Mritunjay Kumar Tiwary

Mritunjay Kumar Tiwary is an Indian social entrepreneur, philanthropist, and the CEO and co-founder of , a non-profit organization based in Bihar, India.  He also serves as the Executive Trustee of the Yugrishi Shriram Sharma Acharya Charitable Trust, the founding trust of the hospital.

 Biography 
Tiwary attended Calcutta Boys' School from 1982 to 1990 and later graduated from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata with a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com) degree in Business and Commerce in 1993. During his student years, he was active in football and cricket.

Before entering the non-profit sector, he managed a family-owned franchise and distribution business from 1993 to 2013.

The hospital was established to address curable blindness in Bihar and other low-income regions, where access to quality eye care was limited.  As of FY 2024-2025, Akhand Jyoti completed over 145,000 surgeries in a single fiscal year, 80 percent of which were provided free of cost to patients unable to afford treatment. Over the last 19 years, the eye hospital has performed over 1 million sight-restoring surgeries. The organization plans to expand its annual surgical capacity to 400,000 procedures as part of its "Vision 2030" strategy, which targets two million total surgeries and the empowerment of 1,500 rural girls.

In 2009, Tiwary launched the Football to Eyeball programme, an initiative that integrates football training with academic and vocational education in optometry and other management courses.  The programme supports girls from rural areas aged 12–16, providing them with opportunities to study and train while living on the hospital campus. Their education, accommodation, and training are fully funded. The initiative aims to promote gender equality and economic independence by helping participants build professional careers and delay early marriage through education and sports-based empowerment.

In 2010, Tiwary received the CNN-IBN Real Heroes Award for his contributions to rural eye care and social empowerment.

In 2024, he was honoured with the Plan India Impact Award in the Best Last-Mile Champion for Girls’ Rights category for his efforts in advancing education and opportunities for rural girls through the Football to Eyeball programme.

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