Jayant Rastogi is a globally recognised leader in the social development sector, a seasoned strategist, and a champion of systemic change. As the Global CEO of Magic Bus India Foundation,Jayant has spearheaded transformative initiatives that empower young people from underserved communities to break free from the cycle of poverty. Under his leadership, Magic Bus has grown to impact over 2.75 million young people annually across India, focusing on holistic interventions in life skills education, and employability skilling.

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At Magic Bus, Jayant has been instrumental in fostering pivotal partnerships with governments,corporates, and society to drive systemic impact. Jayant's dedication to innovation has elevated Magic Bus’ reputation, making it renowned for its robust automation, strong financial health,cutting-edge technology, and successful acquisition of a Development Impact Bond, all while upholding ethical standards.

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Jayant began his career in the corporate sector, holding leadership positions in organisations such as Motorola, where he was the CEO, as well as Godrej, HCL, and Novell. These experiences provided him with deep expertise in business strategy, operations, and team development. His corporate journey shaped his commitment to combining business acumen with social impact, enabling him to transition into the development sector with a vision of creating scalable, sustainable solutions for social change.

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Jessica Jensen is Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer at LinkedIn, where she leads the company’s global Marketing & Strategy organization, overseeing brand, corporate strategy, and marketing initiatives worldwide. She brings extensive experience in driving growth and innovation across digital platforms, helping organizations scale their marketing and business strategies globally.

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Prior to LinkedIn, Ms. Jensen served as Chief Marketing Officer at Indeed, OpenTable, and Senior Vice President of Marketing for Kayak, all part of Booking Holdings. She has also held leadership roles in B2B marketing and strategy at Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, as well as consumer marketing at Apple for iAd, and was Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo! Shine and Yahoo! Health. Her career reflects a deep expertise in brand strategy, digital marketing, and global business growth.

With an immersive experience across layers of rural development, social entrepreneurship and human rights, John is spearheading the Livelihood Programs at The/Nudge Institute as the Senior Director. As a consultant with Amnesty International, he has worked on two important areas of Violence against Women and Human Rights education with respect to campaigns through digital platforms. While being associated with Frost and Sullivan & GB Research, Health and Pharma has been his prime concern, with a focus on human development. 

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Birla Institute of Technology and Science and Indian School of Business has been John’s primary educational background, influencing him to move on to a career that has an entrepreneurial approach to social development, in order to meet human challenges keeping digitization as a means of unification.

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Johnson Tellis is the Founder and CEO of InUnity LLP, a pioneering organisation empowering youth through community-centric education and innovation. With a background in engineering and research, he has spent over a decade designing and developing ecosystems that equip young people in higher educational institutions to co-create impactful solutions with regional industries and innovators.

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At InUnity, Johnson leads initiatives that integrate education, innovation, and social impact, building platforms that foster sustainable development in collaboration with academia, industry, and civil society. His work has engaged students and educators across Karnataka and beyond, promoting a culture of design thinking, systems thinking, and community resilience.

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A passionate advocate for experiential learning, Johnson believes that youth-led innovation is key to sustainable development of clusters economy.

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Jyoti Sharma is a seasoned development leader with over 25 years’ experience in driving transformative change across diverse sectors.With a Master’s in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, she has developed expertise in areas such as gender equality, child rights, education, health, livelihoods, disaster management, climate change, and regenerative agriculture.

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Throughout her career, Jyoti has collaborated with leading global development organizations across India and South Asia, including the European Commission, World Resources Institute, Oxfam, Action Aid, Save the Children, Magic Bus Foundation, and more recently, the Organic Cotton Accelerator (OCA).

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Jyoti has been instrumental in shaping the organizations' strategic vision and driving their growth. Over the past decade, she has excelled in building high-performing teams, developing innovative strategies, leading policy advocacy, managing operations, and strengthening organizational capacity.

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Her leadership has been pivotal in spearheading successful program development, fundraising efforts, and fostering impactful partnerships that have made a lasting difference both in India and globally. Known for her ability to drive systemic change, Jyoti brings a results-oriented approach to advancing sustainable development goals through collaboration and innovation.

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In addition to her executive leadership, Jyoti is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of development professionals, empowering them to hone their skills and create meaningful contributions to the sector.

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Beyond her professional achievements, Jyoti is an avid history enthusiast and a passionate traveler, always eager to explore new cultures and gain diverse global perspectives. Her intellectual curiosity and commitment to personal growth fuel her dedication to driving positive, lasting change in the development sector.

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K. S. Upadhyay is the Additional Director of Education, Government of NCT Delhi, and the CEO of the Delhi Board of School Education. He leads transformative initiatives such as the Schools of Specialized Excellence and the Chief Minister Shri Schools, driving educational reform from policy design to on-ground execution.

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An accomplished educationist, he has authored Physics textbooks for NCERT and NIOS, and serves on multiple CBSE committees as well as the NEP 2020 subcommittee. Prior to his current role, he served as Principal with Navodaya Vidyalaya and as Regional Director at NIOS, contributing significantly to India’s educational landscape.

Kalika Bali is a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research India, where she focuses on AI, NLP, speech, and technology for empowerment, with a strong emphasis on multilingual and low-resource language communities. Over the past two decades, she has advanced human-computer interaction through language technologies and is passionate about creating inclusive technology that serves underrepresented languages and communities. She is part of Project VeLLM (UniVersal Empowerment with Large Language Models), an interdisciplinary initiative developing inclusive applications of large language models across languages and cultures, and her research also explores mitigating gender bias in technology.

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Ms. Bali has been recognized globally for her contributions to AI and inclusivity. She was featured on the inaugural TIME100 AI list in 2023 and in Forbes India’s “30 Indian Minds Leading the AI Revolution”. Her work emphasizes responsible AI, fairness, and culturally aware, community-driven evaluation, ensuring technology is ethical and impactful. She is particularly passionate about developing local language technologies, including speech interfaces, to create opportunities for millions of previously underserved individuals.

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Kanishka Chatterjee leads the^delta prize, designing and scaling incentive competitions that unlock innovation in livelihoods, agriculture, and climate resilience across India. Before moving into the development sector in 2022, he spent over two decades in marketing analytics and research. His current work focuses on building outcome-driven ecosystems and advancing India’s capacity to solve complex social challenges through market incentives.