Adhik first visited Kashmir in 1997 to study the political conditions and local problems. His initial efforts were centered around volunteering, working for various NGOs from Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Jammu and Srinagar, and UNICEF supported projects.
After countless visits and a deep understanding of the ground realities, he took up the cause of upliftment of the Kashmiri children and women especially orphans and widows. On 12th May 2002, Borderless World Foundation launched its first project; Basrea-E-Tabassum (Abode of Smiles), a Home for girl-orphans in the frontier district of Kupwara (Sulkoot village) in the Kashmir Valley. Though he faced stiff resistance and threats to his life from religious heads and clerics, he refused to abandon the project and work in a safer place.
Today the NGO is running four orphanage homes for girls in the four districts of Jammu and Kashmir . From just 2 girls in 2002, today BWF has more than 180 girls across the 4 centers. BWF is also one of the winners of the CSO Partners Outstanding Annual Report Awards 2009, for transparency, accountability and best documentation process in NGO sector in India.
Anshul is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of YouthKiAwaaz.com (YKA), India’s largest online platform empowering young people to express themselves on issues of importance. He has worked across new media and online journalism and is a first generation entrepreneur. Anshul is an Ashoka Fellow; he has also served as a Director on the Board of Collectively, a World Economic Forum and Unilever collaborative non-profit, to help make the future better.
Having started YouthKiAwaaz.com in 2008, he gained extensive experience in citizen media, new media, social media and how to mobilise and engage young people in participatory and collaborative journalism to create a larger impact on a mass audience.
YouthKiAwaaz.com has now become India’s number 1 youth portal with millions of readers every month, over 50000 contributors from across the world, and more than 2 million readers a month.
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Fashion entrepreneur Gayatri Jolly’s brainchild MasterG, a design and skill development ecosystem based out of Delhi, UP and Haryana. She is a qualified Fashion Designer from Parsons, New York and a Business Graduate from Babson College, Boston. She worked for about two years in the fashion industry in New York with companies such as Armani, Diane Von Furstenberg, Dennis Basso and has designed costumes for clients of international acclaim such as Dana Fuchs, Jay Hill etc and worked on costume design for Lady Gaga at Diane Von Furstenberg. She divides her time between designing and training of individuals who aspire but lack access to quality training and opportunities. MasterG enables women from low-income communities to question the baggage of societal norms and to empower themselves financially through the vocation of fashion design. Through its emphasis on safe and labor laws-compliant factory space and wages, and an empathetic and equitable gender dynamic, MasterG aims to humanize the garment manufacturing supply chain and uphold dignity in the industry through a three-pronged approach – MasterG Training Centers, the MasterG Studio, and the in-house brand, HEIMA.
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Kelli is an American-born cultural anthropologist based in Indonesia, whose work focuses on the role of the media in the construction of religious identity. With a strong belief in the potential of new media to change perspectives, she is launching a collaborative platform to facilitate the circulation of stories and voices from the communities of Eastern Indonesia. Her work has landed her in interesting situations – she once lived with and studied the Toraja people of South Sulawesi, whose practice it is to live with the mummified bodies of their deceased relatives.
Kourosh Ziabari is studying MA International Multimedia Journalism at the University of Kent’s Centre for Journalism on a Chevening Award by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He has been contributing to open Democracy since 2016 and successfully applied for individual membership to Chatham House in 2017.
In November 2016, he had the chance to cover the World Forum for Democracy in Straousburg, France on a Fellowship by the Council of Europe. In April 2016, he became the first Iranian speaker/delegate to give a speech to the American Middle Eastern Network for Dialog at Stanford (AMENDS). Kourosh has been a reporter and correspondent with the San Francisco based Fair Observer since 2014.
Sanvar Oberoi is the Co-Founder and Director of Finance and Digital Technology at Bombay Hemp Company (BOHECO), a hybrid social enterprise transforming agriculture in developing economies. BOHECO is South Asia’s pioneering help company and is working with governements, scientists, farmers, industry and consumers globally to build an end-to-end ecosystem and self sustaining model which unleashes the supercrop’s tremendous socio-economic and environmental benefits at large scale.
He leads the BOHECO Innovation Lab, the organisation’s moonshot and fundamental research and nanotechnology domain. He has always been deeply affected by the growing number of farmer suicides and their state. He has mafe it his life’s mission to reinstate the status-quo of farmers, women artisans and producers in society and develop interventions to continually and sustainably improve their quality of life significantly. He’s a Ph.D research scholor in Business Economics and has been awarded the INK, Rajeev Circle and Ashoka Fellowship
Sheetal is a public health expert, disability specialist and social entrepreneur. She currently works as Chief Executive Officer and Board Member for one of India’s leading non-profits, Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS), Warora. She operates from one of the most backward districts of Central India, building livelihood capabilities of most marginalized people, especially those with disabilities like- the leprosy afflicted, orthopedically handicapped, vision and hearing impaired and primitive tribal populace for last 67 years.
She is also a member of various policy level education, agricultural, entrepreneurship development and healthcare innovation committees that include governmental and non-governmental apex committees.
Shonali Bose is an internationally-acclaimed Indian film director, writer and film producer. Both her narrative feature films — ‘Amu’, and ‘Margarita with a Straw’ — opened to critically-acclaimed theatrical releases in India, North America and Japan. They have been screened in over 150 film festivals including TIFF and Berlinale and won over 50 prestigious international awards. The Sky is Pink is her third feature narrative. It had its premier at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2019 where it was the only Asian film in the Gala Presentations. It opened theatrically in 25 countries on October 11 and is now on Netflix. Bose is also the author of a Penguin published novel based on her screenplay — Amu; making her the only Indian to releaser her own novel and feature film simultaneously. Bose has an MA in Political Science from Cambridge University and an MFA in Directing from the UCLA Film School. She lives between Los Angeles and Mumbai and is most proud of being the mother of her two sons — Ishan and Vivan.
Suhail Yusuf Khan is a classically trained sarangi player. Suhail has been training and performing since he was 7 years of age. Suhail’s career highlights to date includes appearing in Forbes India 30 under 30, being awarded an honorary scholarship at Wesleyan University in the US in 2016 and being an Indian ambassador for ‘Arts for the British Council’. Suhail is a part of the GIMA award winning band ‘Advaita’ and is currently signed with Domino Record label band ‘Yorkston Thorne Khan’ and also touring with Indo- Welsh folk/jazz band, ‘Khamira’, Indo-Korean collab ‘Hauz Khas Connction’.
Apart from creating worthwhile music, Suhail’s aim is to take sarangi to new audiences and celebrate its tradition, emotion and vibrancy.
Suman Sridhar is a powerhouse performer, seamlessly blending jazz, hip-hop, Bollywood, Indian classical, and opera into a genre-defying sonic experience. A multifaceted artist—singer, musician, and actor, Suman holds a degree in Music, Visual Art, and Gender Studies from Rutgers University, USA.
She is celebrated for chart-topping Bollywood hits like Fifi (Bombay Velvet), Muskaane Jhooti Hain (Talaash), and Khoya Khoya Chand (Shaitan). Beyond film, her vocal artistry has elevated award-winning TVC jingles, further solidifying her place in India’s contemporary music scene.
Suman has a music act called The Black Mamba which features a world, urban contemporary sound. Suman’s mesmerizing stage presence has graced some of the world’s most prestigious platforms, including dOCUMENTA (13) (Germany), Southbank Centre (UK), BBC World Service (UK), NH7 Weekender (India), Coke Studio (MTV India), Jazzmandu (Nepal), The Great Escape Festival (UK), and the Royal Opera House (India). In March 2025, Suman Sridhar released a music video for her track “Plastic,” directed by renowned Bengali filmmaker Qaushiq Mukherjee. The video intersperses news footage of India’s rivers and green spaces affected by plastic pollution with performance art by Akkudev (Akanksha Dev). The song highlights the environmental crisis in urban areas like Mumbai.
A go-getter with tremendous passion and enegy, Vita Dani resembles the new age woman of today, who is keen to make a substantial difference in the world through sports and philanthropic activities.
Vita is the co-owner of ‘Chennaiyin FC’ team along with Abhishek Bachhan and MS Dhoni. She is also the President of MCDTTA (Mumbai City District Table Tennis Association). 11Even Sports conducts activities in table Tennis in 29 states in India under her guidance. She believes that Indian kids have tremendous potential in sports and is involved in popularizing football and table tennis.
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