Surabhi Yadav
Graduates of Last Decade (GOLD) Award in recognition of her outstanding achievements in Public Service.
Award Year: 2024 | Degree Year: 2014
Surabhi Yadav received her B.Tech and M.Tech Dual degree in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology from IIT Delhi in 2014. Later, she completed her master’s in development practice from the University of California Berkeley in 2019.
Surabhi is the Founder & CEO of two gender equality & rural development initiatives in India. She offers fresh feminist thinking to build Communities of Hope - ideas and culture that create a new normal for rural women. Soon after graduating from Berkeley, she settled in rural India and kickstarted her Communities of Hope through two of her initiatives namely Sajhe Sapne and Project Basanti: Women at Leisure.
Sajhe Sapne is building a grassroots-leadership movement. It amplifies the agency of young rural women from marginalized caste groups by providing year-long STEM & Management training, mentoring, and opening doors for aspirational careers. At Sajhe, young rural women become professionals in areas such as coding, project management, and entrepreneurship.
Surabhi has designed a unique rural college model called, Sapna Centers to deliver this empowering program. It has led to women being the first ones in their communities to have a notion of a career instead of 'livelihood'. This Community of Hope currently has 100+ members from 60+ villages who are building grassroots leadership movements.
She is also the creator of the widely acclaimed archive Project Basanti: Women at Leisure. The project has documented 800+ videos and photos of women & girls at leisure, especially from semi-urban & rural areas. The project gives vivid visuals of what feminist liberation can look like, introducing joyful & practical ways to create such moments. It has introduced a new language & gaze towards leisure & time as feminist issues, inspiring new thought leadership in academia, art, mainstream media, etc. This Community of Hope has around 35000 people online who are actively engaging in the subject.
Her thought leadership has been featured in platforms like The Guardian, TEDx, and Vogue. She has also received recognition in the form of an Acumen fellowship, GP Birla Fellowship for Women's Leadership, Distinguished Alumni Award by Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California Berkeley, and Pravah's Changeloom Fellow among others.
In honouring Ms. Surabhi Yadav, IIT Delhi recognizes her contributions to Public Service. Ms.Yadav has brought glory to the name of the Institute.
