Milan 2024

Ravi Kuchimanchi founded Association for India’s Development (AID) in 1991 while pursuing his PhD in Particle Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a vision “problems are interconnected, so must be the solutions”. AID has since grown into a volunteer movement, bringing highly skilled professionals such as the non-resident Indian community, to partner with the poor, and underprivileged so that there is a deeper understanding of causes beyond the mere symptoms of poverty. After his postdoctoral work, Ravi began to focus his attention on human rights and social justice issues in India such as renewable energy, sustainable livelihoods, and struggles of marginalized people. 

Ravi received the International Alumnus Award from University of Maryland in 2012, and in 2011, AID won the Times of India Social Impact Award which Ravi and his colleagues received from the Indian prime minister. He is an alumni of IIT Mumbai, and continues to publish papers in several international physics journals. 

Ravi is an inspiration to many volunteers - pursuing a dream to build an ideal world, collaborating with the grassroots communities to understand the hurdles they face and working relentlessly to bring about change.

Peter Bakos is a seasoned sailor who lives with his family in a village near Ponduru, Andhra Pradesh. He is a hands-on, skilled tinkerer, with keen interest in solving challenges related to sustainability.

More than 25 years ago, Peter came from Australia to India and quickly immersed himself in grassroots work with diverse communities including bamboo artisans, wood and metal-workers, and patta-chitra artists.  Over the years he headed AID-India's Appropriate Rural Technology Resource Center in Odisha, Jivika eco-friendly fair trade manufacturing unit in Srikakulam, made educational manipulatives for AID-India's Eureka Child program in Chennai, and most recently, he improves the design and manufacture of millet processing machines by incorporating feedback from farmers and end users, first in Kadiri and now in Ponduru, Andhra Pradesh where he runs Transfarm Tech, designing and manufacturing tech for small farmers.

Dr Abhay Shukla is a public health physician, working on health issues in collaboration with people’s movements and grassroots NGOs in Western India for over two decades. He is the Senior Program Coordinator at SATHI (Support for Advocacy and Training to Health Initiatives), a member of the National Health Mission Advisory Group for Community Action (AGCA), and is part of the core health group on the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). He is one of the national convenors of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA or People’s Health Movement) and was centrally involved in organization of the National Right to Health Care campaign during 2003-04. Dr. Shukla is a graduate from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Dr Shukla has co-edited and authored the books ‘Review of Health Care in India’, ‘Report on Health Inequities in Maharashtra’, ‘Health System in India – Crisis and Alternatives’ and ‘The Rights Approach to Health and Health Care’. Along with Dr Arun Gadre, he co-authored the popular book published by Penguin – ‘Dissenting Diagnosis’, exposing malpractices in the private medical sector in India. He has been involved in developing the framework of community based monitoring and planning (CBMP) of health services at national level, and has mentored the innovative implementation of CBMP in Maharashtra for over a decade. He is actively involved in campaigns for patient’s rights, social regulation of the private medical sector, networking among ethical medical professionals, and developing a system for Universal Health Care.