The Global Shapers Community – an initiative of the World Economic Forum announces two young Shapers from India will attend its 2023 Annual Meeting in Davos

Karan Kumar (27) and Gayathri Kuppendra Reddy (31) have been selected among 500+ applicants to actively explore the role of private-public collaboration to solve the global climate crisis.

World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2023

Two young Indians Gayathri Reddy and Karan Kumar will attend the upcoming WEF Annual Meeting in January 2023, leveraging their collective experience of more than 15 years to bring climate issues to the fore, and enable positive outcomes through their engagements. They represent the Bengaluru and Mumbai hubs of the Global Shaper Community (GSC) respectively, two of the 500 hubs worldwide carrying out grassroots projects to tackle some of the most pressing problems in their communities and the world.

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting brings together more than 2500 world leaders from business, policy, and civil society along with select young people part of The Global Shapers Community (GSC), one of the Forum’s key initiatives focused on engaging young people across the world in driving dialogue, action and change.

Karan is the outgoing curator of the Mumbai hub and a Programme Manager with Laudes India. He is focused on driving circularity and sustainability in the global fashion industry by working to both inspire and challenge the industry as a means to achieving large-scale system transformation; bringing innovations to scale through collaboration, investment, knowledge- and market-building. His work has led to early successes in scaling critical low-carbon, circular technologies across different geographies and sectors. Gayathri is the present Vice-Curator of the Bengaluru hub and is an entrepreneur and investor. She is the Director of RGA Software Systems Pvt. Ltd., a leading developer of Grade A commercial office spaces in Bengaluru, India. She is also the Founder of KReate Foundation – a not-for-profit that works towards a better Bengaluru by addressing problems focused on the need for systemic urban planning and infrastructure development.

As young climate leaders, both Karan and Gayathri are keen to engage with governments and businesses at the meeting and spotlight emerging opportunities for change that we can all work collaboratively on. These include ways to move away from linear extractive supply chains by working collaboratively with industry, innovators, and producers; and working towards ensuring inclusive, long-term policy development through stakeholder mapping, education, awareness building and more.

Their three-point agenda at the WEF is to:

• Increase awareness on climate change, the need for finance to move towards climate solutions and the larger system-level consequences without such efforts
• Promote sustainable and low-carbon urban design for cities and infrastructure to decarbonise key industrial supply chains
• Collaborate across industries and governments to scale a circular, regenerative, and renewable economy

NOTES TO EDITORS

• The Global Shapers Community is a network of young people driving dialogue, action and change, founded by the World Economic Forum in 2011. With more than 19,800 members, it is a network of inspiring young leaders – including innovators, activists and entrepreneurs – between the ages of 18 and 27. The community spans 500 city-based hubs in 150 countries and territories, each focused on projects and initiatives across a range of impact areas. The core mission of the Global Shapers Community is to inspire, empower and connect young leaders to reach their full potential, shape decision-making processes and drive positive change in their communities and the world.

Each year, 50 Global Shapers are selected to bring forward the voices, ideas, and perspectives of young people at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. Taking forward and building on the Youth Recovery Plan, each of the 50 young leaders at Davos, including Gayathri and Karan remain hopeful and optimistic in their resolve to promote the meeting’s theme – ‘cooperation in a fragmented world’. Follow the Global Shapers on Twitter and Facebook with the tag @GlobalShapers and on Instagram with tag @globalshaperscommunity

• The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The Forum’s activities are shaped by a unique institutional culture founded on the stakeholder theory, which asserts that an organisation is accountable to all parts of society. The institution carefully blends and balances the best of many kinds of organisations, from both the public and private sectors, international organisations and academic institutions.

The 2023 Annual Meeting:

Under the theme ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World’, the Annual Meeting 2023 will bring together more than 2,500 leaders from government, business and civil society, at a pivotal time for the world. The Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have triggered significant transformations. Unless systemic risks are addressed, the promise of a “decade of action” may become a decade of uncertainty and fragility. Davos 2023 will provide an important platform to drive forward-looking solutions and address the most pressing global challenges through public-private cooperation.

 Gayathri Kuppendra Reddy – LinkedIn || World Economic Forum

Gayathri Kuppendra Reddy is an entrepreneur, investor, and socially conscious citizen.  She graduated with a master’s in Advanced Management Practice from the University of Bath, UK. She is currently the Associate Director at RGA Software Systems Pvt Ltd which is a Commercial Real Estate Developer for the past 20+ years. Gayathri has invested in setting up RGA Software’s Investment Vertical also has led the investments for the group since January 2017, and she is the advisor for the Groups ideation and strategy for diversification from the existing real estate portfolio.  Gayathri’s most notable contribution is in setting up a Social Enterprise as a part of her contribution to Society. She is the founder of KReate Foundation. KReate is an Organisation that focuses on identifying solutions to Bangalore City‘s rapid urbanization impact with regard to infrastructure and water conservation. KReate has been actively working on increasing community awareness of the need for better Urban Planning and Development. KReate’s focus areas are Water, Infrastructure, and Climate Change. She is also a trained Climate Reality Leader. She is also a part of the Global Shapers community since 2019. A wing of the World Economic Forum. She is the present Vice-Curator of the Bengaluru hub. Gayathri also sits on the board of Nisvartha Foundation – an NGO that works on providing access to higher education for underprivileged children.

• Karan Kumar – LinkedIn || World Economic Forum

Karan works with Laudes India, where he focuses on driving a transformation towards sustainability and circularity in the global fashion industry. His work is focused on bringing key stakeholders – investors, industry, innovators, and policy-makers – together to align, take key risks, and collaborate with the intent to scale circular climate solutions. Over the years, using fashion as an entry point, he has seeded the need for system level transformation given fashion’s inextricable links to other industries such as food, fuel, and forestry. His experience spans work in multiple sectors including agriculture, policy, and fashion; and his expertise lies at the intersections of sustainability, technology, and innovation for social and environmental good. Previously, he led the development of ‘innovation labs’ that aimed to commercialize technology in low-resource settings across Asia and Africa for post-harvest loss reduction, food system transformation, and circular fashion. He is a member of the Mumbai Hub of the Global Shapers Community, championing their work on sustainable fashion, youth participation in policy-making, and community engagement through dialogue. He was also Curator of the Hub for the year 2021-22.

Reach them for more information about their agenda and/or their plans: 

Karan Kumar, Global Shaper, Mumbai

Tel.: +91 77690 40473, E-mail: mumbai@globalshapers.org

Gayathri Kuppendra Reddy, Global Shaper, Bengaluru

Tel.: +91 9980055590, E-mail: globalshapersblr@gmail.com