Founding Trustees
Major P Shankar
Ex Army Officer
Ajesh Kumar Shankar
Advocate
In 2007, father and son duo Major P Shankar and advocate Ajesh Kumar Shankar decided to give their love and commitment to India, shape in the form of a charitable trust. Activism for social justice and public causes runs in their family, stemming from a clan of army officers, administrators and advocates.
Major P Shankar, ex army officer, serial entrepreneur, educationist with a doctorate in alternative medicine has worn many hats throughout his life, always with a focus on betterment of society at large. Ajesh Kumar Shankar on the other hand is very much following the footsteps of his Great Grand Uncle Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair and has made a name for himself as a hard-nosed litigation lawyer. His passion for the law and concern for social and environmental justice has propelled him to create The Anonymous Indian Charitable trust as a legal platform for every concerned citizen to work for the betterment of India.
Board of Trustees
Managing Trustee
Myriam Shankar
Myriam brings over 30 years of experience as a project manager in logistics of large scale projects with Schenker International AG and has worked as part of senior leadership teams of Deutsche Bank AG in the fields of strategy, online and offline business processing, risk management and compliance. She combines her skill of ‘matchmaking’ exceptional individuals and teams with her ability to propel purposeful thought and action to create social and environmental change and has made a name for herself in the environmental space in Bangalore.
Myriam has been spearheading the trust since 2008 and through this platform has brought significant change to the waste management scenario in Bangalore.
Trustee
Jenny Pinto
Jenny is a filmmaker turned papermaker and lighting designer and founder of Oorjaa, a sustainable lighting design company that is today in the forefront of sustainable material innovation. She has empowered women in rural Karnataka with innovative paper making projects using banana fiber. She is a writer and organic food consultant with local brands like ‘Go Native’ and The Nilgiris Wildfood Festival. The Bengaluru Recycling Habba 2011 and Mobilicity, an urban mobility festival, were ideas she drove, both of which delivered thought provoking programs to Bengaluru city for the first time.
Although she has worn different hats in her life, her interest in climate change and her belief to protect nature and respect its power has remained consistent.
Trustee
Kavitha Shankar
Kavitha, sister and daughter of the founding trustees has taken over the baton from them. She has degrees in Psychology, English, Journalism and Communication.
Kavitha is currently the CEO of AKS Law associates and has spent 15 years prior at IBM, where she held multiple roles at both India and Asia Pacific capacities.
She is passionate about animal welfare and environmental protection and believes that we have a responsibility to care for animals and the planet; she strives to live her life in accordance with these values.
Board of Advisors
Data Analytics
Archana Kashyap
Archana is a computer science engineer with over a decade experience in IT Healthcare in USA. She moved back to Bengaluru in 2012 and has ever since dedicated her skill set and passion to the cause of environmental sustainability. She has led the 2bin1bag.in campaign (now mandated by KA High Court) and is also instrumental in the development of SwachaGraha.in campaign. She is the co-author and the driver of the Trashonomics.in school program that aims to empower children to become responsible citizens of tomorrow. She led the EcoGram project before moving into the advisory role to continue to support the team from a different vantage point.
Finance
Arvind Palaniappan
Arvind trained as a finance professional and is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. He has had various roles in Finance & Accounting, Risk Management and Global Outsourcing Service Delivery with well-known companies such as Accenture, Intel Technologies, Arthur Andersen and EY. Arvind is also a director and CFO of Buoyancy Plastics for Change Pvt Ltd and continues to provide financial, business and risk advisory services to a broad range of clients across different industries.
Permaculture
Katherine Erricker
Katie has a degree in geography and environmental science and has completed the Geoff Lawton Permaculture Design Certification. With project management, property development and sustainability skills in London, Sydney and Hong Kong, she brings over 20 years of experience from other parts of the world. Now settled in India, she uses her permaculture design skills to enhance the natural environment in order to give mother nature the ability to regenerate and recover. Her aim is to put in new strategies for humans and nature to coexist sustainably.
Materials & Technology
Karsten Bleymehl
Karsten is a well-known materials and sustainability expert. He uses his versatile knowledge of materials and manufacturing technologies to innovate products and sustainability strategies. As a trained industrial mechanic and graduate in Product Design, he managed more than 100 national and international consultancy projects. In 2013, after 9 years of directing the German branch of the renowned materials library & consultancy "Material ConneXion", he founded his own company: MRC – Materials Research & Consulting.
Advocacy
Pinky Chandran
Pinky is an independent researcher, author and a community journalist. She has over 20 years of experience in international education, community mobilization, waste management and livelihood development. She founded Radio Active, a community radio broadcasting service. She tracks policy and legal developments on issues related to waste management and its intersections. Garbage inspires her to write poetry and she runs her own blog called 'wasteframes'.
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Urban Planning
Rohith Patil
Rohith holding a BArch in Architecture has over 20 years of experience across various sectors including residential, commercial, institutional and industrial projects. His vast expertise extends to master planning of large communities both national and international. He is an associate of the US LEED Green Building Council with focus on energy & environmental design, and also member of the Indian Institute of Architects. His credo is good design is based on sound engineering solutions to work with the elements to reduce energy requirement and hence carbon footprint.
Composting Systems
Savita Hiremath
Savita, an independent journalist with stints in Deccan Herald, The Times of India, The New Indian Express and Acharya Institute of Journalism (HoD). She is a blogger and composting enthusiast with over a decade of experience and has helped many large residential communities to turn their organic wastes into ‘black gold’ . Her expertise is based on vast research and on the ground experience. Her innovative large scale composting solutions have found a lot of recognition in the green fraternity across Karnataka. All these efforts are well documented for the general public in her blog ‘Endlessly Green’.
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Education
Shobita Mampilly
Shobita is a poet and scientist, with over twenty years of teaching experience in urban communities from Brooklyn to Bangalore, India. She is currently a doctoral student in Urban Education at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She developed the Chem4All initiative to provide access to young adults interested in health science careers. Shobita presents her unique approach to science education globally, through her workshop entitled “Teaching Social Justice through Radical Science Curricula”. As a science department chair, she mentors new teachers and develops socially relevant curricula by radicalizing science education on our planet.