▶ Listen to this episode
Drawn to both science and the arts when she was at school, Reena Mahajan's later studies and work saw her living on three continents. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she worked on the Alliance Française building before moving to Paris to study urban planning and sustainable development. When travel opportunities arose she moved to Uruguay, where she broadened her horizons and studies into gender responsive design and children-friendly planning.
Now a strong advocate for people-friendly cities, women's mobility, social impact and gender equality – among other things – Reena uses her background and skills to get her message across to power-brokers and decision-makers, including politicians.
As the founder of Studio Divercity, with a mission to transform car-dominated urban areas into people-centric spaces, Reena's work is far more diverse than architecture these days. She recently set up StreetSmart, a digital platform that enables communities to reimagine their streets and environment and has joined the contributors to Lab of Thought, a Netherlands-based organisation set to transform urban environments.
So far so stellar – so what made a girl from New Delhi want to make an impact in the world's busiest streets? And how has she done it? In addition to telling her own career story, Reena offers tips for finding optimism in the everyday and at work, talks about the non-negotiables in her life, and why she's put building a world with children and carers' mobility at its forefront, rather than cars, on her must-do list.
Studio Divercity
StreetSmart
Alliance Française Delhi
Prof Dr Marco Te Brömmelstroet and the Lab of Thought
The Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo
Season 1 Episode 9: Sanjuktar Jithendar, Architect, Mikhail Riches
Season 1 Episode 4: Nick Molden, founder and CEO of Emissions Analytics
Season 4 Episode 4: Divya Kumar, community engagement manager at Earthwatch Europe
Season 4 Episode 3: David Kohnstamm, Chief sustainability officer and co-founder, Leafcloud
Season 5 Episode 5: Connor Cashell, Campaigns manager, Cycling UK
Season 3 Episode 1: Sarah Daly, Sustainability strategist, marketing professional, lobbyist, entrepreneur, thought-leader and visionary
