About AIYD

Michelle is a Māori woman with over 13 years’ experience working in business development, research commercialisation, intellectual property and technology transfer. She drives activity relating to the intersection of innovation, commercialisation, ventures and technological development with traditional Indigenous knowledge and practice.

Throughout Michelle’s career she has developed a passion for interdisciplinary collaboration, the on-ground application of technologies and IP commercialisation. She has led many large-scaled innovation projects and is a leader within the Australian Innovation Ecosystem.

Michelle is currently Associate Professor, Commercialisation and Innovation at the Australian National University. She a member of the Canberra Innovation Network’s Advisory Committee, wherein she offers strategic advice regarding the network’s overarching strategy, work plans and objectives. She was previously a non-executive Director of Cicada Innovations, Australia's leading incubator for startups and scaleups working on science and engineering innovations.

Michelle is the Founding Director of Gandaywarra Innovation, an Australian National University initiative seeking to build and activate a pipeline of strong, long-term partnerships and capabilities, which will enable First Nations communities, academia, industry, government, and end-users to collaborate and innovate.

Bindu Subramaniam is an entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, and educator. She is the Co-founder & CEO of SaPa and the lead vocalist of SubraMania and Thayir Sadam Project.

Described as a “Bangalore woman educating children differently” by Femina, Bindu’s mission through SaPa is to build an ecosystem to make music education a meaningful part of children’s lives.

Bindu has travelled the world performing solo, with her family, her bands, and with orchestras, for audiences of up to 500,000. She has eight degrees, co-authored two dozen academic books, delivered multiple TEDx talks & writes for a regular column with The New Indian Express.

Named as an icon of South India 2021-22 by Femina magazine, Bindu also won the 2022 Women Who Lead National Award for CEO of the Year – Art & Music. In 2021, Bindu was named among GQ’s 25 most influential young Indians, BusinessWorld 40 under 40, BusinessWorld Disrupt top women achievers, and AdGully’s top women disruptors.

Tim is a senior digital & product leader with experience across management consulting, product management, digital strategy and delivery. His current work sits at the intersection of human experience, technology, and business to deliver improved social & business outcomes.

Tim’s career has been spent solving complex problems in information-rich & highly regulated environments, in particular healthcare, financial services, and the public sector. He has previously worked for organisations such as Deloitte Digital, Microba Life Sciences, Australian Retirement Trust (formerly QSuper), BDO and Deloitte Australia.

Tim has undergraduate qualifications in business and health science and is a qualified Chartered Accountant. He has a special interest in corporate governance and has held several volunteer and governance roles including most recently as a board member of a Queensland-based disability and allied health service provider.

Tim is an alumnus of the 2022 cohort of the AIYD.

Aman is Manager, Government and Industry Relations (Vic/Tas) at APA Group, a leading energy infrastructure business. Prior to this he was political staffer in the Victorian state government. Working for the Victorian Premier, he advised primarily on economic policy since 2019. Previously he has worked as a Judicial Associate in the Federal Court of Australia, as a solicitor at Herbert Smith Freehills and the Penington Institute, a progressive drug policy research institute. He holds a Masters of Public Policy (Economic Policy) from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Law/Economics (Hons 1) from the Australian National University. In the UK, he worked as an advisor for Labour MP Mary Creagh and as a researcher at the International Growth Centre, an international development NGO at the LSE.

Margot is Head of Competition Development and Strategy for Cricket Australia's Big Bash Leagues, part of the team responsible for delivering the world leading BBL and WBBL competitions. She has worked in the sports industry for almost 20 years across Olympic and Professional sports, focusing on consumer engagement, grassroots development and organisational governance.

Margot is passionate about the role that sport plays in society and the power it has to bring people together from across the globe, to address and ease global tensions and to celebrate communities.

Damian Thompson is Chief Operating Officer for The Conversation Media Group, working with teams across The Conversation’s global network to coordinate global strategies and build partnerships to advance its mission to share knowledge and inform decisions through evidence-based journalism. Since joining The Conversation in its earliest days, Damian has worked from The Conversation’s newsrooms in Melbourne and Boston, and been part of its global growth.

Prior to joining The Conversation, Damian worked for the Victorian State Government on programs to deliver services to the agriculture sector and in the Office of the Minister for Agriculture. Damian developed a strong interest in India while studying at the University of Melbourne. He first travelled to India as an AIESEC trainee. Damian was a part of the 2018 cohort of the Australia India Youth Dialogue.

Deep Bajaj is the co- founder and CEO of Sirona, an award winning startup known for solving unaddressed intimate and menstrual hygiene issues faced by women with their unique products. They are most popular for India’s highest selling menstrual cups ‘Sirona’ used by over 1 million Indian women, thereby saving tons of non degradable pads from going to landfills and ‘PeeBuddy’, India’s 1st female urination device.

Sirona has won many awards including ‘National Entrepreneurship Award’ by the Government of India, TiE ‘Spirit of Manufacturing Award’, Phd chamber of commerce- ‘Award for Excellence – Startup’, Economic Times ‘‘Startup of the year’ award and has been featured in the ET Top 25 startups.

Deep has won numerous awards including Business World ‘Young Entrepreneur Award’, ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ by Entrepreneur Magazine and has been on Fortune, Economic Times’ and BusinessWorld’s 40 under 40 list. He is an alumnus of Australian National University, Canberra and Stanford Seed.

Dr Rohini Rau is India’s former top woman sailor. Her best World ISAF Ranking was 94 and 5th in Asia. She created history by winning India’s first international gold medal by a women’s youth team at the Asian Sailing Championship in 2004. She has participated in 8 World Championships, winning 6 international medals and 32 National Medals including 8 Consecutive National titles in the Laser Radial. She campaigned for the 2012 Olympic Games.

She completed her medical degree (MBBS) at Chengalpet Govt Medical College and her MSc Internal Medicine (University of Edinburgh). She works as a Senior Resident Doctor at Kauvery Hospital, Chennai, India.She is the Outgoing Curator of the Chennai Hub Global Shapers Community ( an initiative of the World Economic Forum ) and a 2009 TED Fellow.

She has worked as a health researcher with the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project 2016. She was in Angola for 3 weeks for a Health survey assessment. She serves as part of the Global Shapers Alumni Advisory Council since 2018.

Ms. Charu Pragya is a lawyer-politician who is a National TV Panelist for BJP. She also serves as an adjudicator for the National Anti Doping Agency’s Anti Doping Disciplinary Panel of the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India. She is a faculty and mentor at the Indian School of Democracy & Femme First Foundation and talks about Political Communication to leadership cohorts. She has also been a competitive pistol shooter and has represented India in several championships abroad & won medals.

Ms. Pragya has represented India as a Fellow of the ACYPL – American Council of Young Political Leaders. She is an alumni of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung School for Young Politicians and the Australia-India Youth Dialogue.

She holds a BLS-LLB degree from Government Law College, University of Mumbai.

Omkar Sathe is a public policy researcher based in India. He's a partner at CPC Analytics, a policy consulting firm with offices in Berlin and Pune. He works in the areas of public health and industrial policy, and has extensive experience working across multilateral institutions and government bodies. Omkar's policy research has included work for the World Health Organization, Pune Municipal government, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, National Skill Development Corporation, NGOs like Save the Children, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, and others. Prior to public policy, Omkar was working with the Aditya Birla group, as the Head of Innovation and NPD at UltraTech Cement. He was an 'Economic Times Young Leader 2019' and was a delegate at AIYD 2020. He writes opinion pieces for Indian news outlets including Financial Express, Moneycontrol, and liveMint. Omkar has a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune, and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.