29th - 30th October 2021 - Bangalore.
A true multi-faceted personality; Engineer by education, scientist by profession, activist, wife, mother,
social entrepreneur, the list goes on.
Her achievements are spread across working on LCA project, founding Adamya Chetana and driving several firsts
in green lifestyle, environmental changes, all in her own unique way.
The secret? Eye for detail, ability to quickly grasp a situation, connect the dots, look for solutions, patience
to go into endless details, ability to multi-task, all underpinned by seemingly unlimited amounts of energy.
Smt. Tejaswini founded and runs Adamya Chetana (www.adamyachetana.org) since 1997. This was set up in the memory of Smt.
Girija Shastry, mother of her husband Shri AnanthKumar, MP and Central cabinet minister. Shri AnanthKumar is the Chief
Patron of Adamya Chetana. Adamya Chetana works on three core themes Anna-Akshara-Aarogya along with several initiatives
on Rural Development and Environmental issues.
Smt. Tejaswini’s work at Adamya Chetana, through dozens of projects has positively impacted nourishment, learning and
health of lakhs of under privileged children, improved the conditions in many villages and helping increase green cover of Bengaluru.
Annapoorna program runs four (Bengaluru, Hubballi, Kalaburgi and Jodhpur in Rajasthan) state of art kitchens to deliver hot,
nutritious and tasty midday meal to over 1.5 lakhs under-privileged school children daily.
Not satisfied with cooking nutritious and tasty food, Dr. Tejaswini set out to transform the kitchens. She set some audacious goals to herself and her teams.
By reducing the garbage, reusing paper, water, bio-waste and recycling the rest in to compost, the kitchen became a totally “ZERO GARBAGE KITCHEN”.
By switching to Bio-fuel including briquettes, eliminating usage of LPG or Diesel (previously, 7,500 LPG cylinders per year or 300 ltrs of Diesel per day were being used), the Bengaluru kitchen is completely “FOSSIL FUEL FREE”.
Implementing SAGY (Sansad Adarsh Grama Yojana) at Ragihalli, the village adopted by Shri Ananthkumar.
Green Bharat 1:1, a program to increase green cover in our cities. Each person needs 7 trees to sustain, but in cities like Bengaluru, we have 7 people per tree! To try and bring the ratio back to at least 1:1, Adamya Chetana has been running Green Sunday program where each Sunday, hundreds of saplings are planted and nurtured. More than 1 lakh saplings have been planted under this program.
Nature-Science Internship Programme – “catch them young” if we have to change the mind-set of a generation. With this philosophy, Adamya Chetana designed a unique internship programme with extensive field work for youngsters in association with experts from Indian Institute of Science. During this 2-month internship programme, young students under the guidance of their teachers and experts from IISC and Adamya Chetana conduct a number of field studies, lab analysis to map out eco-system in and around their area and try and understand nature covering animals, birds, insects, trees, water, food, etc.
Chinnara Chetana, a colorful Wall magazine for school children, Arogya Chetana mediclaim facility for school children (inaugurated by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam), www.raktadan.org is an online portal creating a virtual blood bank, Vocational training courses like Tailoring, Computer, English Speaking, Roti making etc for needy women, and the list goes on.
In all these projects of Adamya Chetana, Dr. Tejaswini is involved in all aspects of planning and implementation and monitoring on a continuous basis.
Since 2006, Smt. Tejaswini is a Founder Trustee of Sri Shankara Cancer Foundation, 250 bedded state of art charitable hospital, a not for profit organisation with its core focus on cure and prevention of Cancer.
Smt. Tejaswini AnanthKumar worked as a scientist at ADA (then headed by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam) between 1993 – 1997 and on the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA – Tejas) project.
Between 1988 and 1993, she served in various capacities: Software Engineer at Srujana Technologies, Bengaluru, Lecturer at BMS college of Engineering, Bangalore and Lecturer at SDM college of Engineering, Dharwad.
During her student days, she was very active at all levels of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) organizing various student activities. She served as State Joint Secretary & National executive member of ABVP.
Education
PG Diploma in Indology from Bengaluru University.
B.E [Electronics and Communication], with Distinction, from B.V.B College of Engineering and Technology,
Hubballi affiliated to Karnatak University
Initial schooling was done at Belgaum and Dharwad districts
Awarded Honorary Doctorate from Rani Chennamma from Rani Chennamma University, Belagavi for Social Work in 2013