{"id":915,"date":"2026-06-09T07:14:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/?post_type=speaker&p=915"},"modified":"2026-06-17T05:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T05:54:10","slug":"sonal-shah","status":"publish","type":"speaker","link":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/speaker\/sonal-shah\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonal Shah"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Sonal Shah<\/span>\u00a0is the Executive Director of the\u00a0<\/span>Centre of Sustainable and Equitable Cities<\/span>\u00a0and the founder of\u00a0<\/span>The Urban Catalysts<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>Over the last 15 years, Sonal has worked across 10 states in India,\u00a0South and Central\u00a0Asia\u00a0and\u00a0Middle East. She has advised multiple stakeholders in\u00a0developing pedestrian accessibility\u00a0and\u00a0multimodal integration\u00a0plans, parking management,\u00a0transit-oriented\u00a0development\u00a0and\u00a0gender responsive\u00a0public transport\u202fand\u202fspaces.\u00a0Sonal\u00a0was responsible for\u00a0introducing India\u2019s first gender sensitive urban planning guidelines and revising India\u2019s national urban street design guidelines (IRC codes) to make them\u00a0people-oriented.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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Sonal has led projects supported by the World Bank,\u00a0AfD, UK Aid, ADB, IKI, Oak Foundation, Gates Foundation, GIZ and Bloomberg Philanthropies.\u00a0She has taught at\u00a0numerous\u00a0institutions such as the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Anant National University, KRVIA, Academy of Architecture and the JJ School of Architecture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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Sonal graduated from the\u00a0<\/span>MSc Urban Planning\u00a0<\/span>program\u00a0<\/span>from Columbia University.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>She was featured in the\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Alumni Spotlight<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>in Fall 2013-14<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>as\u00a0<\/span>a<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Remarkable<\/span>\u00a0Women\u00a0<\/span>i<\/span>n Transport<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>2020<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Remarkable Feminist Voice in Transport 2023<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative<\/span>\u00a0(TUMI), Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (Germany)<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Sonal Shah\u00a0is the Executive Director of the\u00a0Centre of Sustainable and Equitable Cities\u00a0and the founder of\u00a0The Urban Catalysts.\u00a0Over the last 15 years, Sonal has worked across 10 states in India,\u00a0South and Central\u00a0Asia\u00a0and\u00a0Middle East. She has advised multiple stakeholders in\u00a0developing pedestrian accessibility\u00a0and\u00a0multimodal integration\u00a0plans, parking management,\u00a0transit-oriented\u00a0development\u00a0and\u00a0gender responsive\u00a0public transport\u202fand\u202fspaces.\u00a0Sonal\u00a0was responsible for\u00a0introducing India\u2019s first gender sensitive urban…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":916,"template":"","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"hide","_kad_post_layout":"fullwidth","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"unboxed","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"hide","_kad_post_feature":"hide","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":""},"speaker_department":[3],"class_list":["post-915","speaker","type-speaker","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","speaker_department-speakers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker\/915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/speaker"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker\/915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1192,"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker\/915\/revisions\/1192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"speaker_department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker_department?post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}