Short Bio

Gowri Ananthan aka Gowri Nithiyanantham is a renowned Tamil Novelist and a social entrepreneur who aims to develop and encourage youth mainly lives in war-affected areas. After working in Singapore in IT field, she returned to Sri Lanka in 2012 to work with war-affected communities.

In 2011, she Co-Build Yarl IT Hub which is a community who live the shared dream of making Yarl the next Silicon Valley. In 2012 Co-Founded Himalaya Creations Pvt Ltd which is currently a leading advertising firm in Jaffna, developing and producing Documentaries and TV Commercials

She became the Jaffna Producer for 48 Hour Film Project, USA which is a wild and sleepless weekend in which hundreds of team members were involved in making a movie. All writing, shooting, editing and scoring are completed in just 48 hours, beginning Friday evening at 7 and ending Sunday at 7. Final Product was screened at Raja Theatre, Jaffna on 15th of May 2014.

In 2016, She Co-Found “Kudil Products” with the aim of promoting and embracing greener lifestyle along with empower women in war-affected areas by providing financial freedom. Later in 2017, she Co – Founded NEWSC Media foundation with the aim to support public interest journalism by engaging and empowering the public through accountable journalism and groundbreaking creative storytelling to spark action, improve lives and protect our democracy.

During the Covid pandemic in 2020, she realized the urgent need of investing in food industry in order to produce value added products, thus she co founded the company “Valli Products Pvt Ltd” in Kilinochchi with the aim of not just to be one of the foremost producers in chemical-free products, but rather to be a manufacture who could take Sri Lanka to its rightful place in the food industry. With this In view they have earned immense credibility for their reputed brand name “Valli Products” in short time.

She acts as a lecturer and counsellor at the Institute of Mental Health, Sri Lanka and worked as Consultant at The Social Architects on Regional RTI Advocacy Program and successfully organized expert meetings, workshops and two international conferences; one in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Sep 2017) and other in Mexico City, Mexico (March 2018). She also worked in the Formation and Business development for 19 Samooha Murthikaruwo Cooperative Societies across 57 villages and 10 Districts in Sri Lanka and Governance of 19 Children's Shadow Pradeshiya Sabhas (CSPS) across 5 Provinces. In 2023, she organized series of events titled "Sites and Sounds of the North" in Jaffna on behalf of the Vattapalai International Institute of Art and Film (VIIAF) as part of the "Reconciliation through Art" initiative.

Months before the presidential election in 2024, she successfully organised the “Bridging Generations: Conversations Between Today's Leaders and Tomorrow's Visionaries” program in Colombo on behalf of The Social Architects (TSA). This innovative initiative brought together Sri Lanka’s emerging young leaders and present political figures and forward-thinking visionaries, showcasing the power of youth engagement in shaping the future.

She authored two Tamil novels namely “kanavukalaith thedi” and “peyarili” and edited “mounavalikalin vaakkumoolam”, an anthology of personal stories written by youth from Anuradhapura, Ampara, Killinochchi, Hill country and Jaffna, which was published by Nakkeeran in India. She was the Script Writer for “Trip to Hell”, First ever Tamil thriller web-series in Sri Lanka, produced by Capital Productions. She was a columnist at 'TamilMirror' daily newspaper and wrote articles to advocate for the importance of women participation during Sri Lankan Parliament Elections in 2020.

She presented varies papers overseas including “TRAUMA COUNSELING FOR JOURNALISTS: A Profession in Denial” at World Press Freedom Day 2017 held in Jakarta, Indonesia and NEW TRENDS IN FEMINISM at Department of Tamil in University of Kerala, India. She is also written paper on “Social Innovation in Rebuilding war-affected communities” for the International Conference on Business Management and Social Innovation (ICBMSI) held in London.

Apart from this, she holds several honorary titles, such as "Ambassador of Peace" and "Consul General Sri Lanka" at Council of Inter-Parliament Organizations IGO, and "Chairperson of Committee on Women and Child Welfare" at International Commission of Diplomatic Relations Human Rights and Peace IGO, USA.

She was a member of Delegation for Geneva for Human Rights (GHR) to the 40th session of the UN Human Rights Council which was taken place in Geneva from 25 February to 22 March 2019 and during this time she was also trained in 44th Geneva Training Course for Defenders from the regions entitled ‘Human Rights Council, international human rights and humanitarian law, international procedures and diplomacy’.

She is a graduate from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and also a certified Project Management Professional from Project Management Institute, USA. She also completed her LLB at New Buckinghamshire University (UK) and is currently pursuing an LLM. She is a recipient of “Medal of Excellence” award from International Commission of Diplomatic Relations Human Rights and Peace (ICDRHRP) IGO, USA for her community works.