The rapid development in Benagluru, influx of many vehicles from different parts of the country has resulted in heavy traffic in the city. Bengaluru’s vehicle population crossed the 80 lakh mark last year.

Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) in partnership with Let Me Breathe and WRI India, has joined hands with the #BengaluruMoving campaign to help reduce vehicular emissions and congestion in Bengaluru. 

The immediate action plan for the year is to focus on efficient public transportation, including bus lanes, and designing solutions to increase uptake of public transportation among residents. 

Meet the Mobility Champions

The Mobility Champions are 12 Bengaluru residents who will engage with policymakers across various aspects of the city’s mobility, such as decongestion, cycling, and first and last-mile connectivity.

https://twitter.com/LetMeBreathe_In/status/1287291397632974848

These passionate residents of the city will work over 45 days to build support for mobility solutions.

1. Aditya Thokala is a Data Science professional with a post-graduate diploma from IIIT-Bengaluru. He has been working in the field of Data Science for the past 5 years. He has a deep motivation towards making use of his skills to help the larger society lead a better life.

2. Febin Sagir did her engineering from NITK Surathkal and then MBA from IIM Bangalore. She is a strong believer in citizen activism and enjoys gazing at the night sky, reading fiction and probably climbing a mountain. She is currently with a start-up called Autoninja (recently got acquired by ICICI Lombard).

3. Khushal Wadhawan has done his bachelor's degree in commerce and specialization in Finance & Investments from Christ University and has extensive experience in problem-solving, stakeholder management, and presenting insights.  As part of the Strategy and Operations team at Deloitte, he routinely work on creating innovative solutions from the ground-up for leading organizations.

4. Jaison Jose is a Computer Science Engineer working at Dell. He is passionate about undoing the effects of the climate crisis and figuring out ways to mitigate them. Building better cities is a big step towards that and mobility is one of the pillars of a good city. Thus, he is here to learn and build skills.

5. Malavika Menon is an industrial engineer working with Cisco Systems within the Supply Chain Ops function. Having lived in Bengaluru for half my life,  she's been quick to complain about the increasing congestion on the roads. She's excited to be a part of this campaign and proactively engage with the system to help drive significant change within the city.

6. Pranav Joshi studied Architecture from the University of Mumbai and has been practicing in Bangalore since 2018. While in design school, he developed a keen interest in urban planning and urban policy and how it shapes the fabric of cities. Recently, he was a part of YLAC's Policy in Action Fellowship and intends to pursue Masters in Urban Planning next year.

7. Sowmya V works with eGovernments Foundation where they actively working to catalyze urban transformation and enhance ease of living through digital infrastructure at urban local bodies. Her biggest motivation for this specific campaign stems from the fact that traffic is the one issue turning Bengaluru from one of the most livable cities in India to a nightmare to get out of your house or worse, the airport.

8. Samyak Gupta is an engineer who is working with Royal Dutch Shell, working on high-performance computing solutions. He was born in Mumbai and also did his schooling there, then moved to Manipal for his bachelor's. He has good knowledge of cloud computing.

9. Sidharth Ganesh currently works with Bounce, working on their new businesses and expansion strategy. After graduating from IIT Madras, he also worked with the Government of Andhra Pradesh in building their new capital city, Amaravati. He worked closely with the Chief Minister for about four years, learning about urban planning, design, architecture, and policy.

10. Srija Gadamsetti has been working as a software engineer since the past two years. She likes reading books, listening to music and plogging. With the possibility of personal gain in the form of easier mobility and general civil responsibility, she is excited to work on this campaign.

11. Sudhamshu Hosamane is currently working as a software engineer at the functional safety group at Bosch. He has developed a strong penchant for research in social networks, computational social sciences, and applying data science techniques for policy research. Having been traveling in Bangalore traffic, he is zealous towards working on improving public transport. He hopes to research strategies, connect with experts and like-minded people, and grow as a better policy planner.

12. Subhrajit Chowdhury is currently a business analyst at Flipkart. He completed his under graduation from IIT Kharagpur in 2019. He has a keen interest in the social sector and as a previous Policy in Action fellow, he understands the value of civic engagement. He enjoys music, reading, and traveling and actively keep up with these interests.

The Mobility Champions will use a mix of engagement tactics to build support for promising mobility solutions among policymakers. In parallel, a hackathon will be organized to engage a wider audience around potential tech solutions to incentivize public transport usage among Bengaluru’s residents. In addition to undertaking research and advocating for solutions with policymakers, the Mobility Champions will also be ambassadors for this hackathon.

They will also get to be members of a change-making community who will lead the discussions on urban mobility in Bengaluru and advocate for change among peers, other stakeholders in the city and policymakers.