Tech Team Members

Sudha Padmanabha - Senior CDM Specialist

Sudha has a doctorate in Botany from Bangalore University. She worked as a Research Associate for 11 years at Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in Forest Management, Forestry Mitigation Studies, Biomass Studies, GHG Inventory of Land Use Change and Forestry Sector.

From 2005 to 2009, she headed the CDM activities of a French Renewable Energy Company and was involved in writing PDDs, Validation, Registration, Monitoring and Verification of Biomass and Hydro Projects for the company in India and Brazil.

For the past 10 years, long before the Fair Climate Network was formed, Sudha worked closely with ADATS to develop pro-poor projects that tapped carbon resources for the sustainable development of the poor.

Pradeep Esteves - NGO Dynamics

After working for 20 years at ADATS, Bagepalli, Pradeep started consulting other NGOs in India and abroad on Organisational Development, Finance and CBOs. He has offered long term process accompaniment to many grassroots organisations.

Pradeep is one of the founding members of the Fair Climate Network and, for the past 4 years, has contributed heavily to handholding and facilitating FCN Members take the plunge to develop pro-poor CDM projects. With an expansion of workload, he decided to join the Tech Team full time and take responsibility for the NGO dynamics aspects of CDM development.

Rakesh Tiwari - LCF Expert

A botanist by background with interest in rural ecosystem dynamics and community livelihoods. Worked as a Project Associate since 2006 with the Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science after a Masters in applied botany from the Kuvempu University, Shivamogga. Research areas include natural resource management, village ecosystems, ecosystem services and tradeoffs, forest ecosystem and impacts of climate change; vulnerability of landscapes and production systems to climate change.

Vivy Jacob Thomas - Office Manager

Vivy has worked in the development sector for the past 28 years. He started this career in 1982 with ADATS, Bagepalli, where he worked for 23 years. His last held position was as Finance Director.

Since then, worked with Context India, in their Hybrid Auto rickshaw Project to improve the social conditions of the auto drivers while at the same time to improve the environmental aspects. He was also involved in developing a tool for measuring Social Return on investment (SROI).

Chethan T.R - CDM Facilitator

Chethan T.R did his BE in Instrumentation Technology from Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Bangalore. He started working in ICICI Bank as an Accounts officer and later joined Tata Communications as a Network Engineer. Also worked as a lecturer in the Electronics department of the APS College of Engineering and in the Govt. Polytechnique College, Bagepalli as a part time lecturer.

Mayank Gupta - Intern

Mayank Gupta, 24 yrs, worked with Infosys for over 2 years as a Systems Engineer. He was enthusiastic about climate change mitigation and sustainable development. It took a couple of years for him to take the plunge and explore a fundamental career change from IT. He decided to work as an Intern at ADATS and the FCN Tech Team and grow along with Network.

Tara Sriram - LCF Facilitator

Tara Sriram did her B.E in Biotechnology from M.S.R.I.T, Bangalore. She has always been a keen environmentalist with a particular interest in wildlife and climate change and when the opportunity arose to work for FCN, decided to make the career switch, working on the Low Carbon Farming project.

Yasmeen Telwala - LCF Facilitator

Yasmeen TelWala has worked on "Biological Response of Plant Species to Climate Change in Sikkim, Himalaya" as part of her PhD thesis (submitted) to University of Delhi, India. She has substantial experience in Environmental Niche Modeling (ENM) techniques and technologies pertaining to distribution of plant species. She had her post-graduation in Environmental Sciences. She is well acquainted with the recent global climate change studies concerning the species altitudinal shifts. She is now more keen to look at the impact of climate change on biodiversity, freshwater resources, agriculture and local livelihoods. She sees Fair Climate Network as a platform to learn the practical challenges of developing and implementing the detailed scientific knowledge needed to assess the current agriculture practices and develop sustainable agriculture practices in face of the predicted future warming scenarios, especially in developing country with limited resources, like India.