Letting go comfort is tough but he gave up his exemplary life of 12 years in Canada and shifted back to his Motherland to give it all for the people of this country. After living, studying and working in Canada for about 12 years, Praveen Rao, decided to leave his ‘comfortable and well settled life’, and moved back to India. While he was in Canada, he represented India and led many of major events
such as the annual India Parade at Dundas Square, Toronto. Although professionally he was in the banking and investments industry (working with RBC and TD Bank), he was also involved in many social and community works and as a result Royal Bank of Canada seconded him to United Way (Toronto). Further he also served as a board member of Asha for education, a not-for-profit regd in North America, which helped raised money for grass roots project in the field of education of under privileged in India. For the last decade he has been working on various social and community issues through ‘Champions of Positive Change’ (CPC), an NGO he founded in 2012. Heeding to the urge to do more for the society he decided to study law (LLB) so that he could provide affordable legal guidance to the underprivileged section of the society. Since 2016 he has been practicing as a litigation lawyer and presently serving as a partner in RAY Legal, Law firm. Besides professional and NGO work, he has also been actively involved in the RWA’s, by becoming the youngest General Secretary in Vasant Kunj (VK) in 2013 and later being elected as the President of RWA of C-4 VK in 2020. He is currently also holding the post of Secretary ‘C’ in Federation of RWA’s of VK, a body representing over 40 RWA’s of VK. With a passion for a social change to improve ourcommunity, he has been actively taking up issues with political leadership, including raising voices during the ‘India against corruption’ movement, outside Indian High Commission in Toronto, Canada and also joined the protest during the ‘Nirbhaya Case’ at India gate. Appreciating his dedication to social and community service he was elected as ‘Vice Chairman’, of ‘Anant Ehsaas Foundation’, a regd. NGO, through which he organised various blood donation drive, clothes donation, blanket donation drives and celebrated various community festivals of all religion. He is also a passionate environmentalist driving an electric vehicle and converting wet waste into compost at home. Through his NGO’s he also organised various eco-friendly initiatives such as tree plantation drives, waste segregation drives and water audits in order to reduce wastage of potable water. In addition to various community events, he is also concerned about improving the election process in India and increasing the voter turnout. In order to achieve this goal he created websites for various elections, such as the MCD election in 2017, the Lok Sabha election in 2019 and the Delhi MLA election 2020, in addition to various websites for bar association elections. These website were completely non-commercial, without any advertisements, without taking any money from any of the candidate and were created on the format of ‘Know Your Candiate’, where each and every candidate was provided a web-page where they could promote themselves using videos, flyers or manifestos. These websites served as one stop shop, to get to know all candidates (including from small party candidates and independents as well), their views, visions, etc. and not just the candidates from big parties, so that voters could make an informed decision and pick the best candidate for the post and increase voter turn out as well. During the first and second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, he actively helped coordinate supply of essential items, groceries, medicines, oxygen cylinders and concentrators and other requirements to people in need. Most recently he has been actively coaching and mentoring the young students of Delhi Government School, as part of the ‘Entrepreneurial Mindset Curriculum’ to take part in ‘Business Blasters’ program, by using his MBA knowledge and business consulting experience. He has a positive approach and is extremely passionate about bringing a positive change in our lives, community, city and country. He strongly feels that its time that the youth of the country gets involved in teh system to improve it instead standing on the sidelines to criticize the system. He has taken a sankalp to do the same. Jai Hind! Jai Bharat!
