About Us

WAIC team consists of people passionate about child welfare, who have a common vision that we as individuals and society must protect and ensure a future for every vulnerable child. The team is distributed pan-India and includes entrepreneurs, technologists, campaigners, counsellors, business heads, and strategists.

WAIC is registered as Child Welfare and Action Foundation.

Contact Us

You can write to us at team@waic.in and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Founding Team

Smriti Gupta – Cofounder and CEO
Smriti is a Child Rights Campaigner, and a Partnerships & Marketing professional. She is working to drive awareness and find lasting solutions for India’s most vulnerable children. Smriti is an adoptive mother of two daughters and a champion for adoption of children with special needs, older children, and siblings. Smriti has previously worked with technology companies such as Wikimedia Foundation, PayPal (eBay), and Synopsys. She is an alum of the Indian School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, and The Cooper Union.

Protima Sharma – Cofounder and Director
Protima is an Entrepreneur in Human Resources, and a Certified Adoption Counsellor. Inspired by her own experience of adopting her daughters, she is committed to the cause of child welfare and adoption in India. Using her experience of building successful startups, Protima applies her business acumen to solve some of the key problems in the child welfare mechanism. She is an alum of Indian Institute of Science.

Meera Marthi – Cofounder and Director
Meera is an ICF Certified Coach and a Certified Adoption Counsellor. Being an adoptive mother herself, Meera is passionate about working with children and spreading awareness about adoption. Pursuing both these passions, Meera joined WAIC as a director and co-founder. Meera in her previous avatar worked as a technology professional in companies like Oracle in the U.S.A and Apps Associates in India. Meera is an alum of Osmania University.

Core Team

Natasha Gowans – Head of Communications
Natasha is a PR and Communications professional with experience from global brands such as LinkedIn, Accenture and Thomson Reuters. Natasha is committed to spreading awareness about child welfare matters in India, and is supporting WAIC with media outreach and campaigns. She also manages our pool of volunteers and interns. Natasha is an alum of Sheffield University, United Kingdom.

Chitra Buzruk – Program Head, Maharashtra
Chitra headed HR at Persistent Systems in Pune for many years, before changing course and becoming a Teacher for Hearing Impaired Children. She is an Adoption Counsellor and has also previously worked at C-DAC. Chitra is an alum of Pune Institute of Computer Technology.

Neha Goel
Neha is a Management Consultant and Child Rights Campaigner. She supports WAIC as a volunteer in many areas. Neha has worked with KPMG, DELL, JLL, and Concentrix. She is an IIT Roorkee Alum.

Advisors

SIDNEY ROCHA led Catalysts for Social Action (CSA) as CEO for 5.5+ years, managing a pan India team, strategic relationships, program implementation, human resources, and financials. He has significant knowledge of the child welfare space and the roles that various government bodies and other organisations play in India’s child welfare mechanism.
Prior to the nonprofit sector, Sidney enjoyed an extensive career of over 22 years in the travel and transportation industry. He specialised in Airline Operations, Revenue Accounting, Fare Audit, overall setup and general management of various organisations, including WNS and Kale Consultants. Sidney’s leadership skills ensured a smooth transition of the business through four acquisitions. His last role was with a multinational in the travel industry as Sr. Vice President before he moved on to pursue his passion in the nonprofit sector.

SRIRAM SUBRAMANIAN is the co-founder and CEO of ShoppinPal, and co-founder and CTO of Bnext. He is a B2B retail tech entrepreneur, who has created the largest portfolio of open-source SaaS connectors and scaled the technology to 10 countries. Sriram’s expertise in execution of large-scale complex initiatives and passion for building technology companies from the ground up will help drive forward WAIC’s focus on sustainable technology solutions for child welfare. Sriram is an alum of Carnegie Mellon University and UC Berkeley.