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The Orchid School
Baner Mhalunge Road, Lalit Estate, Baner
Pune, Maharashtra, 411045
India

Arun Wakhlu

Arun Wakhlu is the Founder Director and Chief Mentor of Pragati Leadership, based in Pune, India. A spiritually inspired and professionally skilled community working with leading clients in 29 countries, Pragati Leadership works to unfold sustainable value for all stakeholders. Arun is also the Chairman of Pragati Foundation, an NGO working for catalysing sustainable livelihoods and compassion in education. Arun is a member of the global executive council of the Charter for Compassion. Author of the book “Managing from the Heart” and co-author, of the book “One Wholesome World”. Arun has initiated and facilitated several international conferences to foster peace, prosperity, and collaboration for compassion. He has logged over 30,000 hours of service in the area of Wholesome Leadership TM and organisational development. His current area of active interest and focus is developing “I-Catalyst” and Wholesome Leaders: Conscious leaders who catalyse accelerated innovation, inspiration, initiative and integration in organisations and society

Medha Kotwal Lele

Prof. Medha Kotwal Lele has been actively associated with the Women’s Movement in western India since 1975. She is a Founder member & Managing Trustee of Aalochana Centre for Documentation and Research on Women, Pune. Aalochana is one of the first women’s resource centers in the state of Maharashtra (1989). Its special contribution has been in providing all kinds of women centric information in Marathi and not in English alone. Medha has been involved in conducting training programs for rural women’s empowerment and leadership under a large UNDP Panchayati Raj project. 33% reservation for women which came with the 73rd &74th amendment of the Indian constitution opened up this opportunity for thousands of women. Prof Medha Kotwal holds a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Pune (1988) and has taught at various local colleges. She teaches “Social Justice” and ‘Social Entrepreneurship’ at the Alliance for Global Education, Pune for almost 10 years. She was the Director of a study abroad program known as ACM (Associated Colleges of Mid- West, USA) 2018-19 She was invited to speak at international conferences including USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Kampuchea. She has been Guest Lecturer at several institutes in Pune, including: YASHADA (Govt. of Maharashtra’s Training Institute for Civil Servants), SNDT University, Mumbai; SNDT University, Karve Institute of Social Science, ILS Law College, MIT School of Government. She has been an NGO Representative on the Sexual Harassment Committee of Life Insurance Corporation of India. Pune, from 2006 to 2008, and IUCCA from 2015 to 2019.

Namrata Majhail

Namrata Majhail is an educationist with an experience of 28 years- a journey that ranges from being a teacher to an educational leader. As an army officer’s wife, she has had the distinction of connecting with the learners from diverse backgrounds. Working with various school boards and travelling from well-connected places like Pune to extremely tough terrains of Teju (Arunachal Pradesh), has helped her to accept changes in a very optimistic fashion. She has had the privilege of recording her lessons on literature in language labs of IIT Roorkee, at the very early years of her teaching. She has been a Consultant Grader with the Westwood University. She also has been the content developer and has edited language books while working with Pearson. Mrs. Namrata Majhail has the privilege of being a member of the impaneled body for Central Selection Committee, Pune. Presently she is a member of the Indian Didactics Association, Education Leaders Community. Apart from being a certified Master Trainer of CBSE, Centre of Excellence, she has been appointed as an inspector for affiliation of CBSE schools. She is the President of Sahodaya Group that embraces around 140 CBSE schools of Pune. Since 2015, she has been the Principal of The Orchid School, Pune. She has recently been awarded ‘The Education Legend Award’ by the Centre for Education Development, New Delhi.

Shreya Senapaty

Shreya is a 12th grade student currently studying Math, Physics and Chemistry. Her inborn curiousity gave rise to her passion for science which she wishes to further pursue. An avid reader who will defend the writings of Shakespeare, Jane Austen and George RR Martin with equal fervour, she is also a staunch believer that writing is the best outlet for emotions. With a logic-orientated mind, she has participated and won many logic based exams and events the most notable being Technothlon held by IIT Guwahati. A debater and MUNner since a young age, she loves debating and defending her opinions on any platform and can be seen catching up on world politics in her free time. While she is not fond of sports, she loves the thrill of a good swim or gym workout.

Solonie Singh Pathania

“An Army officers daughter with a passion for fitness and travel” is how Solonie Singh Pathania likes to describe herself. A full time working professional, currently heading the Global Conferences division for a management consultancy, with an obsession for triathlons. Solonie is the 3rd Indian Woman to have competed and completed the ‘IRONMAN’ - a long distance triathlon consisting of a 2.4 miles (3.8kms) swim, 112 miles (180kms) cycling and a full marathon 26.2 miles (42.2kms) run, raced in that order without a break. Ironman is widely considered as one of the most difficult one-day sporting events in the world. As an avid endurance junkie she has completed the Mt.Everest Base Camp (18,192 ft); the Deccan Cliffhanger (2018) race - a 643kms non-stop cycling race in which she stood first in the women’s category, and is currently training for her 3rd Ironman race this year.

Uma Ganesh

Uma Ganesh has three decades of success in corporate and entrepreneurial ventures covering manufacturing, media, banking and IT sectors. Uma has had indepth exposure to functional areas such as marketing, product management, finance and operations through CXO/CEO positions with large organisations having their footprint in India and global markets. Her last corporate assignment was with HSBC as their Chief Corporate Development Officer for its Global Resourcing Business and previously she has been associated with Zee Education, Aptech, NIIT, Fibre Glass Pilkington and Crompton Greaves. Over the last decade, Uma has turned an entrepreneur founding Global Talent Track focussed on skills development for the digital era, Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics, Kalzoom Advisors and Skills Alpha – the digital platform for talent development. One of the noteworthy initiatives is 5F World Pvt Ltd cofounded with Dr Ganesh Natarajan which is focussed on consulting for digital transformation and investment in digital startups. Uma’s academic credentials include MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi and Phd from IIT Bombay. She has played leadership roles in several industry forums namely CII, NHRD Network, Bombay Management Association, Indian Women’s Network (IWN) to name a few. She has co-authored a book – a Tata McGrawHill publication ‘Knowledge Force’ with Dr Ganesh Natarajan and has a regular column in the Financial Express focussed around Digital technologies.

Vihaan Doshi

Vihaan is currently a student in Class XII at The Orchid School. Having spent the past 5 years moderating a large online forum, writing content for an e-commerce website and editing articles on Wikipedia, he is a strong believer in the power of the Internet to make our lives better. Additionally, he loves watching interesting YouTube videos, scrolling through political Twitter threads and posting original memes on Reddit. He is particularly proud of being in the top 1% of Reddit users worldwide. Besides this, he has attended the prestigious DST-Inspire camp at IISER, Pune and volunteered as a teacher at social organisations. He enjoys reading fantasy novels, watching 1940s Noir movies and playing badminton.