Kalpana Viswanath

Kalpana is the co-founder and director of Safetipin – a social enterprise that uses citizen data and technology to work towards gender-responsive and safe cities. She heads the organization and is involved in designing projects and creating partnerships, both government and civil society. She also represents the organization at many international forums. Under her leadership, Safetipin has been adopted in 65 cities across 16 countries.

Kalpana has worked on issues of gender and urbanization for over 20 years with several organizations including UN Women, UN Habitat and Jagori among others. She has led large global projects and provided technical support for women’s safety in several cities. Kalpana is a member of the Advisory Group on Gender Issues at UN Habitat, Chairperson of Jagori and a Board member of the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime. She was part of the committee that prepared a report on Women’s Safety in Delhi for the city government. She writes regularly and has a weekly column in Hindustan Times on urban issues.
Kalpana is building frameworks that can be adopted by city governments, civil society, architects, academics, urban planners and designers for making cities responsive to gender.