Chetan is the Managing Director and Market Head at Bank of Singapore, and leads the Global South Asia & Middle East region. Before joining Bank of Singapore, Chetan has worked with Kitara Capital, JP Morgan and also led ICICI Bank in the Middle East and Africa. He was born and raised in Mumbai and graduated with an MBA from the University of Mumbai. He is currently based in Dubai. Chetan believes that education is the best catalyst for social change and he wants to ensure that every child gets access to quality learning. Chetan has been a supporter of SEF from its inception days and continues to help us build a stronger, more impactful organization.

Rahul’s big dream is to build a school, where students learn what they love and teachers are leaders who guide the minds & hearts of our future. With this vision he co-founded Simple Education Foundation. In 2014, he started Project Prayogshala (aka the Learning Center) with a determination to make an innovative learning space for children living in low-income communities. He holds an MBA from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. He also holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science. He is a Teach For India Alumnus. Rahul looks after Program Impact & School Leadership and works directly with school teams in strengthening the Simple School program.

Rohit is the Founder and Proprietor of Prajna India which is a SSI since 1978. He has an MBA from FMS, Delhi and went to St. Stephen’s College and Mayo College before that. Rohit has always believed in the power of quality education and supports SEF since its inception, thereby ensuring we’re able to build those accessible pathways to quality education for all children.   

Sujata is an Associate Professor at the University of Delhi. She has a postdoctoral degree from Barakatulla University and she has been associated with the University of Delhi for the last 18 years. She is one of the trustees at SEF and is committed to working with us in achieving our mission and vision.  

An advertising graduate from Mumbai and Teach for India Fellow, Angela joined the Research and Design team at SEF to challenge her own understanding of Curriculum and Pedagogy of the Indian Education System that could help children learn and grow. Through her journey as an educator in the last 5 years she has grown to define her hope for children and adults alike as ‘Creating a safe space where individuals can express authentically and explore and experiment to their own fullest potential.’ Before SEF , she was an Assistant School Leader at Hope Foundation Academy in Langmei a tribal Village, in Manipur with Sunbird Trust where she learnt that art, relationships and excel sheets could change the world.

Anjali is an enthusiastic and positive person who believes her purpose in life is to serve. She grew up in the mountains living life to the fullest and forming strong beliefs about the impact of good quality education on one’s life, having personally experienced it. After having worked in the corporate sector she decided to pursue her passion and joined the Teach For India fellowship enabling her to teach 100+ students in a government school in Pune. She believes in the power of a world full of love. Anjali is a quick learner and a traveler who enjoys the sunset, spending time in nature, and just listening to people and their stories. At SEF, Anjali is working closely with the Sashakt Prathmik team and is responsible for planning, designing, and implementing development programs for a cohort of community fellows in a cluster of 13 villages in Tehri Garhwal.

Anshu graduated with a degree in B.com(h) from Delhi University and worked with a private bank for around 10 years. In 2018, she decided to follow her heart and passion to work with children and started her second inning by joining the Teach for India fellowship. She describes her fellowship experience as magical as she could touch and create small yet powerful shifts in her own as well in children's lives. Her fellowship experience broadened her understanding of excellent education and strengthened her passion and belief to continue working in the education space with full commitment.

Apoorva is an engineer and a marketing professional by qualification but soon realized she loves working with and for children. In 2015, during her first corporate stint, she found it difficult to resonate with the spirit and nature of the industry. She hoped to seek motivation, rigor, and purpose, so she decided to work for causes closer to her heart. While volunteering with grassroots-level organizations in the mountains of northern India, she found that her true calling lies in working and learning with children. Ever since, she has engaged with organizations that strive to transform the educational landscape of India, especially for children from underprivileged sections of society. She is deeply passionate about holistic learning approaches that give learners and educators the space to nurture their creativity and curiosity. Therefore, under the guidance and support of enthusiastic educators working in alternative education, she trained herself on hands-on and inquiry-based approaches in Math and Science that created first-hand experiences for the learner and enabled them to be curious and engaged. Her work gave her the opportunity to interact with public and private school teachers across India and share the wealth of the joyful resources that make teaching and learning more fun. Being a teacher educator, she has had the opportunity to research, curate and present academic ideas in experiential ways, enabling critical thinking and creating a love for learning among children. At SEF, she works with the pre-service team to design and implement such strategies to transform the teacher education program offered by State education bodies.

Astha lives in Gular village in Uttarakhand and is an alumnus of the same school where we run the Paathshala program. She always wanted to be a teacher and went ahead and completed her B.Ed degree from H.N.B Garhwal University. She believes that education is the only way a rural student can know more about the world and be a global citizen. And she wants to give that opportunity to the children of her village. Her big goal as a teacher is to ensure that every child in her village can have the same learning opportunities as their counterparts in cities.

Binsy is a Physical Science graduate from St. Stephens College Delhi. Having studied in a Government school herself, she was never fully satisfied with the education she received. The lack of motivation from teachers and the competitive nature of learning were toxic for her. In college, she heard about Teach for India and she instantly could relate to the vision of the organization. She joined the fellowship and loved being a part of the development sector. After 2 years, she decided to widen her impact with the Government teachers who are in the system. Her friends describe her as the right amount of calmness in an otherwise storm. She loves traveling, yoga, and spending quality time with her friends and family. At SEF, Binsy will work closely with the Teacher Development vertical to build capacity in Government school educators in Delhi.

Chandni has graduated with a degree in Business Economics and Public Policy from Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Post her Fellowship, she joined Teach For India as a Program Manager and worked for 2 years, to transform the journey of students by putting them on a path of leadership. She led TFI’s unique student leadership initiative called ‘Maya’ in Delhi. She believes in the power of children to inspire change and lead their own lives to be anything they choose to be; all they need is a platform to identify their untapped potential. As a Program Manager, she was also responsible for the growth of 15 TFI Fellows, and worked closely with them as their coach and mentor.    She started her journey on our paper plane as the School Leader at the Bhim Nagri Primary Simple School Project in Delhi and now spearheads Research and Design for all SEF programs. 

A community aggregator at SEF, Ganesh aims to create a symbiotic relationship between the school and the community. He believes that the school system requires support for not only the community but also with day-to-day administration work. Through positive interactions between the school teams and parents, he has successfully created a highly engaging school environment and nurturing a safe home environment for our children across Simple Schools. 

During her college days, Geetika had the first glimpse of what inequity looks like while teaching children of construction workers. It inspired her to volunteer in NGOs like MAD and Kat-Katha. There she worked with children from marginalized backgrounds and it brought her immense joy to see them prosper when provided with equitable opportunities. In order to bring higher equitable opportunities she joined the Teach for India fellowship. She landed in a classroom of 35 phenomenal girls who strengthened her belief that a teacher is the catalyst of change in a child’s life. To work closely with teachers, she joined 321 Education Foundation right after the fellowship where she supported teachers in building a safe and inclusive environment in the class which eventually led to higher learning outcomes. Geetika believes that teaching is incredibly challenging and rewarding. Thus, to bring a systemic change, we need to work collectively to build an ecosystem which empowers teachers to give their best in the classroom every day. Hence through this role Geetika wants to deepen her understanding of what it takes to bring a sustainable systemic change.

 Jyotirmaya works with the Government school Principals and Teachers on the Whole School Transformation Project. Specifically, he works with the teachers to improve student learning outcomes. He was a Fellow with Teach for India for two years during which he taught secondary grades in a government school and prior to the fellowship he has 2 years of experience as a tourism professional and PRO. He has done his MBA (Tourism) from Pondicherry University. He loves drawing, craftwork and travelling during his free time.

Mainak is an engineer by training and a teacher by choice. His Fellowship experience with Teach For India transformed his career choices, as he took upon himself to strengthen the movement of education equity. He thrives on designing robust interventions that will change the education space and will help ALL children have access to quality education. In 2014, he co-founded Simple Education Foundation with Rahul Bhanot with a vision to make excellent education accessible for all children. Post Fellowship, Mainak joined Teach For India as a Program Manager and worked for 2 years in Mumbai & Delhi, training different cohorts of Fellows.   He leads Operations, Finance and Center for School Development. In 2016, he led Project Taleem in Jammu & Kashmir. When he’s not thinking about school transformation, he loves reading and writing poetry.

Mohan is the pillar of the SEF, Finance, and Accounts team. With an avid interest in all things finance and commerce, he completed his Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting. Subsequently, he cleared the CA group from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in 2005. Although hailing from Madhubani in Bihar, Mohan has spent most of his childhood in Kolkata with his grandparents. He finally moved to Delhi in 2007, which has been his home for almost two decades. Early in his career, he mostly worked in the banking or manufacturing sector. Still, he always had the desire to use his skills to do good for society. Therefore, Mohan wanted to work in the nonprofit sector, believing it to mirror on-ground realities. Joining SEF was a moment of relief and joy in his life. This was his way of finally fulfilling his responsibility towards society and making a meaningful contribution to the community. A massive fan of music and Raj Kapoor, he can be found watching reruns of ‘Mera Naam Joker’ any time of the day. He believes it represents the honesty and simplicity he wishes to embody in his life. 

Pranav started working in the field of education at the age of 17 when he first volunteered for Make A Difference as a teacher volunteer. He graduated from Pune University with a degree in Business. In 2018, he completed the Young India Fellowship from Ashoka University and went on to join Teach for India as Government, School and Community relation associate. He is passionate about the topics of Education, Mental Health and Sexuality. Pranav is a qualified trainer for the subjects of Gender & Sexuality. In 2020, he finished is certification in Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice by Mariwala Health.   

Pratyay is a social researcher by training, an educator by passion and a teacher educator by choice. With a background in Geography, she pivoted towards the education sector and has 4 years of experience in the areas of Teacher Development, Instructional Design, and Inclusive Education. She started her journey as a Teach For India Fellow (2019 Cohort) and taught a bunch of 29 young girls in North Delhi. She continued to work with Barefoot Edu Foundation and Firki Teacher Training Portal as a teacher coach and instructional designer. Pratyay has a keen interest in diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), human-centered practices, educational leadership, and policy and has also been associated with Pride Network Community at Teach For All. In her free time, she loves to listen to music Pratyay loves to listen to music, watch movies and series, and dance. She also likes to read books on feminist literature, people and culture, and leadership. At SEF, Pratyay is working with the Delhi State Transformation team, where she is using her skill of human-centered design to develop a high-quality capacity building program for teacher educators and aspiring teachers in the Delhi Government.

Pravina is a traveler at heart. She joined the Teach for India Fellowship in 2015 because she wanted to undertake an entirely different journey – one that involves exploration and experimentation. She believes that children learn best from their environment and teaches them to observe and engage more deeply with their surroundings. It is this journey that has brought her to SEF. She envisions that her children will learn through fun and play because nothing stays with you longer than something learnt through enjoyment. Pravina joined our first school transformation project in 2017 as a primary grade teacher and is now leading the transformation journey at this school. 

Prerna has been working in the field of education for the past five years, working towards improving teaching and learning practices in public schools. She completed the Teach for India Fellowship in 2016 and joined SEF to work on Project Paathshala in rural Uttarakhand. Her experiences working on the field motivated her to deepen her understanding, which led her to pursue Masters of Education (Program- Learning and Teaching) from Harvard Graduate School of Education. As the Associate Director, she wants to explore the power and potential of children, teachers and parents, fostering an enabling environment with a drive for continuous learning. She’s an avid reader, passionate dreamer and a budding baker. 

Rahul’s big dream is to build a school, where students learn what they love and teachers are leaders who guide the minds & hearts of our future. With this vision he co-founded Simple Education Foundation. In 2014, he started Project Prayogshala (aka the Learning Center) with a determination to make an innovative learning space for children living in low-income communities. He holds an MBA from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. He also holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science. He is a Teach For India Alumnus.    Rahul looks after Program Impact & School Leadership and works directly with school teams in strengthening the Simple School program. When he’s not busy teaching at Prayogshala, he spends his time pampering his little boys Shiv & Arjun.

Sagar Ahuja is a passionate educator and facilitator, an artist, a learner, and above all a compassionate human being. His passion for teaching and community service brought him to Teach For India in 2019. After teaching 9th and 10th grade for two years he chooses to teach elementary grades during his Transformational Teaching Fellowship. He was the first one to teach Nursery and KG grades in Teach For India and has done exceptional work with young kids. He is always full of energy and joy and considers love, empathy, and grit as his top 3 values. At SEF Sagar is working closely with the teacher vertical of COE (Centers of Excellence, Delhi) to develop, strategize, articulate, and implement the teacher development program for government teachers in Delhi.

Saloni is a compassionate educator whose love for learning transformed during her Teach For India Fellowship experiences. Thereafter, she pursued her MA in Education with Azim Premji University where her investment to work in the areas of school leadership and inclusive education further cemented. Saloni is known for a big bright smile and her “bunny” energy. She is an enthusiastic human being with a great love for giving and receiving hugs. She embodies the values of empathy and learning agility in every aspect of her life. She believes that the best outcomes are a result of collaborative efforts and strongly believes in the value of a collective. Currently, she works at SEF in the Principal Development vertical towards capacity building of principals in government schools.

A commerce graduate in Finance and Investment from Christ University, Sanya grew up envisioning herself in a corporate career. However, she found her passion for the development sector through her many career changes, from being an Auditor at EY to a Manager-Program & Strategy at Pahal, an NGO in Punjab. At SEF, Sanya anchors the fundraising strategy, vision, and initiatives aligning with SEF's mission.     

Abdul hails from Dehradun and carries mountains in his heart. Low exposure in the small valley and its closed society pushed recycled social ideas on him, ones that no one challenged. The only way to educate is to imbue a child with fear that women are supposed to be at home because the world outside is unsafe, men are not supposed to show many emotions, and so on. This led him to question why love, care, and safety can't be championed and what is the basis of gender norms; questions like this made him notorious in school and at home. Despite being considered a "below average" student, he went on to pursue his Bachelor and in that time he came to understand how the education system only favors those who have a natural disposition to excel. And, there’s no one for the kids like him, leading him away from education. Years went by, and he kept himself away from anything “education” until he got to know about the “Teach for India” fellowship. He found alignment with the thoughts he never articulated, and the fellowship became a pivotal point in his life. He found hope and started believing in a mantra that “if anything that can save the world, that’s education.” He has been in the education sector for five years now in different roles and plans to keep strengthening the institutions that are working towards the idea of education he is aligned with. At SEF, Shadab works with the Learning and Inisght Vertical to strengthen program monitoring and impact.

Shahanaz is a passionate educator, facilitator, and cat mother. She is an idealist who believes in the ethical obligation of every human to do good and help their fellow humans and the rest of existence thrive. She grew up in 6 different states in northeast India and is a proud representative of its culture and values. As a first generation, she observed the impact of educational inequity very closely, which motivated her to work in the development sector. Post her Masters in Biotechnology, she started her journey as a Teaching Fellow with Teach for India and taught 60 amazing students. During her second year of fellowship, the pandemic hit, and schools closed. To make education accessible to students and support community development, she started Panaah Community Centers and worked with children, youth, and parents of 2 low-income communities. To support further work in Community Development and education, she moved on to work as a Consultant with Teach for India and Yojak. As a believer in system transformation as the long-term solution to inequity and poverty, she restarted her work with school development in conflict regions and is now working with the Udaan Team at SEF. She loves capturing nature through her lens and regional cooking recipespassed down to her from different cultures.

Sheelam believes that her education can help her be a changemaker for her community. She is our young and dynamic community assistant in our Paathshala program in Gular village. Sheelam graduated with a B.Ed degree from H.N.B Garhwal University. She believes that rural communities can be empowered to be agents of change to transform their own communities and villages and improve access to fundamental facilities like quality education, healthcare and sanitation. She is key to mobilising the community to take charge of our school transformation program in Gular and spends most of her time spreading awareness and educating the youth in leading the change.

Shinjinee graduated with a degree in Economics only to realize that all that she studied on paper needed to manifest in her actions. She joined Teach for India right after graduation and taught eighty-seven wonderful students in a government school in Pune. The fellowship was life-changing for her and it made her realize that nothing makes her happier than working with and for children. She believes that education is the key and the hope for a better world. In her free time, she either binge watches masterchef or cooks with cranked up music.     

As part of the OD team, Shivam supports the implementation of organization systems and processes in HR, Finance, & Compliance functions. He facilitates the SEF vision by providing administrative support to Simple School teams. A poet since birth, Shivam is a keen enthusiast in invigorating thoughts on key political and cultural issues. Shivam has a bachelor's degree in Political Science (H) from Delhi University.  

Shruti graduated with a degree in Psychology(H) from Delhi University and a Master's in Fashion Management from NIFT, Bengaluru. After working in the fashion industry for about a year, she wanted to do something more meaningful and found her way into the TFI fellowship. Her fellowship journey, much like life, was a rollercoaster ride - a ride full of adventure and creativity. After the fellowship, as part of TFI's incubator program till the middle of 2019 she worked as an Assistant School Leader on school transformation in low-income private schools in Bangalore, this strengthened her belief in the potential of stakeholders on the learning of children. With interests and experience in diverse areas, she values having this choice and gaining awareness to make these choices. She enjoys dancing, going out with friends, and being entertaining.

It took four generations of perseverance to send Shrutika, the first child of the family to a prestigious institution out of Uttarakhand to pursue higher education; she dreams of this four becoming one for the children in Uttarakhand.  A strong believer in the potential that an individual and system hold, Shrutika works at the Pathshala program of SEF. Prior to SEF, Shrutika worked with Teach For India as a Fellow and then a Program Manager where she worked directly with the government schools in Delhi. 

Srinidhi discovered her love for learning from and working with children nearly ten years ago. Since then, she has worked in different capacities across diverse learning spaces - as a Teach For India Fellow at a government school, as a teacher mentor and curriculum designer for a low fee private school, and as an educator for the early years program at an alternative school. She graduated from Azim Premji University in 2017, with an M.A. in Education. Through her work, she hopes to create a nurturing ecosystem that supports meaningful learning for children.       

A commerce graduate from Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, during an internship at a corporate, Srishti realised that her calling was outside four walls of a cubicle. While working in a refugee community for almost 3 years and building self-awareness in the process, she joined Teach for India as a fellow in 2017 to understand educational inequity. During her fellowship, she spent time in communities to facilitate after school learning and parental investment for 500+ children through the learning center Kaafila.  Having observed ed-inequity at a deeper level, Srishti moved to work at a school in the outskirts of Dehradun where her ranged from  coaching teachers, to working on student-led projects to build collective leadership.  At Gular, Srishti is setting up a program, to accelerate learning in primary schools through community engagement.   

Trisha graduated with a triple major in Journalism, Psychology, and English and has a deep understanding of Interdisciplinary humanities, she is also highly people oriented. Being an Army kid, Trisha changed 10 schools in the span of 12 years. Her experience in different topographies made her come face to face with inequitable distribution of resources prevailing through the length and breadth of India. It was her internship in Bihar that made her realise education can be an effective tool to change the inequity in the world and thus soon after joined the Teach For India fellowship.       

Vaibhav is an optimist who believes that if you keep moving forward regardless of circumstances, in the end all is going to be well. With this belief, he graduated from Jamia Millia Islamia with a degree in business, amid the covid pandemic and unexpectedly worked with the State Council of Education Research and Training under the CMIE Fellowship which was a roller coaster ride for him. It changed his worldview entirely and led him to discover his will to commit to the development sector. In his free time he cooks and devours food. He has dogs named Richie, Leo, Jerry and Perry; few live inside his house and few outside.

Vidhi pursued her undergraduate degree in Political Science, wanting to pursue a career in public policy. However, a step out of her academic bubble, exposed her to the systemic inequality rampant in the country. Through life-altering experiences with organisations such as the Indian Cancer Society, NAB-India Centre for Blind Women and Disability Studies and SEWA Bharat, Vidhi realised she does not want to spend her life detached from reality and wants to play an active role in changing society. She considers equal access to education the cornerstone of this change and hence began her journey with SEF. Through her work at SEF, she wants to share the lens with which she views the world, that is one of empathy, love and infinite possibilities.