Sri Lanka

Anoka is a policy advocate, community organizer, and social entrepreneur. She has ten years of experience in environmental conservation and policy in Asia and the Commonwealth. She is currently the lead for the Environmental Working Group for the Royal Commonwealth Society. She is the co-founder of Growin' Money, an eco-social enterprise she started at age 13 to empower women and vulnerable communities across South Asia through digital and environmental enterprise. Her petition to support the Animal Welfare Bill is the most signed petition in the history of Sri Lanka, receiving over 160,000 signatures in just three days, leading to the draft bill being revived in parliament.

She served as an assistant director in the Ministry of Environment of the Government of Sri Lanka, the youngest to do so, as well as in the United Nations, and oversaw fourteen teams in corporate sustainability for the biggest apparel company in South Asia. She is on the climate change content development team for the British Council Active Citizens Programme in Sri Lanka.

Anoka is an alumna of the International Visitor Leadership Program. She graduated from the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School with a master's degree and is a lawyer. She is the first Sri Lankan female recipient of the Commonwealth Youth Award from Her Majesty the Queen, a Forbes 30 under 30 awardee, Sri Lanka's first female World Economic Forum New Champion, the first Sri Lankan awardee of the

World Youth Award, and a Cosmopolitan 35 under 35.

Kushan Aravinda Bellanthudawa is a lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. Being an active member in environmental and scientific societies has enhanced his active contribution towards conserving nature. He is interested in water resource management, conservation, and water and environmental engineering disciplines along with the climate change impact assessments. Previously, he was a lecturer at Ocean University of Sri Lanka, focusing on environmental monitoring, sampling techniques, chemistry, surface and groundwater resources, and marine and coastal pollution.

He worked on a water supply and sanitation improvement project (WaSSIP) in Kegalle district, Sri Lanka, funded by the World Bank, under the Ministry of City Planning and Water Supply in Sri Lanka. He was also briefly an adjunct lecturer and undergraduate teaching assistant covering animal diversity, soil and mineral resources, environmental monitoring, environmental toxicology, applied ecology, evolution and biogeography, geographical information systems (GIS) in the Department of Zoology and Environmental Management in Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya.

Kushan completed his bachelor’s degree in environmental conservation and management from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka with a gold medal for the best academic performance from 2013 to 2017. He is an alumnus of the Fulbright Foreign Student program, completing his master’s degree in environmental engineering at the University of Central Florida in 2021.

Piushani Ellegala has five years of experience in climate and environmental sciences in Sri Lanka. She is currently a researcher and development officer at the Environmental Pollution Control Division of Central Environmental Authority (CEA) attached to the Ministry of Environment, Sri Lanka. Prior to joining CEA, she was a research assistant at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka.

Previously, she was employed at the Foundation for Environment Climate and Technology Sri Lanka (FECT) as a research scientist. During her time at FECT, she worked as a coordinator of the Air Quality Management Project and was involved in climate data

analysis and atmospheric modeling, meteorological and air quality instrumentation, and weekly weather and air quality reports. Prior to joining FECT, Piushani interned at the air quality unit of Environmental Studies and Service Division, National Building Research Organization (NBRO) Sri Lanka as a trainee scientist. Among different types of research at NBRO, Piushani was mainly involved in a research project on the effects of meteorological factors on atmospheric pollutant concentration in central Sri Lanka.

Piushani is an alumna of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) where she engaged with participants and experts on the challenges to improving air quality in the Indo-Pacific Region. In addition, she contributed to the South Asia Air Quality Tech Camp in Nepal in 2019. Piushani obtained her bachelor's degree in applied sciences (physical sciences-honors) from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.