SWAMI MUKUNDANANDA

Swami Mukundananda is a world-renowned teacher of spirituality, yoga, and meditation. He is the founder of Jagadguru Kripaluji Yog, well known as JKYog. Swamiji has stimulated and guided many a soul on the spiritual path, and he has been offering yoga workshops across the world over nearly three decades.

Swamiji has a distinguished technical and management educational background that complements his profound spiritual wisdom. Learn more about Swamiji.

Dr. Padmini Murthy

• Dr. Padmini (Mini) Murthy is a globally recognized health professional in her roles as a physician and public health expert. Currently she serves as Professor and Global Health Director at New York Medical College School of Health Sciences and Practice, USA. She currently serves as chair of the International Health Section of American Public Health Association A. She is global health lead for the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) and the NGO rep to United Nations.
• For the past 30 years Murthy has been working globally on projects and programs promoting women’s health and human rights Dr. Murthy has been working with UN ambassadors and UN missions to promote women’s health globally with local efforts. Some of the projects she has worked on include safe motherhood, spearheading the procurement of medical equipment to serve communities in Grenada, Kenya, India, Malawi, Liberia, and Nepal. She has worked with the former 1st Lady of Malawi on a Safe Motherhood Project by providing funds to establish maternity waiting home and supply safe motherhood kits to women.
• During the COVID crisis in 2020/ 2021 Murthy has spearheaded efforts working with other NGOs, foundations in the US and other countries in sending Oxygen Concentrators to India and PPE (over 85,000,) masks, face shields to the Navajo Nation, local organizations, and individuals. She is currently working on a Menstrual Equity Project with the First Lady of Suriname. Dr. Murthy has made over 150 presentations nationally and internationally is widely published and is the author and editor of Women's Global Health and Human Rights, Technology and Global Public Health (both of which are used as textbooks worldwide). Her other books include Mini’s Musings and Glorious Global Ganesh
• Dr. Murthy’s research interests focus on women’s health and human rights, social determinants of health, global health diplomacy, and promotion of global health with a focus on bridging inequities and promoting gender harmony.
• Dr. Murthy has been the recipient of numerous national and international awards, some of them include the following: First Indian born American in over 75 years to receive the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal from American Medical Women’s Association for her work in promoting women’s health globally.
• Recipient Sojourner Truth Pin given to those women who excel in community service Recipient Jerusha Jirad Oration for service to women from Association of Medical Women in India conferred in S. Korea
• In December 2021, Murthy has been the recipient of President of The United States Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteer Service

Dr. Rohini Godbole

#Prof. Rohini M. Godbole, currently Honorary Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, is a theoretical particle physicist. She retired from the Centre for High-Energy Physics of the IISc after serving as Professor for over 25 years. She was earlier at the Mumbai University., the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and has also worked at a number of universities in India, Europe and the USA including at CERN, Geneva. Two century old Universities , the S.N.D. T Women’s University and the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth have conferred D.Litt. on her. IIT(Kanpur) and VTU(Karnataka) have honoured her with a D.Sc. 

Her research over the past four decades, on exploring the Standard Model of particle physics and physics beyond the standard model, has resulted in over 300 publications in refereed journals/arXived preprints as well as a graduate textbook. Her pioneering work on probing hadronic interactions of photons provided important insights for the design of electron-positron colliders, and her suggestions to probe standard model (and beyond standard model) physics have been used in experiments at different colliders. 

A Fellow of The World Academy of Science (TWAS), she has been elected to the three science academies of India. She has served as Vice President of the Indian National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad and is currently serving as the Vice President of the Indian Academy of Sciences.. She is and has been a member different national and international advisory bodies such as Scientific Advisory Body to the Cabinet (SAC-C), the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel of the USA, the International Detector Advisory Group for the International Linear Collider etc. She has been also a member of the CERN-India Task Force and now a member of the steering committee. She has been the chief editor of Pramana, journal of Physics of the Indian Academy of Sciences, a member of various editorial boards of national and international journals, and is serving on the Advisory Board of the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia for Physics.

Professor Godbole has been an avid supporter of the cause of women in science, working over the past decades to facilitate more effective participation of women in the scientific workforce. Among her lasting contributions is the (co-edited) book Lilavati!s Daughters: The women scientists of India comprising of autobiographical sketches of Indian women scientists, as well as landmark surveys on the status of women in science. She chaired the Committee on Equity and Inclusion for India!s Science, Technology and Innovation policy of 2020 (STIP 2020). 
Rohini Godbole’s extensive contributions to science and society have been recognised by the Government of India through the conferment of the Padmashri in 2019, by the French Government through the honour Ordre National du Mérite in 2021. Further the Karnataka Academy of Science has honoured her through the Lifetime Achievement award in 2021. Among her recent awards, is also the Birla Award of the Indian Physics Association. 

Activities related to Women in Science:  
Plenary speaker at the first international conference on Women in Physics, organised by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) in Paris. After coming back from the IUPAP General Body meeting in Berlin the year after, she worked towards formation of Panels for Women in Science of the Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc) and Indian National Science Academy (INSA) being an elected fellow of both. Contributed to bringing out an INSA report; `Science Career for Indian Women: An examination of Indian women’s access to and retention in Science Careers’ a first report of such kind in brought out by an Academy of Science in India. She co-edited a book 'Lilavati's Daughters: Women Scientists of India', containing (auto)biographical sketches of about 100 Women Scientists of India, released in December 2008 and a book called 'A Girls' Guide to a Life in Science', containing material to inspire young girls to take up a career in science.  She directed a landmark survey of ‘Loss of trained scientific women power: what fraction are we losing and why?’. Has conducted a lot of workshops ‘Career in Science: Women in Science’ as a chair of the Panel for Women in Science of the Indian Academy of Sciences. She is editor/author of many reports on women in science in India, a steering committee member of the Joint Academy Panel for Women in Science and member of the Standing Committee for Women in Science of the Government of India. Worked towards pioneering a variety of programs, at various fora, to raise awareness about Women in Science. Chaired the committee which drafted discussions on Equity and Inclusion in India’s Science, Technology and Innovation policy of 2020.

RAKSHA NAIDOO

Raksha is a BSc graduate and an executive-level professional who has amassed over 18 years of 
experience in all facets of efficient and effective analytical research, mineral processing and 
production, process optimization, project management, development, and implementation of 
a business strategy, leadership, and general management. 

Raksha views teamwork, consultation and communication as the key pillars of all her successes. To this end, she is passionate about the transfer of knowledge to enable all members of her team to grow both personally and professionally. She has built harmonious relationships at all levels of the organisation to enable the achievement of common goals. This includes constructive relationships with organised labour, which has assisted in her growth as a leader.

One of Raksha’s biggest passions is people. Over the years that has come in different forms, always being the go-to friend, the listener and problem solver, mentor and leader, getting involved in various charity initiatives whenever possible, and even play match maker to friends looking for love. When Raksha sees potential in someone, she invests hard in them. She wants to see them develop, grow and become the best version of themselves. This mentorship passion propelled Raksha to get involved with Women in Mining South Africa organisation, where she currently serves as the Deputy Chairperson. And she holds the position of Managing Director of AMIS Group.

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NEHA HUSEIN

CEO of ZSTASH
Neha Husein is a human rights entrepreneur and SMU graduate with degrees in human rights and marketing and minors in advertising and nonprofit studies. Neha is the Founder & CEO of Just Drive, an app that rewards undistracted driving that she created after she was rear-ended by a driver that was texting. Neha gave a Tedx Talk on the importance of creating your own personal brand and was named one of Her Campus's 22 Under 22 Most Inspiring College Women and one of Poets&Quants Best and Brightest Business Majors of 2019. Since then, Neha created ZSTASH, a peer-to-peer marketplace rooted in sustainability for boutiques to buy and sell leftover inventory.