My Journey

Having lived in India for the first 20 years of my life, I’ve experienced sexual harassment first hand, and through my time here, I understand that my experience is part of a broader social problem. I created my organization - Sayfty right after the horrific 2012 Delhi gang rape of Jyoti Singh. The incident deeply impacted me, and inspired me to actively find a solution for the problem of violence against women and girls. I no longer wanted to be a silent bystander,I wanted to inspire young women and girls in India to take charge of their personal safety.

I was born and raised in India. As children, my own cousin tried to have sex with me under the pretext of the doctor-doctor game. At the age of 9-10 years, I was clueless. My parents had never had the sex talk. In high school, my father’s friend sexually harassed me on various occasions in my own house. I was petrified of him and extremely angry at his audacity but lacked the voice to expose him. Like most Indian girls and women, I had freedom but it was limited. When I moved to the U.S. for higher education, I truly understood what freedom and personal safety meant. I found the right vocabulary to be a feminist, to walk the streets with no fear and to say NO without feeling guilty. Most women in India lack that.

I am extremely passionate about the issue of violence against women and girls and want to provide the same resources to Indian women that I have access to by virtue of my education and experience living abroad. I want them to experience the true meaning of safety. I want them to have a voice necessary to protect them. As a qualified economist with several years of development experience at the World Bank and a Ph.D. under my belt, I have the ability to seek full time employment with a healthy salary, but I chose to go on this entrepreneurial journey and startedSayfty instead because I’d like to see a world which has zero tolerance for violence against women.

During the past three years, I have worn multiple hats (CEO, Marketers, Brand Ambassador, Fundraiser and others) needed to launch Sayfty’s products and services in India. I have successfully raised money, recruited a team of passionate young people, designed award winning social media campaigns and interviewed influential personalities for raising awareness for our mission. It isn’t easy wearing multiple hats, but I have rallied resources to drive the organization forward and plugged the gaps with my own hands where necessary because women deserve to be free from violence.

I was selected for two international accelerator programs – Founders Institute & Fast Fwd, both of which helped me position Sayfty for growth. I have enabled pro-bono consulting from Wharton’s Social Impact Initiative, Penn Law School, Legal audit from Dechert LLP, design consulting from Think Brownstone and mentoring from various industry entrepreneurs.Sayfty was presented with an award by the State Government of India for our work on women’s safety. In 2015,I convinced the Police Commissioner of Kanpur, India to sponsor a self-defense workshop for 250 students from 10 colleges.

Sayfty creates safe spaces for open dialogue through our educational initiatives on social media. #SayftyChat, #VoiceoftheWeek, Speak Our Stories are some of dynamic online forums where thousands of voices converge, share information, challenge beliefs and propose solutions related to women and girl's safetyin a respectful and engaging manner. At Sayfty, we dream of a society where gender equality is the norm, and violence against women is eradicated, and we want you to be that voice. In addition to Sayfty’s educational initiatives on social media – we also empower girls and women through self defense workshops and share stories through People Extraordinaire,about inspirational individuals who have overcome adversity in their personal lives in order to impact social change.

Over the past 3 years, I have won several awards and build a brand around women and girl’s safety. Through Sayfty we have trained over 750 girls in self-defense training and raised awareness on women’s safety by involving millions of people from all over the world through social media. In 2016, The White House nominated me as a changemaker for The United State Of Women Summit 2016. Sayfty was awarded the People’s Choice Award by Femverstising (2015), and won a State recognition award by the UP government in India for the organization’s work on safety and education of girls. In 2015 also, I was awarded the Rex Karamveer fellowship, “to share impactful ideas for action and transform lives through projects and ideas of hope,” and was awarded “Woman of the Year (third prize)” by Regional Council, Aosta Valley, Italy.

I have addressed many public forums including the Youth Assembly at the United Nations (August 2016), Merit 360 (September 2016) and Make Room India (October 2016). I am dedicated to media, digital and traditional, to raise awareness to make our cities safer for women and girls.

To help us raise awareness on the issue of violence against women, encourage women to speak out against it and engage the community, join us at Sayfty. Let's join hands and make our communities free of gender based violence.