There is a reason why education is so close to Kumari Shibulal’s heart. Mrs. Shibulal comes from a family of farmers in a small village in Kerala. She recounts with pride and joy about being the first girl in her village to go to college. Her mother influenced her deeply, with her immense generosity and her belief in the need for education and its pivotal role in shaping the lives of young people. This led to Mrs. Shibulal founding the Sarojini Damodaran Foundation in 1999 and The Advaith Foundation in 2004.

Mrs. Shibulal works with various philanthropic ventures in India, including Akshaya, a charitable trust that she founded with her husband Mr. SD Shibulal, to help underprivileged children in India by way of scholarships and paediatric care. She also sponsors a fellowship program with TIFR that funds visits by eminent scientists and provides travel grants to young scientists from TIFR. She also loves sports and she was one of the first people to help PT Usha set up her Usha School of Athletics in Kerala and to sponsor the first 6 students of the school. We are proud to say that Mrs. Shibulal is a Managing Trustee of The Samhita Academy

N.R. Narayana Murthy is the Founder-Chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited, a global software consulting company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Infosys was listed on the NASDAQ in 1999 and spearheaded the technological revolution in India. Mr. Murthy is the architect and designer of the Global Delivery Model, which serves as the foundation for many successful IT companies in India. He is also an IT advisor to several Asian countries and is also on the board of the UN Foundation, HSBC and the Ford Foundation.

In all his interviews, Mr. Murthy highlights the need for a good education system in the country, one that will help us solve problems and encourage students to apply their knowledge outside the classroom. He has been awarded the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India, the CBE by the British government, and the Legion d’honneur by the Government of France.

M Vaidyanathan is the CEO of Krishna Sweets. With a multifaceted professional background in construction and mining in countries like Singapore and Australia, his unique and progressive vision has taken Sri Krishna Sweets to great heights. Mr. Vaidyanathan has helped the company with its robust expansion across India and its constant drive to innovate and transform the food industry with its popular traditional sweets and savories.

Mr. Vaidyanathan has a Master's in Professional Accounting and a PG diploma in Project Management. He describes himself as someone who is always responsive to change and this is evidenced by his leadership of Sri Krishna Sweets and its commitment towards quality. His experience in product costing and implementation has allowed him to pioneer changes and growth in Sri Krishna Sweets.

‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’

Solving problems were part and parcel of my life as I was quick to understand a situation and learn the tactics to handle it. Though I started out my career in the administrative section of the corporate world, I soon found out my real passion for teaching. This led me to do my Montessori training and made me realize the happiness of regularly interacting with children.

Further after my post-graduation, my B.Ed led me to handle subjects for the higher secondary students. Along with taking up position of higher secondary coordinator, I was able to engage with high school students in a respectfully friendly manner. The position saw me handle and enable students for various extra-curricular activities and competition. Soon after, sitting in at the principal’s chair gave me insights on administrative side of education and a platform to support other teachers in imparting knowledge.

Emphasizing on inculcating rational and emotional values along with the curriculum is the kind of wholesome education I believe in. In present day world where students have higher exposure to variety of information around them, they often forget the vital support offered by teachers. As teachers who believe humanity to be the biggest religion, I believe teachers and students can nurture better relationship that results in better knowledge gain.

With a promise to give my best efforts for this school, I have joined the TSA family, Coimbatore.

“Words are Words, Promises are Promises, Performance is Reality.” Let me get into the reality to keep our TSA flag flying high.

Aparna epitomizes Walk the Talk. Her passion and zeal for excellence in everything she does has given her success. She has an experience of 15 years in the IT industry, that includes a decade long stint with Infosys. She is an active trustee of an NGO, providing education to children from deprived backgrounds. She was directly instrumental in aligning these kids to mainstream for the past 10 years. Parallelly, she also completed her masters in Special Education from University of Northampton, U.K. Her work-life necessitated her to focus on wellness to stay fit. Once she had this in place for herself and benefitted immensely from it, she has chosen to take it to market. Of course, nothing comes easy….her willingness to walk the untrodden path, with a do-it-all energy and a never-say-die attitude continuing to drive her journey.

Shruti Shibulal is the Chief Executive Officer and Director of The Tamara Leisure Experiences. Shruti is one of India’s next generation entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry and was named as 1 of the 5 World Economic Forum’s YGLs from India in 2017.

She is a Trustee for both Advaith Foundation and the Sarojini Damodaran Foundation, organisations involved in providing educational opportunities and healthcare assistance to underprivileged sections of society. She is on the Management Council of The Samhita Academy. She serves as a Trustee of the Women’s Education Project, an NGO providing mentorship and scholarships to young women in need of support. Shruti is also on the Advisory Board of ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment).

Shreyas Shibulal is the Founder Director of Micelio Mobility Private Limited. His background in Embedded Systems, coupled with a childhood interest in the automotive sector and a passion for clean mobility, made him start this firm. He has been featured on various channels regarding the Electric Vehicle ecosystem. He aims to accelerate the pace of clean mobility in India and to drive long-term, sustainable change in the EV space. To this effect, he has launched an INR 150 crore fund with specific focus on Electric Vehicles and related sub systems. Micelio Fund is probably India’s first seed fund focused solely on clean mobility. It invests in seed stage innovative start-ups in the EV ecosystem including drivetrain technologies, charging infrastructure, energy management and special purpose electric vehicles. Excited by mobility and driven by environmental consciousness, he is well on his way to powering a comprehensive Electric Vehicle platform for India.

Gaurav brings his experience as a strategy and technology consultant. A graduate of Boston University, Gaurav has consulted in the past to companies from various industries. He is currently involved in the areas of Entrepreneurship and Social Investment while being completely committed to the field of education.

Bhairavi is an alumnus of the prestigious Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania. She holds the unique honor of being the first Indian woman to be accepted to this program. Post-graduation, she completed stints in private equity, strategy consulting and retail research across three continents, and ultimately came back to India with the intention of setting up sustainable businesses with a social conscience. She is passionate about innovations in healthcare, organic farming and education. She will be launching Solis Health, India’s first group of holistic integrative oncology centres, in the coming months.

After a long stint in her first career at Infosys, Asha Thomas decided to respond to the call to serve in the social sector. Her search brought her to the Advaith Foundation and its objectives of serving the underserved through its Ankur project. In its quest to provide equitable and quality education, the Advaith Foundation launched The Samhita Academy school with the twin focus of inclusion and excellence.

She felt that her own school life had little prepared her for college and career. The kind of independent thinking and intellectual rigour required at IIT Madras and later in the IT industry was very different from doing well in the Board exam.

She believes that quality education needs to both prepare students for the Boards and build the skills of a thinking mind and a lifelong learner. Secondly children need to enjoy learning. That needs an environment free from fear and space to express themselves. To make that a reality, education needs to have the right blend of evidence based best practices, test preparation skills and understanding of children. As an institution, schools need to be value-based and professional. It has to have a culture of learning and continuous improvement.

“ The success of any nation depends on the excellence of its average not on the brilliance of a few” Prof Krishna Kumar

The Samhita Academy measures their excellence as a school not just by the brilliance of a few but by the effort and progress that every child makes.

Ms. Jyothi is a passionate academician with an experience of over 2 decades in the rapidly changing landscape in the field of education. She is a passionate educator with 21 years of experience with schools in various roles - teacher, instructional leader, Vice Principal and now Principal. She has been with the school since 2010. Her contribution in shaping the path that TSA is on in its endeavour to provide meaningful education is a commitment she has taken on from day one. Her firm belief that we are in the best of times to make an impact in shaping the future of this country and the world at large has seen her steer the team constantly in the direction of change in alignment with the philosophy of the school.

She says - learning of academic concepts is a very small part of learning at school. The experiences provided by the school are the tools that stimulate learning and honing of skills that are a must for being a happy, content and contributing member of the society as an adult. Quality education is the result of action on the larger goals for the students. A sensitive, sensible, empathetic individual is an outcome of the effort put in by the student, parents and the teachers alike. Parent community’s support in realising the vision of the school is valuable. A healthy partnership with the parents is the key to achieve the larger goals for the students.

Our country is at the cusp of an educational revolution with NEP2020 and we are going to be the key players in bringing about the much desired change. This opportunity is to be utilised as a golden one that will play a huge role in determining our country’s place on the world map on progressive education. We are at the right place at the right time to leave our mark as a school that has the advantage of touching lives across various strata of the society and we will give our best. I have been part of the foundational years of this caring school and it’s maturing into a full-fledged K12 school and I believe it has its heart in the right place.

Education is about the child as a person, and academic knowledge cannot be the sole purpose of education. Schools provide the most important experiences to the child that are instrumental in shaping the child's personality. I am a firm believer of the school of thought that a caring relationship with a teacher can override all the other not so great experiences that may be part of growing up. It is pertinent to be mindful of the practices that keep the child's emotional wellbeing at the core. We educators have an influence on the child that lasts for a lifetime hence we must use that 'power' with a lot of caution and love.

Dr. K.P Gopalkrishna is one of India’s most famous educationists. He is the Founder and Chairman of the National Public School group of institutions in India. In 2018, Dr. Gopalkrishna was awarded the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award for his extraordinary service in the field of education. Dr. Gopalkrishna believes that education is an instrument for national development and that a country’s progress is determined by its quality of human capital. Under his chairmanship, the NPS schools have scaled great heights in education.

Dr. Sreeja Sreedhar A frugal leader who believes her core strengths are empathy and resilience. She is working with The Samhita Academy and Advaith foundation since the early years of the organization’s inception. She head’s the finance and administration, bringing in sustainable solutions with efficient resource allocation and cost optimization. She had worked with the Kerala Government for 14 years in the life sciences field before replanting herself to the education sector. She resonates the importance of value based and hands-on education in creating a better world. She appreciates the mission and vision of helping to create an ecosystem which nurtures freedom of thoughts and actions thereby encouraging creativity, courage and insightfulness. According to her “Successful entrepreneurship spirit in our future leaders will spearhead frugal innovations to create faster economic growth with social and environmental.

A huge proponent of raising a skilled workforce that can take full advantage of the current technological explosion, Senapathy Kris Gopalakrishnan is one of the co- founders of Infosys. He was its CEO and MD from 2007 to 2011. Kris is recognised as a global business and technology thought leader. Apart from many prestigious corporate recognitions and awards, he was also elected president of India’s apex industry chamber, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for 2013-2014 and also served as a co-chair of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2014.

Kris is the Chairman of Axilor Ventures, an early stage start-up accelerator and venture fund, which he started in 2015 with SD Shibulal, Srinath Batni, and Tarun Khanna. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2011. He is on the Board of Governors of the Okinawa Institute for Science and Technology (OIST) and is also the Chairman of the Vision Group on Information Technology of the Karnataka Government.

Professor Sadagopan, Director of IIIT Bangalore is a graduate of Madras University, India and Purdue University, USA. He taught for 25+ years at IIT Kanpur, IIM Bangalore, IIT Madras and IIITBangalore in addition to short teaching assignments at RUTGERS, USA and AIT, Bangkok. He has wide research interests that include Operations Research, Multi-criteria optimization Decision Theory, Simulation, Enterprise Computing, Programming Languages, Databases, Multimedia and e-Governance. He has authored seven books, several book chapters and papers. He is also a Fellow of IEE (UK) and Computer Society of India. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, ACM and AIS. Prof. Sadagopan consults widely across different industry segments (Auto, Manufacturing, Banking, IT and Social Sector) and lectures extensively at corporations, industry events and universities in North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on all aspects of IT.

He serves on the boards of Bharat Electronics, Neyveli Lignite Corporation and Indian Renewable Energy Agency and IIIT Bhubaneswar, IIIT-Delhi and IBAB earlier he was also on the Board of Bank of India, NMDC, VisualSoft, Megasoft, Informatics and Shawman Software. Prof. Sadagopan is a Member of Karnataka Knowledge Commission, Chief Minister's Vision Group on IT, NASSCOM Regional Council and ISA Executive Council. He is the Chair of IEEE Computer Society, Bangalore Chapter and a Member of ACM India Council. Currently (till 2011). He is also a Member of WWW Conference Committee (W3CC).

In a recent article for The Hindu, Dr. Devi Shetty wrote that healthcare will turn upside-down in the coming decade, and that education will play a crucial role in how we prepare students to work in the emergent industry scenario.

Dr. Shetty is one of the leading cardiac surgeons in the world, and has performed over 15,000 heart operations in his career. He is the Chairman, Founder and Senior Consultant Cardiac Surgeon Narayana Hrudayalaya Group of Hospitals, Bangalore. Dr. Shetty has been awarded the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India for his contribution to the field of affordable healthcare.

Ravichandar is Chairman, Feedback Consulting. His work focus is on guiding the firm for sustained growth by providing increasing value to clients. He is Honorary Consul, Republic of Slovenia for Bengaluru.

Ravichandar was a key member of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) during 2000-04. Ravichandar along with three others was involved in making the case for Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JN-NURM). Since 2006 he has been evangelizing the idea of City Connect (now in 5 cities) involving business, civil society and government. He was part of the 3-member Government Expert Committee tasked with reimaging governance and administration for Bengaluru. He was Co-Chair of the Karnataka Tourism Vision Group.

Ravichandar is part of multiple social and cultural initiatives – Bangalore International Centre; Bangalore Literature Festival; Education for the underprivileged through Vidya Poshak, Samhita Academy, Akshara Foundation; Takshashila Institution; Citizen Matters, etc.

Ravichandar has a Mechanical Engineering degree from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad with over 38 years industry experience.