People

Girl children champion

New York-based Shib Shankar Dasgupta is the idealistic founder of Shreeja India (estb.2017), an NGO working to prevent child marriages, human trafficking and violence against girl children in West Bengal through football-based education and development programmes. Currently, Shreeja provides football coaching to 120 tribal girls aged 10-18 years in 12 villages of the state’s Birbhum […]

Reading habit evangelist: Dalbir Kaur Madan

Educator and reading habit evangelist Dalbir Kaur Madan is founder of the Delhi-based OneUp Library, Bookstudio and Learning Lab (estb.2011) which offers children access to a vast repository of books and curated educational content in addition to linguistic, social and cognitive experiences in child-centred reading and learning environments.

OneUp also offers library services to households and […]

Creative arts educator: Jigyasa Labroo

Delhi-based Jigyasa Labroo (27) is the innovative founder of Slam Out Loud (SOL, estb.2016), a not-for-profit social enterprise which provides co-curricular creative arts including poetry, storytelling and theatre education to children of socio-economically disadvantaged groups. SOL has reached 50,000-plus children countrywide to date, through collaborations with several artistes including author Anupa Lal, poet Kyle Louw […]

Storytelling teacher: Shreya Biswas

Professional storyteller Shreya Biswas is founder of the Bangalore-based Katharangam (estb.2013) which offers specially curated storytelling workshops to school teachers, NGO professionals, corporates and students to enhance their teaching, business and communication skills. Also a patron of the Bangalore Storytelling Society (estb.2013) and advisor of Chennai’s annual International Storytelling Festival, Biswas has thus far taught […]

English proficiency missionary: Sanjay Gupta

Sanjay Gupta is the Gurgaon (India)-based global CEO of EnglishHelperInc, a Massachusetts (USA)-headquartered social enterprise that is using technology to improve the English language proficiency of children in government schools.

Newspeg. In July, EnglishHelper signed an agreement to introduce its Right to Read programme in 65,000 government schools of Maharashtra over the next two years. The […]

Astad Parakh

Astad Parakh, the 82 years old octogenarian is the silent force behind the not-for-profit “BCPT English E.Teach” initiative (estb.2009) that distributes free custom-made animated audio-visual interactive content adhering to the State prescribed syllabus to teach English to 6.4 lakh children studying in Maharashtra’s vernacular-medium municipal and government schools. The ace marketing consultant and founder […]

Change leader: K Mythili

K. Mythili is headmistress of the Coimbatore Corporation Middle School, Masakalipalayam (CCMSM), established in 1956 as a primary and upgraded into an upper primary (class I-VIII) school in 1966. Since she took charge as headmistress in November 2017, she has pulled out all the stops to transform CCMSM, which currently has 140 students instructed by […]

Code learning evangelist: Shiv Ram Choudhary

Sikar (Rajasthan)-based serial entrepreneur Shiv Ram Choudhary is the founder of Codevidhya India Pvt. Ltd (estb.2016), his latest venture that offers K-X schools a comprehensive and well-designed computer science coding learning programme comprising specially written textbooks, teacher training, assessments, project mentorship, skill certification and compatible online resources developed by the company. Committed to the cause […]

THT innovator: Rakhee Chhabria

Mumbai-based Rakhee Chhabria is the founder of Teachers Help Teachers (THT, estb.2017), a social enterprise to empower educators. THT is an online Facebook support group and website where teachers can interact, avail guidance on pedagogies, share information, upload and download resources, become aware of employment opportunities and upgrade their knowledge. Membership of this FB group […]

AACSB supremo: Thomas Robinson

Singapore-based chartered accountant and investment analyst Thomas (Tom) Robinson is president and CEO of the US-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International (estb.1916). This is a globally respected association that accredits and certifies member business management education institutes (aka B-schools) round the world.

Currently, AACSB has a membership of 1,700 B-schools worldwide of […]

Iconic education innovator: Wendy Kopp

Wendy Kopp is the iconic co-founder and CEO of Teach For All (TFA, estb.2007), a New York-based global network of 50 independent voluntary organisations soldiering to end education inequality by recruiting talented college graduates/professionals to teach for two years in underperforming government and private budget schools worldwide. Over the past 12 years, TFA and its […]

Sunderbans changemakers: Biplab Das

Biplab Das, an engineering graduate of Jadavpur University and business management postgrad of IIM-Bangalore, and Saurabh Kumar, an engineering alum of Banaras Hindu University and IIM-Bangalore, are co-founders of the Kolkata-based Kishalay Foundation (estb.2013). This is an education NGO that’s making extraordinary efforts to improve the learning outcomes of 3,000 children in 25 government […]

Christel House International’s global CEO

Bart Peterson is the newly appointed chief executive of the Indianapolis (USA)-based Christel House International (CHI, estb.1998), a global non-profit that runs six exemplary free-of-charge K-12 schools for 5,154 poor children in the US, Mexico, South Africa and India.

In India, Christel House provides free English-medium education, nutrition monitored meals, healthcare facilities, college scholarships, career counselling […]

Gulf Council awards winner

Asna Nafees is principal of the Delhi Public School-Modern Indian School (DPS-MIS), Doha (Qatar) — a franchisee of the Delhi-based Delhi Public Schools Society which runs one of India’s most successful K-12 school chains. The CBSE-affiliated DPS-MIS (estb.2001) has 5,700 students mentored by 320 teachers on its muster rolls.

Nafees, who took charge […]

Michal Borkowski’s brain-child

An economics graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics (Poland), Michal Borkowski is the promoter-chief executive of Brainly Inc (estb. 2009), a closely-held private limited liability company registered in New York and Kraków, Poland (pop.38 million).

Borkowski was recently in India — “our fastest growing market” — to appraise the Indian public and […]

Atlas Mission designers

Education evangelists Sumantra Roy and Rubia Braun are the Bangalore-based co-founders of Learning Yogi Pte. Ltd (estb.2014), a social impact edtech start-up offering a comprehensive digital game designed to teach reading, maths, science, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving skills to children in the four-seven years age group. Roy is currently the company’s CEO, and […]

Preschool education missionary: Raj Singhal

Early years education entrepreneur Raj Singhal is the Gurgaon-based co-founder and CEO of Footprints Childcare Pvt. Ltd (FCPL, estb.2013), a day care and preschool chain which owns 70 pre-primaries in 12 cities with an aggregate enrolment of 4,500 children in the 1.5-4.5 years age group, mentored by 500 teachers.

Newspeg. Footprints Childcare Pvt. […]

Maple Bear Driver: Rodney Briggs

Rodney Briggs is the Vancouver (Canada)-based president of Maple Bear Global Schools Ltd (estb.2005) which runs a chain of franchised preschools promoting Canadian best teaching practices in 20 countries. Maple Bear South Asia (in a joint venture with Modi Edutech Pvt. Ltd) currently supervises 91 franchised preschools and nine K-class V schools […]

Sodexo ambassador: Colm O Mahony

Colm O Mahony is the Hong Kong-based CEO of Sodexo Education Asia Pacific, the education division of the Marseilles (France)-based global services provider Sodexo (estb.1966, annual revenue: €20.4 billion or Rs.163,413 crore), which offers healthy meals and facilities management solutions to education institutions in nine countries including India.

In India the company provides one or more […]

Storytelling Innovator: Dr. Shreepali Patel

Dr. Shreepali Patel is the Cambridge (UK)-based director of Anglia Ruskin University’s StoryLab (SL, estb.2017), an interdisciplinary institute that researches different genres of storytelling and analyses their impact on society. Patel is also co-promoter of Eyeline Films whose first documentary was the Emmy award-winning The English Surgeon (2007).

Newspeg. Dr. Patel was in […]

ChildFund India Director: Neelam Makhijani

Neelam Makhijani is the Delhi-based country director and CEO of ChildFund India, a subsidiary of the US (Richmond, Virginia)-based ChildFund International (estb. 1938), a non-profit working in 30 countries in the areas of child nutrition, education and skills development. With its head office in Bangalore and branches in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar […]

People

Krea U’s First Vice Chancellor: Dr. Sunder Ramaswamy

Currently on a prolonged sabbatical in India, Dr. Sunder Ramaswamy, distinguished professor of international economics at Middlebury College (MC), USA, is the newly appointed vice chancellor of Krea University (KU), a greenfield liberal arts and science private university assuming shape and form across a 200-acre campus in SriCity, Andhra […]

People

Phoren Kampus goes foreign: Bhavesh Thakkar

Bhavesh Thakkar is the Mumbai-based founder and managing director of Phoren Kampus Pvt. Ltd (PKPL, estb.2005) and its subsidiary Ed Infra (2008), which provide a gamut of education consultancy services including school expansion, mergers, acquisitions, turnkey projects, fund-raising, foreign collaboration and associated services to KG-Ph D institutions. The companies’ client list includes […]

People

Transnational educator: Mehran Akhtarkhavari

Mehran Akhtarkhavari is director of the Hiranandani Upscale School, Chennai (HUS, estb.2011) promoted by Surendra Hiranandani, founder-managing director of the Mumbai-based House of Hiranandani, a big name in real estate development. Sited within a major Hiranandani housing complex on Old Mahabalipuram Road, this is a class I-XII IB school providing the primary, […]

People

Go-getting edupreneur: Priyamvada Agarwal

Priyamvada Agarwal is founder-director of Education & You (E&Y, estb.2014), a Kolkata-based education technology company which provides college admission guidance, career planning advice and training for collegiate and university entrance examinations. Since it began operations four years ago, the firm has facilitated admission of 500 students into 14 top-ranked universities abroad, including the London […]

People

Hospitality education maestro: Nigel Viegas

Nigel Viegas is the Barbar (Bahrain)-based executive director of Bahrain Institute of Hospitality and Retail (BIHR) which offers high quality hotel and tourism management and retail study programmes accredited by the Hotel and Tourism Management Institute (HTMI), Switzerland, American Hotel and Lodging Education Institute, USA and Australian Retailers Association.

History. Promoted in 1999 by the Dadabai […]

People

SMS consultancy driver: Anju Dhawan

An alumna of Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak and IMT, Ghaziabad, Anju Dhawan is founder-director of the Delhi-based SMS Consultants (estb.2003), a human resource company placing principals and teachers in schools across the country.

Starting her career as a teacher in the ICL School, Rohtak, she switched tracks to work for a division of the US-based […]

People

New-age education evangelist: Rajesh Rao

Bangalore-based education evangelist Rajesh Rao is founder-director of Connecting the Dots Pvt. Ltd (CTD, estb.2013), a company providing high-quality, affordable IT-enabled classes VIII-XII science and math education in English and local languages to government, government-aided and private schools. The company also offers teacher training programmes and partners with NGOs and corporates such as Bosch, […]

People

Indo-Japanese cooperation votary: Raj Adhikary

Raj Adhikary is the Gurgaon (Haryana)-based president and CEO of the Japan Education and Information Center (JEIC), which offers Japanese language learning programmes, hygiene and culture, and skills education to institutions in India. Promoted in 2014 by Adhikary, a former professional pilot, the prime objective of JEIC is to “promote interaction between the people […]

People

Social reform bureaucrat: Johny Tom Varghese

Sub-collector of Tamil Nadu’s Cuddalore district (pop.2.6 million), Johny Tom Varghese is hell-bent on improving the quality of education dispensed in 559 government schools under his jurisdiction in the socio-economically backward district of Cuddalore.

History. A mathematics and business management alumnus of Madras and Anna universities, Varghese began his career as a research associate in the […]

People

Affordable education mission: Col. Rajendra P. Nadella

Col. (Retd) Rajendra P. Nadella (“unfortunately unrelated to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella”) is founder and CEO of the Bangalore-based iScholar Education Services (estb. 2013), an online education company that provides on-demand live tutoring to K-12 students. iScholar’s 50 teachers and subject experts deliver tutorials from state-of-the-art studios in Bangalore to 12,000 students in 35 […]

Young Achievers

Archit Agarwal

An electrical engineering graduate of Uttarakhand’s reputed University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, Meerut (UP)-based Archit Agarwal (24) is among 55 awardees of this year’s prestigious Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYTI) Award for inventing an On-Board Diagnostic Data Analysis System (OBDAS).

OBDAS is to a car what a black box is to an airplane. […]

People

WUD architect: Dr Sanjay Gupta

An alumnus of IIT-Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad and former dean (academics) of the top-ranked National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Delhi, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is founder-vice chancellor of the newly-promoted World University of Design (WUD, estb.2017), Sonipat, Haryana. Established by a special Act of the Haryana state legislative assembly, WUD is the country’s first private design education varsity. […]

People

Innovative educator: Arpita Mittal

Mumbai-based Arpita Mittal is CEO of Helen O’Grady International India (HOGII, estb.2003), the India affiliate of the eponymous Australia-based drama education academy founded in 1979 by Helen O’Grady, a renowned theatre teacher and actress. HOGII offers in-school and after-school theatre, English language and personality development programmes to 50,000 children in over 500 schools through 80 licenced franchisees […]

People

Jaspal Sidhu starts India innings

Singapore-based Jaspal Sidhu is the founder and chief executive of the Singapore International School/Singapore Global School Group (SISG, estb.1996), a chain of 12 K-12 schools spread across Indonesia and Korea. With all SISG schools affiliated with the premier Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE), UK and International Baccalaureate (IB), Geneva examination boards, SISG is steadily winning plaudits and […]

People

Nair’s new enterprise: Pratish Nair

Mumbai-based Pratish Nair is managing director and — together with ad guru Prahlad Kakkar — co-founder of the Prahlad Kakkar School of Branding and Entrepreneurship (PKSBE, estb.2016). This new B-school has been promoted in association with Whistling Woods International, the well-known Mumbai-based media and communications institute established by Bollywood filmmaker Subhash Ghai 12 years ago.

Sited within the […]

People

Happy education visionary: Sivakarthikeyan V

Sivakarthikeyan V. is founder-CEO of the Bangalore-based HappyMongo Online Solutions Pvt. Ltd (estb.2016), an ed-tech company providing digital learning solutions including language lab programmes, brain-training simulation games and apps embedded with Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, to education institutions.

Among HappyMongo’s flagship products (Mongo is a character starring in its language lab programme) are […]

People

Vickaash Agarwal: Kids Campus driver

Mumbai-based Vickaash Agarwal is chairman of Kids Campus Education Pvt. Ltd (KCEPL, estb.2008) which operates 120 owned and franchised Kids Campus preschools in 57 cities and towns including Bangalore, Mumbai, Jammu, Patna, Bhubaneswar, and Kolkata with an aggregate enrolment of 4,000 children. These preschools offer ISO 9001-2008 certified curriculums, cheerful classrooms, well-equipped libraries and sensorial […]

People

Research innovator: Dr Rajesh Tandon

Dr. Rajesh Tandon is president of the Delhi-based PRIA (Participatory Research In Asia, estb.1982), an institution of repute in the field of community-centric research, and co-chair of Unesco’s Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education. An alumnus of IIT-Kanpur and IIM-Calcutta, Dr. Tandon was awarded his doctorate by the Case Western Reserve University, […]

People

English learning champion: Pramod Tripathi

Pramod Tripathi is the Indore-based founder and CEO of EnglishBug Educational Resources (EBER, estb. 2005), an education services company offering K-12 students, teachers and working professionals English communication, personality development, linguistics translation and localisation services. Started as a supplementary English language training provider for teachers and students in the Hindi heartland state of Madhya Pradesh, […]