Dr Malvika Neeraj is a young entrepreneur who wishes to make a difference in society through her expertise in the medicine sector. She left her government job to start an onward journey as a social entrepreneur. The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 prompted her to initiate an NGO to provide affordable health care facilities in Colaba, Mumbai. They have a membership plan for individuals for as low as Rs.90 for 3 months, with 3 doctor visits and medicines included.

The Mumbai Health aimed at developing a low-cost solution for democratizing healthcare in India through 4 core activities Gully Clinic at Colaba, Gully E-Clinic: Online OPD Not for Profit, Gully On the Go: Mobile Clinics for hard to reach slums, Sen-tea-meter: A mental health empowerment group. They also aim to build a network of social entrepreneurs amongst healthcare professionals, make them aware about administration and social policy framework of the country. First time ever, young allopathic doctors are entering slums to run a daily OPD at rates comparable to government dispensaries in Mumbai.

With a vision of ensuring equitable education for all, Sakshi founded Anubhuti foundation in 2016. Her aspiration to gain exposure and understand the public education system led her to Gandhi Fellowship in 2016, CMGGA in 2018 and Public Policy Programme for Executives in 2019. These experiences helped her grow in her role as the Director of Anubhuti. Adding further feathers to her cap, in 2020 Anubhuti signed an MoU with Haryana Government in providing education to more than 15,000 drop-out students in Gurugram. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, she launched the Bridge Fellowship in Sohna block of Gurugram with the aim of imparting socio emotional learning to students through youth and community involvement. Simultaneously she was instrumental in providing COVID-19 relief through her campaign named “Nivala – Saath Aaye kisi ke ghar me chulha jalaye”.

Swati Singh is the founder of Aseem Shakti, a DIPP recognized Mumbai-based start-up by women and for women. The team at Aseem creates friendly, cooperative, and intelligent apparel for working women and has now patented the design for India’s first instant-wear saree with invisible pockets.

On International Women’s Day, Swati received accolades for her achievements from Sh. Ashish Shelar, MLA, Maharashtra. Through Aseem Shakti, she aims to empower women by enabling them financially and eradicating poverty in alignment with UNDP’s sustainable development goals.

Abhinav Jain, a bachelor’s in information technology from Vellore, worked for TCS for a while. Soon, his sight for village issues made him pursue a six-month Agaro-Ecology and sustainable Food Systems course from Calcutta University and to ameliorate the meager farming practices that were being followed by the farmers. His idea of change is to bring back the dignity in farming.

To effectuate the needed change, he started his venture Living Leaf. Through this brand he started, making and selling natural biodegradable Areca based, Saal-based, Bamboo fibre-based, bamboo pulp-based tableware and garbage bags in India and abroad. He aims to conceptualise alternative sustainable solutions for the products in day-to-day use. By his own admission, Policy BootCamp compelled him to move out of the cubicles of an IT company and reach such heights in his business.

Muskan Mittal is a graduate from Delhi University who along with her friends started a 100% not-for-
profit charitable initiative Cope-with COVID with a target of raising Rs. 10,00,000 through innovative
campaigns. She intends to procure oxygen concentrators, cylinders and other medical resources for tier-2 and tier-3 cities utilizing the raised money. They are organizing multiple skill-based workshops by professionals to build emotional intelligence, professional skills, creative skills, ICT skills etc. among adolescents, children, and youths.

Smrithi is in her fourth year of engineering from PESIT, Bangalore. She attended the Policy BootCamp 2015 in view of her interests in policies and legislative issues. VIF Policy BootCamp laid the road for achieving her objective of entering politics. It provided her the right network to grow as a public leader. Currently, she works with “The logical Indian”. Through her initiative called Kagakka Gubakka, she helps children to get a deeper experience of their culture. In July 2020, she was nominated to the Karnataka Sangeetha Nritya Academy as a member of the board by the Government of Karnataka.

Aparna Bhalla currently working as a Media Consultant with the Government of Delhi, was a student of journalism from IIMC Dhenkanal. As the second wave of COVID hit India, she along with her friends started a campaign called ‘ALL EARS’ to lend their ear to the people who struggle to express themselves. ‘All Ears’ is an initiative that recognizes the taxing moments we’re spending in solace and stress. She along with her friends have started this to create a safe space where people can have friends by their side, sharing situations like theirs. They are a support group of eight enthusiastic individuals, who recognize the mental health concerns which people are facing in these trying times and will appreciate an outlet to unburden themselves.

She is a graduate in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and currently serving in the Indian Administrative Services as an Assistant Commissioner, placed in Sonitpur district, Assam. In her second year of college she joined Policy BootCamp where for the first time she had the chance to interact with bureaucrats, academicians, and members of various think tanks. It was a chance encounter with IAS Anil Swarup that left her rather fascinated about the services. In 2019 she cracked the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services Examn (CSE) in her first attempt and secured an All India Rank of 31 at the age of 22. By her own admission the sheer knowledge received from the gramme was immense and despite not having any background in policy, Policy BootCamp gave a right direction after JEE & college to move into.

Ankit Jain is a final year student of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Madras. He joined Policy BootCamp 2016 at a time when he was figuring out ways to integrate what he was studying in IIT and where his passion lies. According to him, the guidance he got from the speakers and the interactions he had with the delegates aided him in setting his sights on pursuing a career in public policy. Ankit would be joining CleanMax Solar as a Business Development Manager and would focus on Energy Policy in his extra time. He aims for Masters in “Public Policy and Economics” and wishes to work at the intersections of Policy, Technology and Business in future. Ankit was among the 200 delegates selected for “WB Group Youth Summit” which happened in World Bank Headquarter in Washington DC, Nov 2016. He is also the co-founder of Vande Mataram, a lecture group at IIT Madras.

He is a software professional turned full-time farmer. He decided to quit his job after attending VIF’s PBC 2016 and got fully committed to transforming his village Yazali, near Guntur with education and farming. Through support and contributions from non-resident villagers and migrants, today he has phenomenally aced government school results, built old age homes, and brought environmentally sustainable and economically viable farming practices to his village. He has recently been awarded the Youth for Development Award by Hon. PM Narendra Modi Ji in 2018 and Young Achievers Award by Quality Council of India and Vision India Foundation in 2017.

She graduated with a degree in Economics from Kirori Mal College, Delhi University. In 2021, she left her job to start a social venture named The Zero Period which aims to advocate for and enable Sexuality Education in Indian schools. Their intervention strategy involves online advocacy and teacher-training for sensitization as well as classroom sessions, taking inspiration from the Health and Wellness Ambassador Initiative launched by Gol in early 2020. Despite the globally recognized need for Comprehensive Sexuality Education, India has struggled for a long time to include it as a part of its overall education provided in schools. Therefore, she aims to meet this gap via 3 ways: active advocacy, de-stigmatization initiatives in schools and training and upskilling existing school teachers for classroom implementation. Since its inception, they conducted a research study titled ‘Making a Case for Sexuality Education in India’, which was built to emphasize the need-gap that exists in the lives of students due to lack of sexuality education, and how their social and emotional requirements can be met with a smooth provision of the same. This report was attested by Principals of some esteemed schools in India, along with a foreword written by Ms. Seema Bansal, Partner and Director of Social Impact at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and reviewed by various marquee sexuality educators in India.

Now, The Zero Period is set to begin it’s year-long pilot intervention program with some selected
schools across Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.