Celebrating people and places shaping a WISE Mumbai.
Register now →Mumbai is living through a time of interconnected crises, climate stress, inequality, loneliness, civic apathy, fragile public systems, and growing disconnection between people and place. These challenges cannot be solved by any one organisation, sector, or leader alone.
WISE has emerged as a collective response to this need: a vision for a Mumbai that is Well-Being-oriented, Inclusive, Sustainable, Entrepreneurial, and Expressive. It is both a value system and an action framework for bringing people together to sense the city’s challenges, celebrate existing solutions, and co-create new possibilities for local transformation.
Over the past year, WISE has begun convening young changemakers, civic actors, social entrepreneurs, community spaces, NGOs, educators, artists, and city-builders through dialogues, simulations, locality conversations, youth engagement, and collaborative experiments. Its next step is to deepen this work across Mumbai by building experience centres, supporting social innovation in localities, incubating youth-led civic action, and enabling partnerships that respond to real civic issues on the ground.
The WISE Leaders Summit brings this idea alive by gathering young changemakers, civic actors, donors, supporters, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, media, and city leaders. The Summit combines the graduation of CCF Batch 16 and the celebration of icons of Mumbai through the WISE Awards.
The WISE Awards recognise leaders, emerging leaders, and localities that already embody the spirit of WISE. More than an award, they are an invitation to come together for Mumbai to make visible what is working, connect people across sectors, and coordinate action towards a wiser, more caring, and more resilient city.
Cities are not transformed only by large policies or big institutions. They are also shaped by individuals, communities, local spaces, collectives, neighbourhood initiatives, entrepreneurs, and civic actors who quietly make life more dignified, joyful, sustainable, inclusive, and participatory.
Yet, many of these efforts remain invisible. A person who keeps a neighbourhood space open for dialogue, a collective that makes a locality safer for everyone, a cafe that becomes a community hub, a youth leader who mobilises action around civic issues, a school that nurtures active citizenship, or a local entrepreneur who solves an urban problem, all of them are contributing to the future of Mumbai.
The WISE Awards are BRM’s way of recognising such leaders and localities. The Awards will celebrate those who embody the spirit of WISE.
The WISE Awards will recognise and celebrate individuals & collectives in Mumbai that are already modelling the values of a WISE City.
The Awards aim to:
For individuals who have demonstrated meaningful ecosystem leadership in making Mumbai more WISE.
Possible nominees may include social entrepreneurs, community organisers, educators, civic activists, artists, public servants, sustainability champions, mental health advocates, or local changemakers.
Individuals who are less recognised yet uniquely powering Mumbai through their work. Imagine people with 25+ years of commitment.
For spaces, neighbourhoods, institutions, or collectives that embody the WISE spirit.
Possible nominees may include schools, colleges, community centres, cafes, parks, public spaces, citizen groups, neighbourhood associations, art spaces, libraries, co-working spaces, or local initiatives.
Unlike a conventional award, the WISE Locality Award is also an invitation into a deeper partnership. Selected localities will receive support through the WISE Initiative, including the possibility of building experience centres, enabling social innovation, engaging young people, and co-creating local solutions to civic issues.
For young leaders who are beginning to demonstrate the spirit of WISE leadership.
The Emerging WISE Leader Award celebrates individuals who may be at the beginning of their leadership journey but have already shown initiative, courage, and care for Mumbai.
Possible nominees may include youth leaders, student leaders, young social entrepreneurs, early-stage civic actors, volunteers, artists, creators, campus organisers, or community champions.
Nominees may be recognised for work such as initiating a local civic action, mobilising peers, starting a small but meaningful social project, using creativity for public good, volunteering consistently, or demonstrating the potential to grow into a long-term city-builder.
This category is especially meant to encourage the next generation of leaders who may not yet have large-scale impact, but whose intent, initiative, and promise reflect the future of a WISE Mumbai.
The WISE Awards should remain simple enough to be inclusive, yet rigorous enough to carry credibility. Drawing from BRM’s own values and external award practices, the following criteria are recommended.