LITTLETON, MA–Vision-Aid announced that Vivek Sharma and Vandana Sharma will be the chief guests and Vivek will keynote the Vison Aid annual event this year. The event will feature a Broadway-style dance production “Charmer, Warrior, Guide”, with 50 dancers and dance teachers working under the guidance of renowned dance producer from India, Maduari R. Muralidaran.
The event is scheduled to start at 4:00 pm on July 16th at the Littleton High School Theater in Littleton, MA and will raise funds to rehabilitate the visually impaired through Vision-Aid’s innovative programs in both India and the US.
Vivek currently serves as the CEO of Piramal Pharma Solutions (PPS), a global leader in Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing services towards the life sciences industry. Piramal offers integrated solutions, from discovery through development and commercialization, with research and manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Under Vivek’s leadership, Piramal has established itself as the ‘partner of choice’ for both large pharma and biotech firms. Vivek’s focus on Quality, Reliability, and Customer Centricity resulted in Piramal being voted as the ‘API supplier of the year – 2015’, and a ‘global top 10% CMO’ for 2014 and 2015. As recognition for all these achievements, Vivek was awarded the ‘CEO of the year- 2015’.
Prior to Piramal, Vivek was Managing Director with the Boston based global private equity firm, THL Partners, with over $17B of assets under management, and he was tasked with value creation with portfolio companies by working with their respective management teams, to achieve growth and profitability objectives. Vivek is based in Boston and has over 25 years of Global management experience, and has been listed among ‘the top 100 finance professionals in the United States’.
Vandana Sharma is originally from Agra, with her ancestral roots in the home town of Sri Krishn Janma Bhumi – a great source of joy and energy for her. She has grown in a very loving and a light hearted family, that created a foundation to spread joy around her friends and family. Since childhood she aspired to become an Artist and a Designer. Her parents aspired for her what she wanted to be, and later her spouse supported her artistic endeavors with great enthusiasm.
She is a fine artist and an award winning designer. Her art has been displayed in several art exhibitions and she has designed several commercially successful kids’ educational products. She has won the prestigious ‘ADesign’ Award in Italy for her innovative light fixture and restaurant design. She has a Masters in Interior Architect from Suffolk University. Vandana had a great pleasure to be an appointed Marshal for Suffolk University’s convocation 2015, to lead the procession to the stage. And Soon to be…on Suffolk University’s Dean Cabinet of Advisors for the college of Arts and Science. In next phase of her life, she plans to create more designs for commercial products, and also do fine art simultaneously. She has an active fine art work space/studio.
Vandana is also an accomplished dancer. She is a gold medalist in dance in national level dance competition held in Amravati, india. She also performed on. Doorshan. She has a been doing Kathak since age three and continues now with Chhandika school.
Vandana is also actively involved in philanthropic activities with AIF, role trustee supporting her husband and also at Ekal Vidhyalaya as a volunteer and donor. She had the pleasure to visit to a couple villages in India to support Ekal schools in Uttar Pradesh, and help start two sewing centers in Rajasthan.
Vision-Aid is a Lexington, MA based non-profit, serving the visually disadvantaged. It has gained a repuration for its innovative and high-impact programs. Funds raised this year will help us sustain programs in its existing 6 locations in India, while adding two new locations, in 2017.
In 2016, Vision-Aid launched several innovative programs including computer programming classes for the visually impaired. These programs continue to scale in 2017 with strong demand from visually impaired students form all over India. Significantly, this year, in addition to its work in India, Vision-Aid is actively exploring 3 new programs right here in Boston – a coding workshop for blind children in partnership with the Perkins School for the Blind, another workshop in the Boston Public Schools in collaboration with a Boston based NGO, and sponsoring a conference on Accessibility in the Fall. For more information about Vision-Aid , and the July 16 event, please visit www.visionaid.org
The Vision-Aid leadership team includes Mr. Syed Ali Rizvi (President), Mr. Puran Dang (Chair), Mr. Ramakrishna (Ram) Raju (Founder), Revathy Ramakrishna (Co-Founder, VP), M.S.Raju (President VA India) and Sudhir Varma (Treasurer) supported by the Vision-Aid Board members and Advisory Board which comprises of 15 community leaders, mostly based in the New England area. For more information about Vision-Aid, visit www.VisionAid.org
