SDG Talents for innovative solutions

Utkarsh is one of the 50 World Economic Global Shapers selected to represent the community of over 7000 at Davos. His work at Microsoft focuses on digitally transforming public sector organizations and governments. Last year, he partnered with 3 state governments in India to use big data and machine intelligence and reduce school dropout rates, increase healthcare efficiency and raise farmer productivity. He is helping build India’s first smart village in Harisal, which has infamously been called the epicenter of malnutrition. In 2015, he was selected as one of the top 20 youth leaders to join the Penn Social Impact House, where he set up Network Capital, a peer-to-peer learning platform. Today, Network Capital provides mentoring and career guidance to 6000 + young leaders from over 70 countries. Utkarsh is the Torchbearer of the Young India Fellowship and an MBA from the INSEAD-Wharton MBA program where he was recognized as the Andy Burgess Scholar for Social Entrepreneurship

“To build scalable and implementable solutions for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we need to encourage diversity of thought, ideas and action, and provide a platform for the brightest minds across the world to collaborate, ideate and co-create. As UNLEASH is attempting to do this, its vision and mission resonates with me.”

Clara B. Aranda-Jan is currently pursuing a PhD in design management, with a background in sustainable development, public health and biomedical engineering. She has experience using multidisciplinary approaches to provide conscientious engineering solutions to global challenges. Clara has developed a tool to measure the feasibility of medical devices’ production at the local level in developing countries through consultancy work at WHO, and shaped new initiatives, like the implementation of a health-product commercialisation project in Tanzania. Clara has experience using mixed methods for research including thematic qualitative coding and network analysis used for analysing sociotechnical contexts in engineering design. She has worked in varied countries including the UK, Singapore, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Uganda and Mexico, as well as in international organizations.

“The opportunity to participate in UNLEASH is amazing. SDGs are complex challenges for our society, and I believe that it is only by bringing together the perspectives and motivations of people from different backgrounds that we will be able to find the next disruptive solutions for the challenges of our generation.”

Matthew is a water specialist who is passionate about innovations for people and the environment. He is a civil engineer, geographer, Rhodes Scholar and aspiring industrial designer. He has co-founded a venture that aims to make rural water supply more reliable for millions of people, and a social enterprise that up-cycles excess construction concrete in South Africa, preventing its substantial carbon footprint from being wasted in landfill. He is committed to improving water access, security and resource management, especially in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa.

“We are seeing massively scalable and sustainable solutions develop at the intersections of traditional business sectors. UNLEASH sets out to accelerate this innovation by partnering young global talent with proven mentorship – I can’t wait to be a part of it!”

Roki is a specialist at Hatch with more than 10 years of experience in the design and engineering of air pollution control systems for metallurgical clients in copper, nickel, zinc and gold industries. Her key experience is in gas handling technologies including baghouses, electrostatic precipitators, dry sorbent injection and mercury abatement. She manages environmental service work including air emissions inventory, dispersion modeling and permitting. Roki has an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering with Environmental Option from the University of Toronto. She joined Hatch’s non-ferrous gas handling team and worked on many air emission reduction projects including sulphur dioxide and heavy metals and went on to have a master’s degree in Engineering for Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar.

“I believe disruptive changes are necessary to attain the Sustainable Development Goals, and I want to contribute my technical skills to foster such changes.”