareness and mobilize financial resources for our work on the ground.Link: https://prathamusa.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prathamusa/

Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Reframe Series, where we are unpacking what it means to be Desi, locally and globally. Please follow ups for more content!

For this week, we will be having a discussion on what a multi-national partnership for promoting education within India looks like. For this discussion, we have Shrithika Logeshwaran, a third-year student at UC Berkeley, who is the project steward for Asha for Education’s Rewards Trust, an organization that adds additional teachers in government schools in India,, and Anandhi ma’am, who is the treasurer of Rewards Trust. Reward works with nearly 70 teachers in 40 government schools in primary, and, upper primary, and high schools in villages in Kancheepuram district in Tamil Nadu.

Asha Berkeley: https://berkeley.ashanet.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asha_berkeley/

Link: https://ashanet.org/project/?pid=590

Connect with Shrithika here: shrithikal02@gmail.com 

Dr. Laxmi Ramasubramanian is Interim Associate Dean for Research for the College of Social Sciences and Professor of Urban Planning at San Jose State University. Her research focuses on how to improve the quality of public engagement about complex urban problems; and how to innovatively use local/indigenous community knowledge to inform planning and policymaking.

#urban planning #education #research #coproducingknowledge

Saumya is a Research Associate at the Global Center for Environment & Energy at the Ahmedabad University. She also works on the Opportunities for Climate Mitigation and Sustainable Development (OPTIMISM) project, which is funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council as part of the research council’s “Towards a Sustainable Earth” program and the DBT at Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.  Saumya is also an element scientist for the COVID Element in the Third Assessment Report on Cities & Climate Change (ARC3) anchored by Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN), Columbia University.  She believes in data-driven decision making and the use of high-quality research for advocacy. Her research focuses on the intersection of urban planning and climate change, urban and regional equity, and climate resilience. Saumya holds a Master’s in Planning degree from USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, with a specialization in sustainable development, and a bachelor’s degree in Planning from CEPT, Ahmedabad. During her time at CEPT, she recieved a prestigious UKIERI (UK-India Education and Research Initiative) scholarship to study comparative urban development and planning. Saumya also received the Best Gender Thesis Award in 2017, for her undergrad thesis, ‘Gender and Public Spaces: A Case Study of Sabarmati Riverfront’.  You can connect with her here: https://instagram.com/saumya_lathia?igshid=Yzg5MTU1MDY=

Hi everyone, welcome back for Season 2 of the Reframe Series podcast. This podcast helps us unpack what it means to be Desi locally and globally. Before we get started, please like and subscribe!  Mrinal Gokhale is an Indian-American writer with a special interest in psychology and wellness. As a former freelance journalist, she has worked for minority owned publications in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the most segregated city in the U.S. Though she has covered many events on Mental Health Awareness Month in the Black and Hispanic communities, she felt there was lack of education surrounding Asian mental health, and strived to change that. Her aim is to help other South Asians navigating mental health journeys in the western part of the world feel less alone, and to promote education and acceptance of mental health in South Asian communities. Her book, Saaya Unveiled: South Asian Mental Health Spotlighted shares true stories of second generation Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi immigrants and how they navigate mental health in the West. From topics like identity, culture, religion, socialization, academia, love, loss, and trauma, each unique story unveils a part of the shadow (saaya) of mental health in the South Asian diaspora.  

You can check out her book here:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57940012-saaya-unveiled 

Contact Info: https://linktr.ee/mgokhale

Hi friends...

So finally the last episode of Season 1 of Reframe series is out now. 

For episode 15 we have the Co-Founder of Rethink Desi, Arpita Sharma. Arpita holds dual Master’s degrees in Public Policy and Planning from the University of Southern California and a BA in Development Studies with a minor in Global Poverty and Practice from the University of California, Berkeley. Arpita is interested in helping nonprofits, local governments, and philanthropy groups better understand issues of immigrant integration and racial justice, economic inclusion and climate equity, and social movements and governing power. Prior to joining the Equity Research Institute team, she conducted quantitative and qualitative research on policy issues related to capital access for minority entrepreneurs and small business owners at the Milken Institute. She also worked as a Research Analyst at Estolano LeSar Advisors where she assisted in implementing active transportation projects for LA Metro and developing an equitable economic development plan for Cathedral City. Arpita’s passion for social justice work began in her youth when she learned about the importance of empathy, compassion, and advocacy as a first-generation immigrant living with a brother with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy with strength and beauty. Since then, she has worked with several organizations both in the United States and India to help solve challenges in education, health, and economic development.

#rethinkdesi #reframeseries #publicpolicy #dataanalyst #socialchange #southasiancommunity #southasians #usa

In this episode we discuss "Climate Change: From Research to Market." We get into conversation with Nikhil Gargeya who is a Senior Strategic Partnership’s Manager at Activate, a nonprofit organization that empowers scientists to reinvent the world by bringing their research to market to address climate change and other global challenges of our time. His work between the government and private sector, transforms scientists into high-impact entrepreneurs through a fellowship that guides them along every step of the journey. Before this, Nikhil worked with next47, the Siemens venturing arm. He holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from UC Berkeley. He has been on the board of YPE SF Bay Area and he is also a Clean Energy Leadership Institute (CELI) Fellow.