We are Ragunath Padmanabhan and Nisha Srinivasan, a couple who were neighbours when we were 17, friends at 20, fell in love at 22, got married at 26, moved to the US at 27 and spent 8 years in the Silicon Valley before returning to India on May 17th at 35.

Along the way, we explored life in many ways: technology and marketing through our professions, discovering inspiring people and books, practicing and teaching Yoga, travel, photograpy, meditation, Ayurveda... Partly our exploration was to just enjoy the ride and partly it was to discover ourselves and possibly our life's purpose if there is one. Fortunately, our open ended exploration ended when we stumbled upon CharityFocus, a non-profit organization fully run by volunteers with no physical office, employees, budget, hierarchy or even goals. It is an organization that inspires people through be-the-change activities online and offline and organizes that inspiration to do service work in many areas. It's raison d'etre is to simply help people discover compassion within themselves and channel it as service. Once we became volunteer of CharityFocus, we gained a broader and deeper perspective of our life, a rich experience of serving others and a way of being that allows dynamic learning. We also met a number of amazing people old and young who are being the change they wish to see in the world. They inspired us and helped us decide our current commitment to settling in a village and pursue organic farming and other rural services.

Ragunath has worked in the last fifteen years in areas that include Advertising, Marketing, Information Architechture, Management Consulting and Start ups. The companies and clients he has worked for include: Eli Lilly, Bozell Advertising, Grey Advertising, Channel V, Diners Business Club (Internet Services), Jasubhai Digital Media, Geodesic Information Systems, SNS PLC, KaipaGroup and a few Internet Startups. He did a technology startup in 2001 which instead of increasign his apetite for accumulating personal wealth, pushed him towards some soul searching and landed him in the world of be-the-change service. He is a core member of CharityFocus, a 100% volunteer run organization that has inspired thousands of people around the world to serve. He was a volunteer for Kozmetsky Global Collaboratory, a Stanford based think-tank that researches on building sustainable ventures and communities. He, along with Nisha, ran a weekend institute called East Point for a year that explored ways for 6 8 students to discover and implement practices that will help them understand themselves, identify their passion ad puruse it. He practices Yoga, Meditation and Ayurveda to keep himself healthy, simple and happy. He did his bachelors in physics (Bharathidasan University) in India.

Nisha has 12 years experience in developing award-winning software products and services for companies like Ramco Systems, Moody’s and Sony. Her expertise include designing and developing innovative software products and services, managing the development teams, creating processes, feedback and evaluation systems. She is a super-organizer with calendar, ToDo’s and GPS built into her cells. On weekends, she ran East Point with Ragu and also GreenLocal, a garage-based green products sales and awareness of green businesses which then morphed into the current website. Nisha is also a Yoga instructor and has been offering free classes for many years for friends. She is a core member of CharityFocus and practices Yoga, Meditation and Ayurveda. She did her Bachelors in Physics and Masters in Computer Application (Allagappa University) in India.