Alina Alam is the Founder and CEO of MITTI Café, the world’s largest chain of cafés run entirely by persons with disabilities. She founded MITTI Café at the age of 22 with a vision to create dignified employment opportunities for persons with disabilities and challenge perceptions around disability and work. Today, MITTI Café operates across prominent institutions including airports, universities, courts, corporate campuses and public institutions, employing and skilling thousands of persons with physical, intellectual and psychiatric disabilities.

Ms. Alam’s work has been recognised through several national and international honours, including Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, the NITI Aayog Women Transforming India Award, the UN Intercultural Innovation Award, the Commonwealth Youth Award and the CNBC Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. MITTI Café has also received national recognition for its contribution to the empowerment of persons with disabilities. Her work focuses on building financially sustainable models of inclusion that enable persons with disabilities to achieve economic independence, dignity and leadership.

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