page_title: Geeta Mehta
section_title: Asia Initiatives
hierarchical_section_title: Geeta Mehta / Career / Asia Initiatives
caption_attribution_description: English: Asia Initiatives: Empowering Women by Social Capital; www.asiainitiatives.org
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Inspired by M. S. Swaminathan, a scientist and humanist, Geeta Mehta and Krishen Mehta co-founded Asia Initiatives in 1999 in Tokyo. Since 2010 it has been registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in New York City. Asia Initiatives has also supported projects in education and healthcare in underserved areas with non-profit organizations such as the Self-Employed Women's Association in Delhi and Ahmedabad, the Center for Development in Ahmedabad, Save Indian Farmers and Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan in Maharashtra, the Shohratgarh Environmental Society in UP, Friends of the Doon Society in Dehradoon, Ashta No Kai in Pune, Arpana Trust in Delhi, Women Lead in Nepal, Saving Mothers in Bangladesh, and Philippine Christian Foundation in Manila.
  The M.S. Swaminathan Award was presented at the Asia Initiatives Gala to the economist Jeffrey Sachs (2014), Indra Nooyi for steering PepsiCo towards Performance with Purpose (2015) and Kerry Kennedy for her work on human rights (2016).
  In honor of The 8th Secretary General of the United Nations, Asia Initiatives instituted the Ban Ki-moon Award for Women's Empowerment. The award was presented by SG Ban in 2017 to Gloria Steinem, Yue Sai Kan and Eva Haller, and to Chelsea Clinton and Susan Blaustein in 2018.
caption: Asia Initiatives: Empowering Women by Social Capital
exif: {}