Pradip Khatiwada is the Founder and Executive Director at Youth Innovation Lab (YI-Lab)—a not-for-profit social enterprise. He is recognized for his leadership on anti-plastic bag movement and getting legislation on plastic bags ban and leading a Guinness world record attempt for the ‘largest tree hug’ event. His work has received extensive coverage on global media e.g. Daily Mail, The Telegraph, CBS News, ABC, Hindustan times, and Indian Express. He headed the Government of Nepal, National Planning Commission and Himalayan Climate Initiatives’ jointly led initiative National Volunteering Program as the National Coordinator. Under his leadership, he led a group of 5000 National Volunteers and built 700 resilient homes, distributed relief materials to 15,000+ people and 1000 scholarships in 2015 earthquake-affected districts. The New York Times acknowledged his leadership in their special edition ‘The Nepal Catastrophe’, on the Nepal earthquake.

Pradip earned his post graduation from Tata Institute of Social Sciences -Mumbai, India with a focus on Disaster Management and Livelihood Recovery. Before starting YI-Lab, he worked as the researcher at the National Science Foundation’s PEER Science project at Kathmandu Living Labs. He is the recipient of the 2017 US Department of States’ International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP).

For more information, kindly visit www.pradipkhatiwada.com