ElsaMarie D’Silva

“be bold // stand firm” - song written by Emily Koh

-- read poem (by Jacqueline Suskin)

-- read lyrics

honored in partnership with Vital Voices

ElsaMarie D’Silva is currently the Founder & CEO of Red Dot Foundation, (Safecity) which is a platform that documents sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. She is responsible for the day to day running of the organisation, its campaigns with various partner organisations, management of volunteer teams across the country and forging new partnerships. Under her guidance and leadership, Safecity has become the largest crowd map on the issue in India, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria and Nepal.

She represented Safecity at the Fast FWD accelerator programme that was an initiative of the City of Philadelphia, USA as part of the Bloomberg’s Mayors Challenge in February 2014. She is a 2019 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, 2018 Yale World Fellow, 2017 Stanford Draper Hills Summer School Fellow, 2017 Chevening Gurukul Fellow at Oxford University, 2016 Rotary Peace Fellow, 2015 Aspen New Voices Fellow, 2014 Vital Voices Lead Fellow and an alumna of the Swedish Institute (2012) and the US Department of State's Fortune Program (2016) and a participant of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2016. 

She is the host of TEDxVersovaWomen 2018 and TEDxVersovaSalons 2019. She also has a conversation series "Amazing Grace" that interviews contemporary women leaders with the aim to provide young girls with role models who inspire, and is part of the Policy Strategy Group on World We Want 2030 People’s Voices and Action Platform for advancing Agenda2030 - SDGs - comprised of UN entities, CSOs, private foundations, bi-lateral, academia, media and youth led-organizations. She is also a member of the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development.

She is currently the curator of the Twitter handle for the Global Diplomacy Lab @diplomacy_lab of the German Foreign Office and the Regional Alumni Coordinator for Aspen New Voices, Bosch Foundation and the BMW Responsible Leaders Network.

She has penned several articles that have appeared in CNN, Huffington Post and the WIP and her work has been featured by the BBC, Guardian, Swedish TV and many more. She has spoken about her work at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June 2015, TEDx MidAtlantic September 2015 and City Lab London October 2015.