Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2003 he co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan, and he remains one of the Lab’s Directors. Banerjee is a past president of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, a Research Associate of the NBER, a CEPR research fellow, International Research Fellow of the Kiel Institute, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a winner of the Infosys Prize.

Abhijit is the author of a large number of articles and four books, including Poor Economics, which won the Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year, and Good Economics for Hard Times, both co-authored with Esther Duflo. He is the editor of three more books and has directed two documentary films. Banerjee has served on the U.N. Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. He is a co-recipient of the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his groundbreaking work in development economics research.

Arvind Kumar Chaudhary is an Indian Administrative Officer with over 25 years of experience in the civil services of Indian National Government. A trained civil engineer from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, he presently holds important portfolios in the Government of Bihar as Principal Secretary Rural Development Department and Examination Controller, Bihar State Combined Entrance Examination Council. Formerly, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) for over 7 years.

Under his able leadership, the Bihar Rural Livelihood Project’s approach that started as a pilot in 22 villages of 6 blocks in Bihar in 2007 has spread to all parts of Bihar, influencing lives and livelihoods of over 8 million rural households till date. Mr. Chaudhary has championed professionalization of technical assistance architecture in the project and has led successful scale up of crucial innovations through community-based organizations. In his present role, Mr. Chaudhary has spearheaded the implementation of several ground-breaking reforms in functioning of Panchayati Raj Institutions and has championed improved planning and increased accountability of local government through involvement of community institutions.

Balamurugan D. is an Indian Administrative Officer with over a decade of experience in the civil services of Indian National Government. A graduate in Agriculture Science and Agri- Management from Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore, he is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) popularly known as JEEViKA, the flagship program for poverty alleviation in the State. He brings rich experience in governance and administration with his stints as District Magistrate in districts of Jehanabad, Gopalganj, Darbhanga, Gaya and Siwan. In his previous roles, he has contributed immensely in the areas of digitizing the Social Pension Programs and community led sanitation systems. Mr. Balamurugan is also the Commissioner, Self-Employment, Govt. of Bihar and leads the agenda of skill development in rural areas for gainful self-employment in rural Bihar.

Gayatri is a Lead Economist with the Agriculture and Food Global Practice of the World Bank. She has operational and research experience in Africa, Latin America, East and South Asia across poverty, agriculture, rural livelihoods and access to resources. She leads policy dialogue and projects on sustainable development, and on research and analytics related to poverty, rural development, agricultural and environmental economics, evaluations, nutrition, gender and youth employment. Gayatri has a BA in Economics from Smith College, Massachusetts; a Master of Science in Natural Resource Management from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand and a DPhil in Environmental Economics from the University of York, England.

Vinay Kumar Vutukuru is a Senior Agriculture Economist at the World Bank, Kenya based out of Nairobi. He currently anchors the Agriculture Portfolio for the World Bank in Kenya.

He has previously worked in the South Asia region on Agriculture and Rural Development initiatives at the World Bank. He supported the JEEViKA initiative for 10 years between 2009 and 2019 initially based out of Patna and then moving to Delhi. During this period, he provided technical support to the Policy makers in Government of Bihar and the JEEViKA team at multiple levels to introduce and scale up many initiatives focused on enhancing livelihoods for the communities.

He was also on a development assignment with the India Country Management Unit working closely with the Country Director and the Operations Manager on strategic management of the bank portfolio in India including enabling linkages across different sectors and themes. Before joining the bank, he worked in the areas of agriculture, rural development, demand side governance and rural safety nets with the Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP) and the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

He finished his graduate degree in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University and is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Alka Upadhyay is Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development, Director General of the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency, CEO of the National Rural Livelihood Mission, and Director General of the Council for Advancement of Peoples’ Action and Rural Technology and has a long association with implementation and policy making of various rural development programs. She has worked on rural infrastructure – including the biggest rural road construction and connectivity program known as Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). She has been a pioneer in the construction of rural roads using plastic waste in the State of Madhya Pradesh and for using remote sensing technology. In her current role, she looks after the National Rural Livelihoods Mission which is based on a deep engagement with the community and promotes the building of capacity and skills of rural women and youth to catalyze opportunities for rural livelihoods and create an enabling environment for rural entrepreneurship. Ms. Upadhyaya has held senior positions in the State as Secretary in the Department of Finance, Environment, Personnel, Health and Mission Director in National Rural Livelihood Mission and Water & Sanitation. Ms. Upadhyaya holds a Masters degree in Organic Chemistry, Economics and Public Administration from Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Nita Kejrewal is a Joint Secretary in Government of India belonging to the Central Secretariat Service. She has put in more than 25 years of service in various capacities in different Ministries of GoI. Most of her work has been in Ministries dealing with the social sector where she has dealt with national level programmes like the National Tuberculosis Control Programme and National Leprosy elimination Programme and also dealt with administration of the Drugs And Cosmetics Act and the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. For the last more than 10 years she has been working with the Ministry of Rural Development and has been associated with the design and implementation of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihoods Mission from its inception.

Chandra Shekhar Ghosh has been one of foremost proponents of microfinance and micro banking in India. He has more than 30 years of experience in the microfinance and development terrain.

'Bandhan' is the name of the not-for-profit entity that Mr. Ghosh had set up in April 2001, with the objective of changing the lives of underprivileged by giving them small loans and handholding them in their entrepreneurship journey. The entity transformed from an NGO to an NBFC and finally into a universal bank which was inaugurated in August 2015. This is the first instance in India of a microfinance institution transforming into a universal bank.

The banking licence recognises Mr. Ghosh's seminal work in financial inclusion in India. With a pan-India presence, the bank caters to 2.03 crore customers and has 41,563 employees on its payroll, as on June 30, 2020.

A Penguin Random House publication 'Bandhan: The Making of a Bank' (2016) has chronicled Mr. Ghosh’s journey as an institution-builder.

Among the numerous awards that Mr. Ghosh has won, the prominent ones include the following –

• 'Senior Ashoka Fellow' – social entrepreneurship award – in 2007 by Ashoka Foundation
• 'Entrepreneur with Social Impact' 2014 by Forbes India Leadership Awards
• ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ 2014 by The Economic Times
• CNN-IBN ‘Indian of the Year’ in 2016 in the Business category
• ‘Banker of the Year’ for 2018-19 by Business Standard

Mr. Ghosh holds a master’s degree in Statistics. He has attended the HBS-ACCION Program on Strategic Leadership at Harvard Business School. He has also completed the Certification Programme in IT & Cyber Security conducted by Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), established by the Reserve Bank of India.

Besides being the Former President of Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCC&I) and the former Chairman of CII, Eastern Region, he is also associated with various other committees. Some of them are:

• Member of Managing Committee of Indian Banks' Association (IBA)
• Member, Corporate Governance Council, CII
• Co-Chair, Financial Inclusion Committee, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)
• Member of Committee on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector, Government of West Bengal
• Member of College Advisory Committee (CAC) in CAB, Pune
• Distinguished Invitee on the Council of Management, AIMA

Vijay Mahajan went to study at the IIT Delhi after schooling in Jaipur. During his IIT days, Vijay got exposed to the social and economic problems of India and became concerned about the prevailing situation. After IIT, Vijay worked for four years as a Marketing Executive with Philips India Ltd, the electronics multinational. In 1979, he decided to go to IIM Ahmedabad, where also he again got exposed to development work under Prof Ravi Matthai and Prof Ranjit Gupta. At the end of IIMA, Vijay decided to devote his life to work for the upliftment of India’s poor by focusing on livelihood promotion for them.

In 1982, Vijay founded PRADAN and began to help landless people who had received Bhoodan land to establish themselves as small farmers. Till 1985 he worked in the Gaya, Munger and Deoghar districts. Later PRADAN spread to several districts of south Bihar, which became Jharkhand in 2000. PRADAN has since then worked with over a million poor households. In search of a more sustainable model, Vijay moved on from PRADAN in 1991. For a year, Vijay went for further studies in Economic Development Policy as a mid-career Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.

After five years development studies and advisory work, Vijay founded the Basix Social Enterprise Group in 1996. It became a pioneer in microfinance and has supported the livelihoods of over 30 lakh poor households through microfinance and livelihood promotion services in India. Vijay brought BASIX to Bihar in 1999 and it has worked in the state since then on microcredit through its MFI and on agricultural development and livelihood promotion through Indian Grameen Services (IGS), the non-profit affiliate of BASIX, chaired by Vijay. From 2012 to 2017, Vijay was Chairman of the Board of an NGO, Sarva Seva Samiti Sanstha, which works in several districts of Bihar including Muzaffarpur, Sheohar, Purnia and Katihar.

The UNDP has supported the work of Vijay on livelihood promotion for the poor in several states, particularly MP, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. The UNDP regarded the Rajasthan Mission on Livelihood Promotion designed and managed by BASIX from 2005 to 2010 as a show-case project. BASIX was asked by the United Nations Capital Development Find, UNCDF, to work in nine least developed countries. Vijay retired from Basix in 2017, after 20 years’ service. Since 2018, Vijay joined the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation as its CEO and also the Director of its affiliate the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS). One of its areas of expertise is Sustainable Development Goals and their implementation by state governments. Vijay served on the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (2005-10); the Rangarajan Committee on Financial Inclusion 2007-08; the Raghuram Rajan Committee on Financial Sector Reforms 2008-09; and several Working Groups of the XIth and XIIth Five Year Plans. He has advised State Governments of AP, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Nagaland, Meghalaya over the years and the Niti Aayog in 2017-18.

Apoorva Oza is the Chief Executive Officer of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India). He is a mechanical engineer with a diploma in rural management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He has also done a course on Strategies for Change: Managing NGOs from Cranford University, United Kingdom, and a three-month course from Cornell University, USA. Apoorva Oza started his career as a Deputy Manager (Projects and Engineering) with Gujarat Dairy Development Corporation. He joined AKRSP (India) as a Programme Coordinator in 1988 and moved up to the position of Senior Programme Executive in 1994. He was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AKRSP (India) in 2001. He is also a trustee of several NGOs like Society for Womens Action and Training Initiative (SWATI), MahitiAdhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) and Arid Communities and Technologies (ACT). He is also the founder trustee of many NGO networks like Pravah (drinking water), Sajjata Sangh (agriculture livelihoods) and Charkha (media advocacy).

Rahul is a Deputy Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and leads the Digital portfolio across various programs in India. He has been with the foundation for nearly seven years and works closely with the Government & other stakeholders to make digital impact in core health, nutrition and community programs in India. Rahul’s work includes support efforts in creating a national digital health architecture, digitally enabling front line workers and supporting innovative technology solutions for sustainable impact. Prior to the foundation, Rahul spent 16 years in Management & Technology Consulting, having held leadership roles in PwC, KPMG, Wipro Consulting & EY. He has worked extensively on e-Governance in India and overseas, advising government on use of technology for improved citizen-centric service delivery.

Anand Ranjan is the Platform and Growth Advisor at Societal Platform . He is a Computer Science Engineer with MBA from The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. He has been part of the Core Team as Consultant for developing digital solutions in Hindustan Liver limited (1997-1998),Bank One Corporation(1999-2000), Covansys (2000-2006). He joined IBM in 2006 as Deployment manager , Enterprise Licenses and moved up the position of Program Director in 2015 . In 2017 he co founded Agtech Startup leading the incubation of Ag-Tech solutions and joined Ek step foundation in 2018 as Platform and Growth Advisor working on amplifying network interactions by designing solutions that fit ecosystem needs, scaled through responsive digital infrastructure. He leads the platform thinking for population-scale missions in areas including Lifelong learning, Financial Inclusion, Sustainable Habitat, Emerging Livelihood, and Personalized Healthcare.

Parmesh Shah is the Global Lead for Rural Livelihoods and Agricultural Jobs at the World Bank. In this position he provides leadership to Bank’s work in these areas and supports development of global knowledge and learning in these areas to offer solutions to clients and other development partners. He previously lead the rural livelihood and development cluster in South Asia region of the World Bank and is involved in designing and supporting a number of rural poverty reduction and inclusive growth programs in the region. His current areas of interest are economic and social organizations and networks of the poor, making markets and public services work for the poor, social entrepreneurship, ICT-based innovations in agriculture and rural development, promotion of on farm and off farm jobs and public private and people partnerships for rural poverty reduction. He is currently involved in developing a regional program on scaling up digital agriculture in Africa region involving setting up ecosystems for entrepreneurship and incubation.

Prior to his current position, Parmesh worked as Coordinator of the Bank wide Community of Practice on "Participation." In this role, he supported development of operational knowledge and learning across the Bank group on community driven development, community participation, participation in development of country-owned poverty reduction strategies and social accountability mechanisms,

Before joining the Bank, Parmesh worked for governments, civil society organizations, foundations and other bilateral and multilateral development organizations in Asia and Africa regions in the areas of community driven development, participatory approaches, institutional change and natural resources management.

He holds a D Phil in Development Studies from Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and B Tech degree in Agricultural Engineering from Pantnagar in India.

He has authored a number of papers and publications and has co-edited the book Fertile Lands: Economic and Environmental Impacts of Participatory Watershed Development Programs. ( IT Publications)

Rikin Gandhi is co-founder of Digital Green, a global development organization that empowers smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the collective power of digital technology and grassroots-level partnerships. Rikin began his career at Oracle, where he received patents for linguistic search algorithms that he helped develop. Later he joined Microsoft Research's Technology for Emerging Markets team in India, where he researched ways to amplify the effectiveness of agricultural development globally. Digital Green uses peer-to-peer farming videos to increase the efficiency of agricultural extension services and a shared logistics to market service to boost farmer incomes. Digital Green is now building FarmStack as an open platform to enable the 2 million smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia that it has already worked with to control and share their own data with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DFID, Walmart Foundation, and others. Rikin has a bachelor’s in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University, a master’s in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from MIT, and is a licensed private pilot.

Dr. Sunil Anand is a doctor with decades of experience in the Corporate world. He provides a crucial set of management, human resource, communications and project management skills. Dr Anand is a team leader with experience managing and unifying cross functional teams to ensure that the goals and strategic objectives of the organizations and its funders are met. Dr.Anand provides strategic direction to the ECHO India Trust team in the expansion of ECHO programs across India.

Tanuj Bhojwani is a fellow at iSPIRT Foundation and currently a co-chair of the Digital Public Goods Alliance. At iSPIRT, he works on building Digital Public Goods to solve for Financial Inclusion in India. He has helped develop and evangelize digital public goods such as UPI for payments, DEPA for Data, and Digital Sky for Drones. Tanuj is also co-authoring a book on building an inclusive internet with Nandan Nilekani. Before iSPIRT, Tanuj has been a VC at Bharat Innovation Fund, and an entrepreneur building drones in India.