About Us
The birth of every innovation owes it to a visionary architect. Resilience AI started with Dr. Anshu, who has been solving for dignity in disasters for 3 decades, Samhita, building Tech4Impact across healthcare, buildings, smart cities and process and Dr. Manu, who has been a leading humanitarian innovator and Ashoka Fellow in sustainable environment. Resilience AI was officially incorporated in November 2023 after 22 months of extensive collaboration amongst climate resilience actors, climate, sustainability (ESG) and health experts, architects, planners, humanitarian innovators, and impact techies. The AI-based climate risk assessment was supported by Microsoft AI Lab.
Founder’s Note
“As climate change continues to redefine global landscape, cities and businesses face unprecedented challenges that test their preparedness. The urgency of integrating livelihood and business continuity strategies is underscored by the financial repercussions of neglecting these evolving climate risks. This new era demands a proactive approach to safeguard economic stability and business operations, thereby ensuring long-term resilience amidst an increasingly unpredictable climate behaviour.”
Subsection of Founders:
Dr. Anshu Sharma
Dr. Anshu has myriad avatars in sustainability and environment, as an academician, thought leader and innovator. However, he remains singularly known for being a deep-rooted change catalyst for the community.
He co-founded SEEDS (Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society) a not-for-profit organization, institutionalized in his home in 1994. Three decades of service towards displaced households, damaged physical assets, and burdened livelihoods induced by climate, has been the mission of SEEDS. Today, SEEDS is a global leader in disaster resilience systems and humanitarian innovation accoladed by India’s highest award for disaster management and United Nations with the prestigious Sasakawa award.
He co-founded STS Global in 2009, as an impact advisory organization which co-builds-owns-operates-transfers climate preparedness solutions to ensure resilient communities, with community-centric, and scalable interventions. The solutions of STS global aim at creating a future-proof world.
As an advisor, Dr. Sharma has lent his expertise to various UN agencies, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Red Cross, and numerous international NGOs. He has provided invaluable technical assessments, planning, and capacity building for disaster management to governments and organizations worldwide. Notably, he served as an advisor to the Government of Nepal for post-earthquake recovery planning in 2015 and has undertaken technical assignments in countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Haiti, and Sri Lanka.
He believes that innovation is at the kernel of institutionalizing change. “It is possible to provide impromptu intelligence, based on a naked eye assessment of a structure, around its ability to sustain a natural disaster, such as a landslide, flood, earthquake, or storm. This intelligence is a derivative of three decades of on-ground learning from communities, innovators, scientists and academia that I have had the privilege to have. The planet doesn’t have another three decades to prepare. The time to act on preparedness is past-dated and not post-dated any longer.”
Dr. Anshu set up Resilience360.ai with the aim of bringing three decades of on-ground learning into digitizing climate preparedness as a lifecycle solution.
Samhita R
Samhita is a visionary driver of change with over 20 years of experience in people, profit, and planet. She is driving positive disruption for impact, where she serves as Board Member at SEEDS India for nearly a decade, shaping the organization as an incubator of enterprises with social impact.
Samhita is from the northeastern belt of India, which experiences significant loss of assets and livelihood every year due to floods. “While nature may be seasonally unkind, resilience doesn’t need to be seasonal. Climate resilience should be a 365-day conversation.” She co-founded Resilience360.ai with the aim of building climate resilience with technology.
Samhita is a business architect and innovator. She has repeatedly built and operated new businesses from ideation to sustenance in both established multi-national corporations and early stage and growth startups with exposure in Asia and Europe. As she helps incubate and accelerate these ventures, with socio-economic impact, she also helps drive them as board member and co-founder. She has served as senior leader across industries, such as government, healthcare, technology, renewable energy, smart cities, and buildings at established Fortune multi-national corporations such as Ernst & Young, Honeywell, Microsoft, General Electric and Abbott.
Samhita believes in creating sustainable impact and leaving a legacy for the next generation. She is a graduate from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (India).
Dr. Manu Gupta
Manu Gupta is Co-Founder of SEEDS (Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society), a not-for profit organization with practical solutions towards disaster lifecycle management and sustainable environment. On the frontlines, SEEDS is enabling communities to be proactive and responsive to disasters and, at the macro-level, it is influencing and enabling national and international governments to devise effective strategies towards mitigation, relief, recovery and reconstruction. SEEDS is proud recipient of Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Award 2021 by Government of India.
Manu has worked with a wide spectrum of communities across Asia and has been elected as an Ashoka Fellow in recognition of his tireless efforts. He sits on the boards of several global and national organizations and visiting faculty at several global institutions.
Manu holds degrees in Physical Planning and Urban Planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, and a doctorate in community-based disaster management from Kyoto University, Japan.