Ankita Chachra

Knowledge for Policy Director – Bernard van Leer Foundation

Ankita joined the Bernard Van Leer Foundation as the Knowledge for Policy Director to extract, curate, and disseminate knowledge to scale-up early childhood and Urban95 initiatives. Before joining the Foundation in September 2020, Ankita worked at NACTO’s Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI), where she addressed street and public space challenges. 

She found her passion for prioritizing the needs of children and caregivers in urban environments while leading the Streets for Kids programme, which published the guide on Designing Streets for Kids. She was also part of the core team that developed the Global Street Design Guide – the first-ever worldwide guideline for designing city streets – and led road safety projects under Bloomberg’s Initiative for Global Road Safety, primarily in Latin American and Asian cities.

Ankita has a Masters in Urban Design from Columbia University, New York and a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from the Sushant School of Art and Architecture.