What Shapes Us Episode 1: In Talks with Sirisha Bhamidipati

In this episode, Vidya speaks with Sirisha Bhamidipati, a Fulbright Scholar, IIM Ahmedabad alum, and Carnegie Mellon University fellow, whose work sits at the intersection of strategy, systems, and inclusion. Sirisha is also the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Align By Design, where she helps organisations think more intentionally about culture, purpose, and how design choices shape behaviour.

At the age of 13, Sirisha was paralysed from the neck down. What followed was not just a personal journey of recovery and resilience, but a gradual awakening to how deeply exclusion is built into everyday systems. As she navigated education, public spaces, and professional life, she experienced first-hand how accessibility is often treated as an afterthought rather than a foundational principle.

In this conversation, Sirisha reflects on growing up with parents who believed fiercely in possibility, the role that access to world- class education played in reshaping her future, and how these experiences informed her advocacy for disability inclusion. She makes a clear and compelling case for viewing accessibility as essential infrastructure, not charity, and for designing inclusion into systems from the start, rather than adding it on later.

What emerges is not just a story of personal grit, but a broader reflection on how societies choose who they make room for, and what it truly means to design for dignity.