Announces 2nd year fellows have brought notable change in the Social and Public Environment
by Prashant Kapadia/NHN
16th April 2018: GOQii, one of the leading Smart Preventive Healthcare Company in India is delighted to announce its Fellowship program to individuals who are striving to translate their personal capabilities into action for the betterment of Health and Lifestyle status in India. GOQii fellowship upholds the brand’s ethos of supporting bold new ideas and seamlessly integrating the social and public environment into one eco-system. Through the program, GOQii aims to offer an exciting opportunity to all fellows who believe in doing unique and enhancing the quality of every individual’s life in the country. This year GOQii has identified 5 fellows from varied fields.
The Fellowship program will provide mentorship to the fellows and their cause. The transformative power of this fellowship experience will not only nurture their talent but also provide them a much larger platform to network with Industry experts and influencers. It is designed to result in engagement with more people in a realistic manner and act as a catalyst for change at various industry events and GOQii platforms.
Speaking of the program, Vishal Gondal, CEO and Founder, GOQii said “We congratulate and welcome GOQii fellows to make further disruption in the health and fitness segment in our country. The fellowship program will introduce this young talent to make a positive difference in their chosen fields and inspire other individuals as well.” He further added, “I believe our fellows will be strong leaders for the future as they will be trained with appropriate tools that help them bring a change in our social and public environment. This is truly in keeping with GOQii’s theme of ‘be the force’. Our fellow will truly force the inspiration and good in the society.”
Leading experts from various fields will be mentoring the fellows to achieve their goals. To qualify for the program, the fellows have to fulfill certain criteria in the application form. In addition, it will also depend on the hard work of the individual and the leadership qualities demonstrated through the work in their respective fields. Based on further shortlisting by GOQii’s internal panel of experts, every year about five to ten fellows will be chosen for the program. Through the program, GOQii will build a network of alumnae who will be able to further nurture talent for the program.
More details about 2018 GOQii fellows:
Deepak Ramola: He is 26, but his experiences are way larger than his age. He is a lyricist and has written songs for Bollywood films such as Wazir and Manjhi . He’s even acted in a few movies and a TV serial besides being a screenplay writer, script analyst and a spoken word poet. But, the one role that is closest to his heart is that of a ‘Life Skill Educator.’ Project Fuel is his pet project which he founded in 2009 and through which he began collecting life-lessons of various people and then presenting them in different interactive mediums for the world to see. Deepak strongly believes that the power of life-lessons transcends geographical boundaries and personal familiarities.
Amrit Vatsa, An IIT Madras post-graduate known for his web comic ‘Shitoons is also a photographer and filmmaker with a difference. He feels there are amazing people doing amazing things and their stories must be told. This thought led him to start 3minutestories.com. Under 3minutes.com he creates short documentary films from across India and once in a while, abroad. These stories include his personal projects as well as commissioned projects. He has so far created over 30 films. Two of his films on adventure – Roads Unseen and Doing Good Deeds has also found space in IMFS’s Adventure film festival. The most viral story has been viewed a million times. He is a good caricaturist and his work has a definitive and unique style. That’s not all to him. Above all this he is a passionate runner, his day is incomplete without a 115km stretch.
Vanika Choudhary: Founder, Sequel, the first Gluten free restaurant: She quit her full-time corporate job to go on a short sabbatical, which eventually resulted in her fleshing out a life-long dream of starting a restaurant that promotes conscious eating. The concept behind Sequel is to offer wholesome world cuisine with fresh, high-quality ingredients. According to her healthy food need not be boring, she is trying to break that stereotype.
Simar Singh: Spoken word Poet and founder of UnErase Poetry: He is a young poet turned entrepreneur. He is the founder and curator of UnErase Poetry, a community to promote young poets like and him and help them grow. Through his poetries he talks about relevant social issues. For someone who started penning poems at the age of 9, his introduction to open mics was very early too, both as a stand-up comic and as a spoken word poet. He has just completed class XII and while he was studying he conceptualized the idea of UnErase Poetry. UnErase is not just about having an open mic night. It is an attempt to promote and popularize spoken word poetry. Here, they conduct shows offline and create content online.
Srishti Bakshi, Project Crossbow: Srishti Bakshi is a UN Women Champion for Change who undertook a 3800 Km walk mission from Kanyakumari to Kashmir in support of women’s empowerment. Still on the road, with at least 65 stops along the route where she has been conducting workshops with women on various themes including digital and financial literacy. She also created an app that will allow the entire country to join their steps with hers and in turn, unlock funds to support various social projects. An MBA from ISB, Srishti’s CrossBow aims at relabeling CSR funds, from donations to INVESTME
Following are the fellows from 2017 program
Samara Mahindra: Carer Programme_ Cancer Recovery and Rehabilitation – (Bangalore)
Having lost her mother to Cancer and being left alone to make her choices and take her decisions, Samara’s eyes opened to a lot of brutal realities during her mother’s long journey of struggle with Cancer. The oncology ward of numerous hospitals became her home where she witnessed extreme cases and dire situations that were unimaginable. She watched blank refusals of curable stage cancer treatment to those who didn’t have the funding and children who saw hospital wards before a classroom. Consequently, she decided not to settle. She knew exactly which door she wanted to unlock and how many steps she wished to take. That was the beginning of Carer Program. The CARER Program is an integrative cancer recovery program that helps a patient recover from the side effects of treatment and the cancer itself. CARER provides a holistic approach to healing through complementary therapies that target nutrition, movement and mind-body healing for patients post treatment.
Ranveer Allahbadia: Fitness Expert and Youtube Sensation- ‘Beer Biceps’ (Mumbai)
From being a fat boy where his life was full of ‘One more beer’ and ‘one more cheesecake’, no clear goal and more importantly, NO PURPOSE, Ranveer Allahbadia has come a long way. He realized there was no short cut to fat loss and the solution was only through proper diet, exercise and discipline. Today, having a fit lifestyle has literally created a career for him. He is a full time weight loss and strength coach who also has his own YouTube channel called BeerBiceps(www.youtube.com/c/beerbicepsofficial). He is also the present trainer of Tanmay Bhat of the AIB fame who purely by following diet and exercise under the guidance of Ranveer has been able to lose 100+ kgs. Ranveer says that fitness has given him something much bigger than just a career. “As much as fitness has trained my body, it’s trained my mind even more”he adds. His mantra is ‘fitness should be a permanent change in one’s lifestyle. Not a temporary activity to get to your physical goals’. His advice to one and all is embrace a fit lifestyle ‘JUST’ to develop as a person.
Kuntal Joisher -Vegan Everester Mountaineer (Mumbai)
Kuntal Joisher, a software engineer by profession stood on top of the world (Mt Everest) as the first Vegan. Joisher stood proudly on top of Everest after close to 12 hours of grueling climb. Joisher has dispelled all myths. With no altitude sickness and fit throughout his 60 days’ climb, he has shown and inspired the world that mountaineering can be done on a healthy whole foods vegan diet. He wanted to prove to the world that Vegans and Vegetarians are not weak and that if you have any dreams, including partaking in some of the toughest sport on the planet, it’s very possible to do it on a Vegan Lifestyle. Kuntal is also the only second Indian civilian to have summit Mt Manaslu, the 8th highest mountain in the world prior to his Everest summit. Josher was initially a vegetarian born into a Gujarati family. He would then eat even cakes that had eggs and even had dairy products. The change to a complete vegan came 13 years ago when he moved to LA to study and work. He turned a vegan to take a stand for animal rights. Being Vegan is now a way of life for him. He feels very strongly about this cause and this is not going to waver anytime soon for him.
Divyanshu Ganatra – Adventure Beyond Barriers (Pune)
He lost his sight to Glucoma when he was just 19 but, that did not deter him from living his life. Lively and a happy person, he accepted blindness as a gift of life. For this 39-year-old Clinical Psychologist, life is as normal as it can get for any able bodied person. So much so that he is such an adventure sport enthusiast from trekking to scuba diving to paragliding he does them all. In fact, he took a nearly two-minute flight in the skies as a solo paraglider, becoming the first visually challenged person in India to do so. This achievement of his in the field of Paragliding has reinforced Divyanshu’s belief that any disability is insignificant if one has the right perspective towards looking at challenges in life. Apart from Paragliding he has to his credit a successful expedition to Milam Glacier in the Kumaon hills’ of Uttarakhand in the Himalayas among few others. Divyanshu, is now working towards promoting adventure sports among persons with disabilities through his social initiative ‘Adventure Beyond Barriers’. He has certified trainers to train many disabled individuals in mountaineering and trekking, paragliding and scuba diving.
About GOQii
GOQii is one of the world’s leading Health & Lifestyle Coaching platforms. Headquartered in California with offices in Mumbai and Shenzhen, GOQii is dedicated to enabling a permanent shift to a healthier lifestyle with the combination of advanced wearable technology, the world’s leading experts, coaches and karma. The unique GOQii proposition includes a wearable agnostic app, guidance from global experts, coaching counsel and the ability to support a cause that matters to users. GOQii focuses on sustained engagement & goal reinforcement and offers a complete ecosystem as a single integrated solution, which is a powerful combination of technology and human connection. GOQii is a collaboration of some of the world’s leading experts and an amazing management team who are driven by a passion for healthy sustainable living, and who believe that all of us contain boundless potential. GOQii’s goal is to enable millions of people across the world to “be the force” by helping them to unleash their untapped potential.