The Directors
Khurshed Batliwala
Khurshed Batliwala is a teacher of the Art of Living Foundation. Following a Graduation Degree from the very reputed Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, India, Khurshed found his calling with the The Art of Living Foundation, a grass-roots level NGO based in Bangalore, India, with a presence in more than 140 countries.
Khurshed is one of the two Executive Directors of the World Alliance for Youth Empowerment (WAYE) and has co-founded the premier global youth initiative the Youth Empowerment and Skills Workshop-YES!+. YES!+ is a youth initiative which aims at empowering youth between the ages of 18 and 35. The program, which caters to mainly young urban professionals and students, has been taught all across the world and has seen widespread recognition.
He has led walks and fund-raisers that he spearheaded across thirty cities worldwide, in an effort to raise funds for the Foundation's disaster relief efforts following the Gujarat Earthquake. Khurshed has also designed numerous innovative projects to consistently involve youth in social causes. For example, under his initiative, "Donate a Book and Educate a Child", funds were raised in various cities across India, Australia and Europe to support the education of the children in the far flung tribal belt areas and for the aboriginals.
Khurshed has also represented The Art of Living Foundation at the Educational Caucus of the UN in Geneva and very recently was a speaker at a conference on World Ethics Forum organized by the World Bank in Oxford, 2006.
Fondly called Bawa, he is known for his practical wisdom, warmth and keen sense of humour. An amateur pianist Khurshed has won many competitions in music and dramatics. He loves to watch musicals and movies with happy endings.
Dinesh Ghodke
Dinesh Ghodke graduated from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay in 1997. Thereafter he worked as a software engineer with Infosys Ltd. He joined as fulltime faculty with The Art of Living Foundation in 1999. He has empowered thousands of youth through various innovative initiatives of yoga, sports and social projects. He has also reached out to a broad spectrum of the general populace including politicians, corporate executives, youth from the rural and urban areas and even hardcore terrorists through programs on stress and trauma relief, life skills, ethics, and human values.
Over the last 14 years, Dinesh has traveled to 22 countries across 5 continents teaching many leadership programs. He has co-founded the premier global youth initiative the Youth Empowerment and Skills Workshop – YES!+. He is presently one of the two Executive Directors of the World Alliance for Youth Empowerment (WAYE). A writer,a gymnast, an expert cricket and soccer player, a unique blend of serenity and wit, Dinesh is a favourite with the youth.
Select Accomplishments
Founding members and Directors, they launched WAYE on December 24th 2006, which was an event participated by more than 75,000 youth and had an alliance of UNESCO, UNDP, UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNAID, UNICEF, UN Millennium Campaign and SIDA as strategic partners.
Speaker at the WEF (World Ethics Forum) at Oxford, UK, 2006 on "Youth Leadership and Integrity".
A member in "Planning and Implementation Committee" that planned and managed the Art of Living Silver Jubilee Celebrations in Bangalore, India that was attended by 2.5 million people coming from more than 110 countries to experience the Art of Living's message of ‘One World Family’.
Invited to speak at the Arab Youth Conference organized by the League of Arab States in Egypt, 2008. He has taught YES!+ workshops to a group of 150 Iranian, Jordanian, Bahraini, Lebanese, Omani, Moroccan, Saudi Arabian and Palestinian youth in August 2007 in Bangalore, India.
Conducted a specially designed leadership and empowerment workshop to a batch of 55 Iraqi youth who visited the Art of Living's international centre in India in August 2007 as a part of the foundations’ initiatives of spreading peace in Iraq in collaboration with the Iraqi ministry of sports and Youth Affairs.
Facilitated the International Education Conference 2006 on integrated value education, in Bangalore with UNESCO and Indian Government’s Ministry for Human Resource Development and was Emcee for its Closing Ceremony.
Among the main organizers of the Indian leg of the United Nation’s WYPS (World Youth Peace Summit) in Dec. 2003, involving 1800 youth leaders from across the country. Along with His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Dinesh represented his foundation at the United Nation’s Millennium Peace Summit in New York, 2000.
