Free, Open to all
- Speakers
- Dr Kalpana Viswanath
- faculty of architecture
- doctoral office
- phd in architecture
- dr kalpana viswanath
Faculty of Architecture and Doctoral Office invites you to the talk, ‘Towards Gender Transformation of Cities’ by Dr Kalpana Viswanath is the co-founder and CEO of Safetipin, New Delhi.
The talk on gender transformation of cities will foreground how urban spaces are deeply shaped by gendered experiences. The focus will be on using data, safety audits, and lived realities, to demonstrate how cities systematically exclude women through unsafe infrastructure, limited mobility, and socio-cultural norms. Further the fear of violence restricts women’s access to education, work, and public life, and we need to move from “gender-sensitive” to gender-transformative planning. This includes embedding safety, accessibility, and inclusivity into urban design, leveraging data-driven tools, and centering women’s voices in decision-making to reclaim the “right to the city” for all.
About the speaker
Dr Kalpana Viswanath is the co-founder and CEO of Safetipin, a social enterprise that uses data to advocate for safe urban spaces for women. She has worked as a consultant with UN Women and UN Habitat on issues of gender and urban safety and has led research studies on safer cities for women in cities across the world. She has been a member of the Women’s Safety Committee in Delhi, Committee on Safe City Indicators of BPRD and a member of the subcommittee on Public Toilet Facilities in Indian cities of the Indian Buildings Congress.
She is Member Emeritus of the Advisory group on gender issues at UN Habitat. She is a Board member of SLOCAT (a global network on sustainable mobility), the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC), and the Chair of Jagori. She has published widely in newspapers, magazines and journals and co-edited a book on Building Gender Inclusive Cities.
