Dr. Veena Srinivasan is a socio-hydrologist and the Founder-Executive Director of WELL Labs, with a mission to transform water systems at scale across India, through research, partnerships and collective action.
Dr. Veena Srinivasan is an award-winning researcher, who won the International Water Association's Water and Development Award for Research in 2023, the 2015 Jim Dooge Award for best paper in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Science from the European Geophysical Union, and the 2012 Water Resources Research Editor’s Choice Award from the American Geophysical Union.
Veena chairs the Strategic Advisory Group for the Integrated Monitoring Initiative for UN SDG6, and is a board member of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). She was the Prins Claus Chair at Utrecht University, Netherlands from 2018 to 2020.

Nishant Jain is conservation professional with over 13 years of work experience. He currently serves as a Senior Programme Officer at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in New Delhi. He is leading the forestry interventions at IUCN India, and his work focuses on enabling restoration of forest landscapes, promoting nature-based solutions, enhancing capacities of relevant stakeholders, and generating and sharing knowledge in this process. Nishant holds a Master of Business Administration as a Gold Medalist from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and has been since working passionately for the betterment of the planet and its people.

Minhaj Ameen is a committed change-maker, social entrepreneur, and management consultant with a deep passion for environmental sustainability—particularly in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss. Since 2019, he has focused on advancing agroecology-based solutions that address pressing challenges, including climate resilience, water scarcity, soil degradation, gender inequality, and agricultural livelihood crises. He helped set up the National Coalition for Natural Farming, the largest network of its kind in India, and Bharat Agroecology Fund, which pools funds from funders and directs them to worthy initiatives, both of which are aimed at advancing the adoption of agroecology at scale.

With a background in mechanical engineering and an MBA from Manchester Business School, UT, he is keen on fostering collaborative, systems-level change for sustainable food systems.

Earlier, he co-led the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), Government of India, and is an IRMAN and NIT Warangal distinguished public service alumnus. He has been integral to major movements involving people’s collectives, self-help groups, enterprises, livelihoods, and natural farming-living. He worked closely with Dr. Verghese Kurien, the Dairy Board, and Tree Growers on market interventions, collective action, and commons management. He has facilitated visioning, strategy, learning support, and mentoring for over 100,000 livelihood support individuals and 1000+ enterprises, collectives, and organizations. His seminal contributions to Livelihoods Praxis include the Integrated TRUE Livelihoods Framework, more than 1000 LEAPs and plans, and 100+ value-chain frameworks, along with leading implementation frameworks for the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (2011–2029). He currently serves as Chief Mentor of Akshara Livelihoods, Editor-in-Chief of Livelihoods, and writer of Yogakshemam. He is also a Livelihoods-Leadership-Management academic with NIRD and NF Academy, and the Co-founder and Adviser of the National Coalition for Natural Farming.

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