Featured MC and Special Guest, Nitin Madhav
Nitin Madhav, originally from Pittsburgh, has made a life for himself in Washington, DC, through a series of international misadventures. He currently works at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on programs in Burma, China and Laos. Previously, he worked in Pakistan and Afghanistan -- before anyone had even heard of the Taliban. Soon after the fall of the Taliban, Mr. Madhav led an emergency back-to-school program for Afghan children denied education under that regime. His 2,000 person team printed and distributed 10.5 million textbooks across Afghanistan by airplane, truck, and donkey cart in time for the March 2002 opening of schools, for which he received White House recognition.
He has masters degrees in Public Health and in Economic and Social Development from the University of Pittsburgh. He has worked across Africa and Asia with experience ranging from Madagascar,
Ethiopia and Rwanda to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Thailand and Cambodia, with plenty of hair-raising adventures along the way – including dodging bullets and bombs, evading marauding mobs, and flying in Soviet-built planes held together with duct tape.
A lifelong student of the Indian classical arts, he is currently studying Khyal and Dhrupad, two classical north Indian musical traditions, and collects antique Indian musical instruments. His previous dance experience was limited to a bhangra performed at the French Embassy in Washington, where he accidentally knocked into the Ambassador, while performing a twirl.
