Ruchi Varma is a sustainable urban development practitioner and a human centered designer committed to people centric approaches to development, grounded in the principles of Sustainable Development Goals and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An architect-urban designer by training and with over a decade of extensive engagement in research, academia and practice across multiple urban projects of various scales in India, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, South Korea and Ghana, Ruchi has an interdisciplinary skill set across urban program strategy and development, urban data strategy and information system design, capacity building & training with urban local bodies; she investigates sustainable urbanization through two approaches – design driven and data driven. Selected globally as the 2018 Dalai Lama Fellow, her work focuses on unpacking approaches to humanize urban spaces for children and co-creating safer and compassionate cities. She also is ‘Mentor of Change’ for Niti Ayog and a LEAD India Fellow.
A flaneur at heart, she loves traveling, exploring cities, public spaces and their everyday life.
