Team

The Founder

Meet Anya Sanghvi, a Grade 12 student at The Daly College, Indore, and the founder of DFEND — an initiative empowering girls through self-defence and confidence training.
A Black Belt in Karate, Anya began her martial arts journey at the age of ten and turned her passion into purpose after earning her belt in 2024. Beyond the dojo, she’s an avid reader, writer, chess player, and public speaker, and she authors all blogs on dfend.org to inspire girls to stay strong, aware, and fearless.

 

The Volunteers

Dfend has been fortunate to get many people who have come forward to support this noble cause.

The ones who are active and involved on a daily-basis include:

  1. Priya Sanghvi, an early-childhood education expert, and Anya’s mother
  2. Karali Patil, BE (CS), working as a Business Analyst
  3. Paragi Shukla, BCom, pursuing MBA, managing front office for a tech firm

The Supporters

Directly or indirectly, many people have come forward to help, guide, open doors and support time and again. Some of the more active ones include:

  1. Mr. Siddharth Jain, CEO of Zila Panchayat
  2. Vijay Mahnot, Founder VMMCA, Ek दिशा , External Advisor – McKinsey & Company , Stanford Seed Consultant 
  3. Dr. Nikita Rawal, Obstetrician and Gynaecologist
  4. Prachi Jain, Product Strategy & Operations at Google, USA
  5. Mr. Pankaj Kataria, prominent entrepreneur in Indore, coordinator for the Civil Defence community in Indore
  6. Ms. Madhuri Moyde, House Master, Daly College 

The Sponsors

The following companies have come forward to help / support Dfend:

  1. Ecosystem Ventures (early-stage fund)
  2. Synapse LLC (Boston based tech company)
  3. PATH FOUNDATION
  4. SpeEdLabs

The Trainers

Funakoshi Shotokan Karate Association (FSKAI) – the most prominent Shotokan Karate professional association, has extended support by making their trainers available for Dfend, including:

  1. Ms. Diljeet Kaur
  2. Mr. Gajendra Singh
  3. Ms. Mehak Kuril
  4. Mr. Suryansh Kuril
  5. Mr. Vansh Solanki

The Institutes

The following schools have been actively collaborating with Dfend:

  1. Sharda Kanya Government Higher Secondary School
  2. Bal Vinay Mandir School of Excellence
  3. Shri Agrasen Vidhlaya
  4. Ahilya Ashram, Polo Ground
  5. Nehru Nagar Government Higher Secondary School
  6. Navin Malav Kanya School
  7. Malav Kanya, Moti Tabela
  8. Atri Devi Higher Secondary School