People
Dr Subroto Das
Dr Subroto Das, winner of one of India’s highest civilian awards, Padma Shri for his work on Highway Trauma Care, co-founded Lifeline Foundation with the aim of reducing the 1,50,000+ annual highway deaths in India. The only Indian to be honoured with the Asian EMS Lifetime Achievement Award by the Asian EMS Council in 2015, The Times of India calls Dr Das “the country’s best known EMS expert”. He works at the cross-roads of Emergency Medical Services, Public Health, Public Safety, Trauma Care and Industrial Medicine. An Ashoka Fellow he is a Founding Member of Asian Association for EMS and Chair of its South & Central Asian Chapters.
An Eisenhower Fellow, he has been associated with projects on Road Safety and EMS supported by NITI Aayog and the EAC to the Prime Minister, being the “Technical Head” of the “Road Safety Education Committee” and the principal author of the project on “EMS Funding”, commissioned by EAC-PM in 2019. He was the 1st in India to advocate a unified national medical emergency helpline number for highways and legislation for EMS and trauma care as a fundamental right.
Dr Das is also championing two other significant issues in India through his position as Director of HSFI (Heart & Stroke Foundation of India, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Heart Association) – reducing under-5 mortality and stroke related morbidities and mortalities.
Ms Sushmita Das
Ms Sushmita Das, co-founded Lifeline Foundation after surviving a life-threatening accident in August, 1999 on one of India’s busiest highways, ensuring others do not die on Indian highways. An alumnus of M S University, she has served as Executive Editor of Asian EMS Journal, official journal of Asian Association for EMS and also of EMSINDIA®, India’s 1st peer-reviewed EMS journal.
Sushmita Das has been part of various national and international initiatives on pre-hospital and trauma care, having worked with various Road Safety and EMS stakeholders in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
She has been a recipient of the Red & White Bravery Gold Award for Social Acts of Courage in 2003; her work has been recognized by The Limca Book of Records in 2005 and documented by Films Division of India in 2012.
Ms Roochita Desai
Ms Roochita Desai is Deputy CEO at Lifeline Foundation. An MBA in Finance, she was never comfortable in financial domain and answered her calling to work in social sector by joining us immediately after her post-graduation.
She has been integral to implementation of all our projects since 2005, she has been core to activities that have defined and shaped the organisation.
She is also key to all conferences and workshops organised by the Foundation as well as its sister concerns.
Ms Isha Popat
Deputy CEO of Lifeline Foundation, Ms Isha Popat is responsible for furthering one of the core objectives of the organization – upskilling, capacity building and empowering of stakeholders to save lives. She is an American Heart Association certified BLS® instructor.
A Post Graduate in Disaster Management from prestigious Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), and then having spent her formative years with the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority (GSDMA), she brings with her, the experience and knowledge of working in development sector to the field of EMS.
Ms Isha Popat has been with the organisation for more than half a decade spearheading various activities of the Foundation.
Mr Ravi Thakkar
An American Heart Association – Basic Life Support Instructor®, Ravi is working with Lifeline Foundation since 2012. Initially involved in Ambulance Operations, his interest to train in First Aid Trainings fuels his work. He has been sensitising community to train in CPR, organising and executing first aid and CPR trainings for industrial personals, housing societies, law enforcement authorities, teachers and students of schools and colleges & many more groups across India.
He has also been part of various workshops and conferences training various stakeholders in Primary Trauma Care.
Ms Shreya Korde
Ms Shreya Korde is working as Sr Manager Finance & Commercial and she heads the finance and accounts department at Lifeline Foundation. She also handles the Industrial Relations liaisons with different government authorities.
Ms Korde has done her Masters in Finance from under Commerce from the Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) of Vadodara, also she is a semi-qualified Chartered Accountant pursued from The Institute of Chartered Accountants. She has wide knowledge in Taxation and Auditing apart from Finance.
Mr Shukanto Das
Shukanto Das is a second-generation EMS proponent, who believes that everyone can help save lives. Das holds a Masters of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, specializing in Health Services Management. He helps develop interventions focused on community health education and capacity building. Das is a Regional Faculty for the American Heart Association Basic Life Support courses and has served as its Country Consultant. He also holds a Masters in Science from MS University of Baroda and is a double gold-medallist.