Marketing and Communications Group

	Karishma Kiri is President and CEO of The K2 Group, a strategy consulting firm specializing in building creative business and technology solutions for emerging markets and scenarios. Previously, Kiri was a Director at Microsoft Corporation. She drove various Emerging Market strategies and incubations, primarily focusing on product strategy and business development. She has co-authored several papers on the rural kiosk space and given presentations around the world. Kiri has extensive experience working on Microsoft’s business efforts in India, including driving the creation and launch of Project Shiksha, a program to help teachers and students leverage technology to enrich the education experience. Most recently, Kiri along with her team and esteemed industry partners, published a book called “Making the Connection: Scaling Telecenters for Development” on creating sustainable approaches to telecenters and using technology to accelerate socio-economic development for underserved communities. In addition, Kiri co-authored the book, “Connecting to Customers: Strategies and Solutions for Growing your Business Online.” Kiri holds a bachelor’s degree in business economics from University of California, Los Angeles, with an emphasis on Computer Science and South Asian studies.
	Harsh Hiralal Thakkar is an IT Strategy Consultant within the Global Consulting Practice team of TCS and is responsible for pre-sales support, solution architecting of the offerings and leading and executing consulting engagements on IT Strategy. Harsh completed his Post Graduate Programme in Management from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. Harsh enjoys blogging, long-distance running and social activities in his free time. He has completed the Delhi Half-marathon (2008), Mumbai Half-marathon (2009), Bangalore Open 10km (2009) and is planning to complete one full-marathon soon. One of his stories was recently published in the book ‘Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul’! He is involved in various sustainable activities of Maitree – group within TCS that engages in social activities to make a difference in the community. He is also a certified 2nd Degree Reiki practitioner. Harsh has conducted several trainings on topics covering technical, motivational, PMP, ITIL & Business Strategy topics. He was invited for guest lecture at IMT, Ghaziabad (a top 10 B-school in India).
	Aishwarya works for Pramati Technologies in Hyderabad. He graduated from Cochin University of Science & Technology. Since college graduation he has developed a passion for social issues and feels that citizens can play a meaningful role in tackling them. He also feels that being a part of society, we should spread the awareness about social issues to others in order to help them make informed decisions and form informed opinions. He is still trying to understand the dynamics of social development. Aishwarya volunteers for Bhumi by teaching students at a school and occasionally writes for the blog ThinkChange India. He is confident of the significant role that micro-credit has to play in the social development sector of India. He agrees with the founders of Rang De that Rang De would have succeeded in its mission the day its existence is not required - when the oft stated objective of financial inclusion becomes a truth.