Piyush Tewari

Early life and career Tewari was born in Kanpur, India to Reena and Vinay Tewari on 19 May 1980. Tewari finished high school from Naval Public School in New Delhi. He holds a Bachelor of Information Technology degree from Delhi University, and a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University.

During his time in college, Tewari was actively involved with AIESEC, a global student-led non-profit. Immediately after college, he joined the India Brand Equity Foundation, an initiative of the Government of India. Following his stint there, in 2006 he joined the Calibrated Group — a US-based private-equity firm. In 2008, he became the Managing Director of the company’s operations in India.

SaveLIFE Foundation Tewari founded the SaveLIFE Foundation (SLF) on 29 February 2008, following the death of a young cousin in a road crash. In response to the tragedy, he studied the issue of road safety and discovered that over 1 million people had been killed in road crashes in India in the previous decade. He also discovered that 50% of these deaths were due to lack of timely care, as confirmed by the Law Commission of India in its 201st report.

SLF started by training police and Indian citizens to become better responders to the injured. Over time, the organization started advocating for systemic changes to save lives. In 2015, Tewari and SLF got a ban imposed on trucks from carrying protruding rods. In 2016, SLF, through a writ petition to the Supreme Court of India, successfully advocated for a Good Samaritan Law in India as a provision protecting personal well-being. In 2017, a bill recommended by SLF to improve road safety in the country was passed by the Lok Sabha.

SLF is now focusing on implementation of road safety best-practices. As part of that focus, it has adopted the Mumbai-Pune Expressway to make it fatality-free by 2020.

Personal life Tewari has two siblings: a sister, Neha and a brother, Anshul. Anshul is the founder of Youth Ki Awaaz, the largest youth-based media platform in India.

Honours and awards 2010: Rolex Laureate, Rolex Awards for Enterprise 2011: AIESEC India Alumni Entrepreneurship & Leadership Award 2012: Echoing Green Fellowship 2013: Ashoka Fellowship 2014: Profiled by Satyamev Jayate TV show hosted by actor Aamir Khan 2015: TIME Magazine Next Gen Leader 2016: Profiled by New York Times 2017: IRF Road Safety Award 2017 2018: Mulago Foundation's Rainer Arnhold Fellowship 2019: World Economic Forum Young Global Leader 2020: GQ Heroes 2020 2023: The Elevate Prize 2023 2024: Skoll Award for Social Innovation 2024