Sucheta Kadethankar Biography 
Sucheta Kadethankar is a software professional and IT developer from Pune who came to spotlight after walking a total distance of 1,000 miles across the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, Asia's largest desert in the year 2011. She completed her mission on 15 July 2011 to become the first Indian to have walked across Gobi desert, when she was part of a 13-member team from 9 countries across the world led by Ripley Davenport, the desert explorer, in the Gobi Desert 2011 expedition. Thus she became the first Indian to cross the Gobi desert. Christopher Schrader who became the youngest person to cross the Gobi Desert on foot was also a member of the team.
The desert conqueror Sucheta Kadethankar hails from Pune. She was born in the year 1977. After completing her Master’s, she worked as a journalist initially. She then became an IT professional, employed at Symantec. She has been a sportsperson, who liked adventure sports involving trekking in mountains, cycling, river crossing and desert walk. She has been a part of several trekking camps such as Mount Everest Base Camp in 2008, the Annapurna Base Camp and also a very large number of treks in the Sahyadri Mountains.
"Gobi Crossing 2011", was an event organized by the Explore Foundation of Ireland, which Sucheta Kadethankar participated to claim the Indian record. To explore the wild desert of Gobi, she also joined the group of 13-member team. A 60-day trek was planned for covering a distance of 1,600 kilometres. Once she registered for the event, she started practising long distance walk between her home and office, and she continued this process for six months. The selected team included seven women but only three of them completed the mission. Her whole expenses were sponsored by the IT organization, where she worked.
Published: October 04, 2018
Updated: October 04, 2018
