# Geeta Mehta

Geeta Mehta is an Indian-American social entrepreneur, urban designer, architect and author. She is the co-founder of Asia Initiatives, and URBZ, and an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.

## Early life and education

Mehta was born in Simla, India. She earned her bachelor's degree in architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, a master's degree in architecture and urban design from Columbia University, and a doctorate in urban engineering from the University of Tokyo.

## Career

Mehta is an adjunct professor of architecture and urban design at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York City. She is also a research affiliate at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at Columbia Climate School. Until 2009, Mehta was a professor of architecture at Temple University campus in Tokyo.
She founded with business partner Jill Braden the interior design firm Braden & Mehta Design in Honolulu and New York City. The blend of Western and Asian influences appear in the firm's work throughout U.S., Vietnam, and India as well for various corporations and private homes.
Mehta appeared in Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, a documentary film about activist Jane Jacobs directed by Matt Tyrnauer. Mehta, in the film, warned that global development, without the philosophies of Jacobs, could result in "the slums of the future".
She was appointed in 2018 by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to the Waterfront Management advisory board.
She has spoken on social capital, sustainable and equitable urbanism, and community-based change at forums in Australia, Austria, Brazil, India, Japan, UAE and the US, including the Public Ideas Form in Perth, Australia, and the Post City event at ARS Electronica in Linz, Austria. She also was a panelist at WomenDeliver in Copenhagen, Denmark and the Women's Summit in Sharjah organized by UN Women.
She is on the board of WomenStrong International, The Center for the Living City, and Friends of University of Tokyo. She previously was on the advisory board of the Millennium Cities Initiative of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and People Building Better Cities.

### Asia Initiatives

Inspired by Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, a scientist and humanist, Geeta and Krishen Mehta co-founded Asia Initiatives in 1999 in Tokyo. In 2010, the organization was officially registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in New York City. As advised by Professor Swaminathan, all Asia Initiatives projects are pro-women, pro-environment, and pro-community. Asia Initiatives leads projects in education, up-skilling, nature-based agriculture, climate resilience, healthcare, and micro-credit in underserved areas through partnerships with local NGOs and governments in India, Kenya, Taiwan, and the United States. Since 2024, Asia Initiatives has been doing business as (DBA) Social Capital Initiatives.
The M.S. Swaminathan Award, instituted in 2014, was presented by Asia Initiatives to economist Jeffrey Sachs (2014) for his work on Millennium Development Goals, Indra Nooyi for steering PepsiCo towards Performance with Purpose (2015), Kerry Kennedy for her work on human rights (2016), and Dr. Mattoo for his commitment to educational causes (2016).
The 8th Secretary General of the United Nations, H.E. Ban Ki-moon, is a patron of Asia Initiatives. In his honor, Asia Initiatives instituted the Ban Ki-moon Awards in 2017. Recipients of the award have included Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Paul Polman, Gloria Steinem, Yue Sai Kan, Pat Mitchell, Ricky Kej, Eva Haller, Prof. Chelsea Clinton, Chandrika Tandon, Lekha Singh, Maria Wilhelm, Dr. Joe Romm, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Mitzi Perdue, Dr. Susan Morton Blaustein, Kathy Matsui, Cecile Richards, Dr. Lee Bae-yong, and Dr. Madhura Swaminathan

### SoCCs (Social Capital Credits)

Mehta is the innovator of Social Capital Credits (SoCCs), a community currency for social good, that helps communities leverage their social capital and improve their financial and environmental capital, and happiness.[3] People earn SoCCs by helping their communities according to the SoCCs menus they create themselves during SoCCratic dialogues, and spend SoCCs for education, healthcare, up-skilling, and micro-credit.
SoCCs Earning Menus include items such as assisting with waste management and circular economy projects, helping rejuvenate rivers and watersheds, switching to regenerative agriculture, helping make rainwater harvesting structures, and mentoring children to stay and succeed in school etc. iSoCCs Spending Menus include items such as digital skill classes, upskilling for better livelihoods, agricultural inputs, and grants or micro-credit to start small businesses CommSoCCs can be used for shared infrastructure projects such as a micro-sewage system, improvements to streets or public spaces, or child-care centers. A local SoCC Manager is trained to work with the community. Mehta has appeared in articles in Forbes and Huffington Post, which describe the creation and use of SoCCs in greater detail. Asia Initiatives was also a winner of the Amravati Happy Cities competition in April 2018. SoCCs methodology is now being offered to all communities that would like to use it.
In 2019, SoCCs received Fast Company's 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards, MIT Inclusive Innovation Award in 2019 for the Asia Region category. In 2020, Asia Initiatives received awards from MIT SOLVE, General Motors, Vodafone and Experian. In 2021, Asia Initiative received the Jacobs Foundation Conference Grand Innovation prize. In 2022, Asia Initiatives received the Future of Work award from MIT/Caterpillar Foundation.

### URBZ

With urban planner Matias Echanove and urban anthropologist Rahul Srivastava, Mehta co-founded URBZ: User Generated Cities a research and action collective that focuses on participatory urban planning and design. URBZ was named one of the 100 most influential names in architecture in the world by the magazine Il Giornale dell'Architettura. In 2023, re:arc selected URBZ in the second annual cohort of the Practice Lab, and provided funding for grassroots projects in Dharavi, Mumbai, where URBZ has had its offices since 2010.