The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an organization with the vision that no child shall be deprived of education because of hunger, will host their annual Food for Education benefit event on May 12th, 2012 at Taj Boston. Currently, Akshaya Patra’s program feeds over 1.3 million children DAILY in over 9,000 schools through 21 kitchens in ten states in India. For many children this is their only complete meal for the day and serves as an incentive for them to come to school, stay in school and gain the necessary nutrients to focus on learning.

The benefit event will raise funds for Akshaya Patra’s unique and innovative program for fighting hunger and promoting education simultaneously and will be attended by key community leaders, business executives and eminent change agents committed to unlocking these children from the vicious and perpetual cycle of poverty and determined to closing the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

“By attending and supporting this worthy cause, they are greatly enhancing the significance of our collective challenge to provide the poor and the less fortunate equitable access to food, education, jobs and healthcare and harness the wealth of human potential,” said Madhu Sridhar, President and CEO of Akshaya Patra USA.

Both Dr. Sheena Iyengar and Nitin Nohria, two of the world’s top business thinkers of 2011, will speak at the event. Dr. Sheena Iyengar is a world renowned expert on the subject of choice, professor at Columbia Business School, and Author of The Art of Choosing. The Art of Choosing has already been highly recognized, including being chosen as a finalist for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year 2010 award and being top ranked on the Amazon.com Best Books of 2010. Additionally, Iyengar has been a speaker at the prestigious TED Global conference and the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Social Scientists.  

Nitin Nohria serves as the Dean of Harvard Business School and Advisory Board Member of The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA. Nohria has taught courses across Harvard Business School's MBA, Ph.D., and Executive Education programs. He is also the author of over 50 journal articles, book chapters, cases, working papers, and notes.  He has served as an advisor and consultant to several large and small companies in different parts of the world, has been interviewed by ABC, CNN, and NPR, and cited in Business Week, Economist, Financial Times, Fortune, New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is one of the world’s largest NGO-run midday meal programs. A public-private partnership, Akshaya Patra combines good management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver school lunch at a fraction of the cost of similar programs in other parts of the world. It costs Akshaya Patra only $15 to feed a child for an entire year. After reaching its initial goal of feeding one million children each school day, Akshaya Patra’s next milestone is to serve 5 million children daily by 2020.

To purchase tickets for the benefit event or to learn more about Akshaya Patra please visit www.foodforeducation.org.

For more information about this event please contact Kerry Markey at Kerry@apusa.org or (781) 438-3090 Ext2

We encourage you to come for a formal press conference with the VIPs from 5:00pm-5:30pm. Please RSPV to Kerry@apusa.org.

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