Sumita Kunashakaran is the Manager of Civil Society outreach at the Zero Project. This includes the civil society engagement portfolio, which boasts partners in over 180 countries. In addition, she actively manages the Impact Transfer Program, a joint initiative between the Essl Foundation, Fundación Descúbreme and Ashoka. The program is the first accelerator to support the internationalization of innovative disability solutions for a barrier-free world. Sumita is the former Advocacy Lead with the Disabled People’s Association (DPA) based in Singapore. As such, she is interested in policy matters regarding intersectionalities and marginalised communities. She led the working group for Singapore’s first ever parallel report for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and has also published several papers for Universal Periodic Review (UPR) processes, Gender Equality Reports, and position statements for policy and legislative issues in Singapore and ASEAN. With her background in Terrorism and Security, her past research has also been featured by the Contemporary Security Policy journal. Sumita Kunashakaran holds an M.Sc. in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh, and a B.A. in Sociology from the University at Buffalo, SUNY.
