Road Trip Team

The climate solutions road tour would not have been possible without a team of such passionate and committed individuals who took to the streets to highlight climate solutions. The photo to the left shows many of the individuals who joined us on the road, but many more joined us, and even our list below cannot possibly capture the hundreds of people across India who helped us in each city that we passed through. We have immense gratitude to all who joined and supported us in the journey.

Aayush Makharia: Aayush is in the second year of his Bachelors of Commerce at H. R. College, Mumbai. He is actively mobilizing youth in Mumbai towards eco-solutions, creating awareness across different colleges through presentations. He is also helping to formalise IYCN in Bombay. He is one of the Mumbai Coordinators for the Climate Solutions Road Tour and will be joining the journey from Mumbai to Ahmadabad.

Abishek Bharadwaj: Abishek graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Hyderabad with a bachelor's in Mechanical and Energy sources. he worked in Infosys Technologies limited, Pune as a Software engineer and also as a Green Analyst for the Pune Development Center for 2.5 years. He is the founder of the eco-club in Infosys, which has around 150 members in Pune, working against climate change and various environmental initiatives within Infosys. He is one of our core road team members travelling with the team from Chennai to Delhi as a part of the Climate Solutions Road tour.

Alark Saxena: Alark is a current doctoral candidate at Yale School of Environment focusing his research on climate change adaptation looking at how communities can adapt to a changing world. Prior to starting his doctoral work, Alark was directing a Disaster Risk Reduction Initiative at the Yale Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry.  Alark has an MBA in Forestry Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management and a Masters in Environmental Management at Yale. 

Alexis Ringwald: Alexis graduated from Yale University in 2006 with a Bachelor's and Master's in Environmental Management, and arrived in India in 2006 on a Fulbright Fellowship studying renewable energy finance and climate change at The Energy and Resources Institute with Dr. R.K. Pachauri as her adviser. Her Fulbright report "India Renewable Energy Trends" has been published in several editions. She is a co-founder of Valence Energy, a solar and smart grid company.

Anna da Costa: Anna graduated from Cambridge in 2006 with a BA in Zoology and Conservation. Since then, she has spent time in India and the UK, working and writing on climate change impacts, political and corporate leadership, and climate solutions with organizations including the Ecologist magazine, the Navdanya Trust, the St. Paul's Institute and The Climate Group. Anna is Co-Director for the Climate Solutions Project, and Advisor to the Cleanstar Trust on corporate engagement and climate policy.

Bidisha Banerjee: Bidisha is from Kolkata, India, and Lawrence, Kansas. She has been a journalist in Washington, D.C. and Montreal, an organic neem farmer in Hawaii, and an environmental educator in New Haven, Tamil Nadu, and Bengal. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science, where she continues to be inspired by the urgency and vitality of the Climate Solutions Road Tour.

Caroline Howe: Caroline graduated from Yale College in Mechanical & Environmental Engineering in 2007, with a focus on climate change and Yale's campus sustainabilty. She has worked on climate change adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable development projects in Central America, West Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, and is now living in India, where she has been working since 2007. She is the Climate Solutions Coordinator for IYCN.

Deepak: Deepak is one of the most amazing mechanics we have ever met. With an ability to rewire any building, dabbha or hotel for Reva charging, as well as to fix any issues arising with the cars, he possesses the level headedness and commitment to manage any situation. He is an absolutley integral member of the road tour team, to whom we shall be ever grateful. We thank him for his eternally positive attitude. 

Deepanjali Gupta: Deepa is currently a studying bachelor of business at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She has previously worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers in their climate change practice, and has worked in project management with Saviom. Deepa has founded and is an Executive Director of the Indian Youth Climate Network and is working to build India’s youth movement on climate change. She has worked on religion and climate change with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC). And was the Environment officer at UTS, where she helped set up the UTS Environmental Sustainability Initiative.

Jitin Abraham brings a decade of experience from the talent, music, events, entertainment and media industries of India. He is inspired to redirect this network and these industries to a greener future by harnessing the power of these mediums in the battle against climate change. Based out of Bombay, his company 21 Tigers Entertainment, is a boutique music marketing agency that works with brands and bands such as Jalebee Cartel, Shiva Soundsystem, MTV, Rolling Stone India, Universal Music, Smirnoff and Vh1. Prior to this, he played a key role in setting up the TV channel, Vh1, in India.

Kabir Arora: Kabir is an undergraduate student of Geography at Jamia Millia Islamia, coordinating the organisation Pahal in Punjab - working on youth empowerment. Apart from this, he writes for various newspapers in the North zone on environmental issues. He is one of our core road tour members.  

Kartikeya Singh: Kartik received his bachelors in ecology and sustainable development from Furman University. He was the sole Indian of the 22-member US youth delegation to the 2007 UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, and has since founded and is an Executive Director of IYCN, he has launched the blog "What's with the Climate? Voices of a Subcontinent Grappling with Climate Change" as a means to connect youth voices across South Asia. Kartik has also authored a paper entitled 'The Rise of Asia: Feeling the Weight of the East'. His research interests include geopolitics of energy use, transportation, rural energy, and wildlife.

Lydia Ringwald: Lydia is an artist, professor and writer from California. She worked towards a PhD  in Comparative Literature from University of Connecticut. She brought the Art Miles Mural project to India on the Climate Solutions Road Tour. In each city, young people painted their visions for the earth and a sustainable planet. These murals will be taken to Egypt to be wrapped around a pyramid on World Peace Day 2010.

Pranav Mehta: Pranav is a CNG crusader, and solar and renewable energy project promoter and consultant. He is the CEO of Global India Energy Solutions and Director [India Operations] of the Space Island Group Inc. California, USA. In addition, he is Vice President of the CNG Association of India and Director of Gadhia Solar. Pranav is our Climate Solutions Road Tour Chief Mentor.

Ram Nitesh: Nitesh is from Andhra Pradesh, and is a third year student at SRM University in Chennai where he has founded the Eco(you)th program. He is a Chennai coordinator for IYCN and is coordinating the Climate Solutions Bus project to create the vehicle that will transport these climate visionaries!

Stanislav Miler: Stanislav is a Czech born activist and multimedia producer who has been travelling for more than 3 years in his Eco auto - small mobile home and cinema powered by used vegetable oil. The aim of his Eco Journeys is to experience life, culture and environmental issues in different countries and share his experiences through presentations using mobile cinema and Internet (www.ecojourneys.info). His focus has been the possibilities of using bio-fuels and environmental impacts of animal framings. He is promoting vegetarian diet as a harmonic way of life. Stanislav has driven his  Eco auto from Europe to India and will be joining the Climate solutions tour from Chennai to Delhi. 

Solar Punch: Solar Punch is a fantastic solar powered band with a number of fantastic songs about the sun and our environment. They communicate an important message for the planet with fun and engaging music! (Solar Punch)

Vinay Jaju: Vinay studied at St Xaviers Kolkata and SP Jain Mumbai, has led International projects in AIESEC, and recently worked with GE in Australia. He is now heading a grassroot climate action project in Kolkata - Switch ON, committed to spread the urgency of climate change using arts and take action. He is joining the solutions road trip on his bicycle, to question our over-reliance on coal.

Regional Coordinators

Chennai: Arun Uppaswamy, Naina Shah, Sid Sareen, Uma Venkatasan 

Bangalore: Anshuman Acharya, Ashok Das, Brinda Gourav, Digu Aruchamy, Hita Unnikrishnan, Levine Lawrence, Mayank Grungta, Mini Sastry, Praveen Gupta, Rohan Parikh, Venugopal Sathyanarayana, Mr. Shanbagh

Hyderabad: Aditya Kesanupali, Chaitanya Kumar, Deeti Byrraju, Seshu Musunuri, Sidharth Indukuri, Shyam Penubolo, Raghu Surikuchi, Srinivasan, Vatsal Chintalapati, Venugopal Sathya, Shiv Gupta

Pune: Archana Devar, Shashank Verma, Shridhar, Shrikant Belokar, Siddharth Desai, Severine Fumoux, Sagun Saxena, Monisha Baldawa

Mumbai: Dhruv Sanghavi, Dr. Fulekar, Dr. Sawant, Nandini Janarghinan, Prashant Chari, Rajendra Abhyankar, Ruchi Jain, Seema Prasoon, Vishwajeet Singh, Lynne Gadkowski, Kanishka Gangopadhyay, Elizabeth Kauffmann, Angeline Thangaperakasam

Goa: Aaron Pereira, Clinton Vaz, Dean D'Cruz

Valsad and Anumukti: Aparnaben, Deepak Ghadia, Surendrabhai 

Ahmedabad: Anand Ramakrishnan, Aparna Susala, Charmie Haria, Hema Parikh, Poorva Lalbhai, Priya Mohana, Prof. Anil Gupta, Siddharth Jaiswal, Srijan Pal Singh, Nitesh Jain

Beawar: Shweta Mangal, Yash Mangal

Udaipur: Deepak Saini, Sonali Singh 

Jaipur: Dr. Dinesh

Delhi: Leela Raina, Nishta Prakash, Reva Prakash, Samarjeet Khanna, Sreepriya Balakrishnan, Govind Singh, Vidya Subramanian, Shiva Kumar