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Elsa D'Silva

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki

ElsaMarie D' Silva at the Spotlight Health Aspen Ideas Festival, 2015

ElsaMarie D'Silva is the founder and CEO of the Red Dot Foundation and a former aviation professional whose interest in bringing about social change to improve the lives of women, youth and senior citizens through awareness, interaction and education led her to found Safecity.in.

Early life and education[edit]

D'Silva began her twenty-year career in the aviation industry as a flight attendant.[1] She eventually became a Vice President of Network Planning at Kingfisher Airlines, where she headed the Network Planning & Charters department.[2] D'Silva is also an alumna of the Swedish Institute, where she completed a management program on Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in Business. While she was attending the program, the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh (also known as the Nirbhaya incident) occured, which inspired her to change her career.[3]

Red Dot Foundation[edit]

D'Silva is the founder and CEO of the Red Dot Foundation, an NGO based in Mumbai.[4][5] The online platform SafeCity was developed by the Red Dot Foundation.[4][5]

The Red Dot Foundation is currently present in Mumbai and Delhi and works with other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to address sexual harassment. Red Dot also provides services in Nepal and Kenya, in partnership with Vital Voices Global Partnership, a US-based NGO.[6]

In 2018, the Red Dot Foundation collaborated with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme to create The Youth Design Innovation Challenge, a program for college students to work in teams to design solutions that create safer cities.[7] D'Silva explained, "We need a city not just to live and work in but also play in. That determines the quality of life. Unfortunately for half that population (non-male) there is no access to safe public spaces or transport, many times mobility is restricted resulting in fewer opportunities to explore one’s potential. It is neither fair nor a conducive environment to exercise one’s civic rights."[7]

SafeCity[edit]

After the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh (also known as the Nirbhaya incident),[3] D'Silva co-founded the online platform SafeCity, which tracks and maps incidents of public sexual violence and harassment in India.[8][9] SafeCity grew from mapping violence and harassment in Delhi to Mumbai, Pune, Patna and Ahmedabad.[9] Community members used the data from Safecity to advocate for increased public safety measures, including the addition of doors on public toilets.[9][10][11] Police have been able to increase patrols and safety issues, such as lighting, have been reviewed.[12][13][14] According to D'Silva, the data supports activism, because "You can monitor it, draw trends, and use it in a structured way at a local level, and when people take ownership of their own neighbourhood they feel empowered to take on bigger problems."[9]

SafeCity allows individuals to make anonymous reports, and is available in India, Kenya, Cameroon, and Nepal.[15] According to D'Silva, "Even if it’s anonymous reporting, it helps you identify the extent of the problem."[15] As of 2018, Safecity had received over 10,000 reports.[15] In 2017, SafeCity data was incorporated into a case study co-authored by D'Silva and published in a special issue of the journal Crime Prevention and Community Safety.[16]

Commentary[edit]

D'Silva has engaged in a variety of public commentary, including on social media,[17] as a public speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival,[18] co-authoring an opinion article for CNN,[19] commentary for Deutsche Welle[20] and NPR,[21] and providing her expert opinion to The Times of India.[22] In 2021, she participated in a panel on the theme, "Socially just transition towards sustainable development: the role of digital technologies on social development and well-being of all" for the United Nations Commission for Social Development, where she "underscored the manner in which digital technology can tackle highly taboo topics such as domestic violence by democratizing access to information, fostering dialogue without confrontation and building trust among stakeholders."[23]

D'Silva also contributed an essay titled "Dignity and Gender-Based Violence" to the Aspen Institute 2018 Aspen Global Innovators Group publication Development as Dignity: Frontline Stories from Development Experts in the Global South.[24]

Awards and recognition[edit]

  • 2013 Female Entrepreneur Award by the European Angel Investor[25]
  • 2015 Digital Women Award in the Social Impact Category by SheThePeople.TV[citation needed]
  • 2015 New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute[26]
  • Vital Voices Lead Fellow[6]
  • Mentee at the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women in Business[27]
  • 2018 Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellow,[28] Yale University[29]
  • National Endowment for Democracy Spring 2019 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow[4]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Boyd, E.B. (June 26, 2016). "Meet The Entrepreneurs Building The World's Startups". Fast Company. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  2. ↑ ThemeXpose. "Making cities safer". www.redelephantfoundation.org. Retrieved 2016-11-26.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Jayakumar, P. B. (October 8, 2017). "Bedrock of Safety: The 'Nirbhaya' incident was the trigger that made D'Silva take up women's issues". Business Today. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Spotlight: Elsa Marie D'Silva, Founder and CEO of The Red Dot Foundation, India". National Endowment For Democracy. December 13, 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sapam, Bidya (March 31, 2016). "A crowdsourced initiative for making cities safer for women". LiveMint. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Fellows of the Week: VVLead Fellowship Weekly Roundup". TinyLetter. Retrieved 2016-11-26.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chakraborty, Riddhi (July 10, 2018). "Take the Youth Innovation Challenge to Create a Safe, Inclusive City". Rolling Stone India. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  8. ↑ Agrawal, Parul (October 23, 2013). "Mapping unsafe areas for India's women". BBC News. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Young-Powell, Abby (March 8, 2018). "Reclaiming the streets: the apps helping women tackle sexual violence". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  10. ↑ Dharssi, Alia (December 12, 2017). "How young women in Delhi are fighting street harassment". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  11. ↑ "Safecity by ElsaMarie D'Silva maps sexual violence". SheThePeople TV. Retrieved 2016-11-26.
  12. ↑ "9 ways tech made the world a better place". Economic Times. December 26, 2018. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  13. ↑ Narayanan, Jayashree (November 10, 2015). "Towards creating safer cities". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  14. ↑ Dai, Xiaowen (February 9, 2018). "Implementing the NUA - Can we use Big Data to Create Safer Public Places for Girls and Women?". GlobalPolicyJournal blog. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Weiser, Sonia (October 12, 2018). "Sexual-Harassment-Reporting Apps Help Stop Abuse in Global City Streets". New York Magazine. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  16. ↑ Ceccato, Vania (2017). "Women's victimisation and safety in transit environments". Crime Prevention and Community Safety. 19: 163–167. doi:10.1057/s41300-017-0024-5. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  17. ↑ Khandelwal, Tara (April 22, 2017). "Meet 30 Women Who Champion Feminism on Social Media". SheThePeople.TV. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  18. ↑ D'Silva, Elsa. "Elsa D'Silva: Crowdsourcing the End of Sexual Violence". Aspen Ideas Festival. WETA. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  19. ↑ Ngumbi, Esther; D'Silva, Elsa (December 31, 2015). "Women, it's time to get rid of 'manels'". CNN. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  20. ↑ Godbole, Tanika (September 4, 2020). "Domestic violence rises amid coronavirus lockdowns in Asia". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  21. ↑ Silver, Marc (January 8, 2021). "Memo To People Of Earth: 'Third World' Is An Offensive Term!". NPR. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  22. ↑ Fernandes, Joeanna Rebello (January 22, 2017). "Women only: The rise and times of the modern zenana". The Times of India. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  23. ↑ "As COVID-19 Exposes Global Disparities, Closing Digital Gap Key for Achieving Sustained Equitable Growth, Speakers Say as Social Development Commission begins Annual Session". Meetings Coverage and Press Releases. United Nations. Commission for Social Development. February 8, 2021. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  24. ↑ D'Silva, ElsaMarie (2018). "Dignity and Gender-Based Violence". Development as Dignity: Frontline Stories from Development Experts in the Global South (PDF). Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute. pp. 62–67. ISBN 978-0-692-11772-9. Retrieved 25 March 2021. Search this book on
  25. ↑ "An entrepreneur , founder of SAFECITY- Elsa D'Silva - Leader of the Month | World Pulse". World Pulse. 2016-08-21. Retrieved 2016-11-26.
  26. ↑ D'Silva, Elsa. "Aspen Ideas Festival".
  27. ↑ Dasra (2015). "Safecity" (PDF). Dasra. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 November 2016. Retrieved 2016-11-26. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  28. ↑ D'Silva, Elsa (November 27, 2018). "D'SILVA: Ending sexual violence". Yale News. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  29. ↑ "Q&A with ElsaMarie D'Silva". Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program. Yale University. May 2020. Retrieved 15 March 2021.

External links[edit]


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