Ei Dialogues

In this episode of EI Dialogues we speak to Aditya Natraj, Director of the Kaivalya Education Foundation. KEF works to improve public education in India by developing leadership among school, district, and state officials.

In this conversation, Aditya Natraj spoke about KEF's philosophy of leadership and it's application in the education sector, as well as the need for equity between private and public education and ways to enable this. With several insightful examples, Aditya emphasized the importance of partnering with expert stakeholders to achieve large-scale impact, and the role of empathy in working with governments.

This episode originally aired on 10th February, 2020.

In this episode of EI Dialogues, we speak to Dr. Santhosh Matthew, the Country Lead, Public Policy and Finance at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). BMGF works to improve people’s health and lift them out of hunger and extreme poverty.

Dr. Santhosh Matthew also has extensive experience as a civil servant and a Ph.D. in Development Studies. In this conversation, he spoke about his work as an IAS Officer, being an entrepreneur within the government, the growth of philanthropy in India, solving for capacity constraints in Indian education and the role of EdTech in improving learning outcomes.

This episode was originally launched on 24th December, 2019 

In this episode of EI Dialogues, we talk to Ashish Dhawan, founder of the Central Square Foundation (CSF). CSF is a non-profit organization that works to make high-quality school education available to all children in India, and improve the learning outcomes of children, especially from low-income communities.

Ashish Dhawan is also the founder of ChrysCapital and a founding member of Ashoka University. In this conversation he spoke about his switch from the corporate sector to philanthropy, his approach to giving, the application of management principles to running and scaling a non-profit organisation, and his beliefs regarding the current needs of the Indian education sector.

This episode was originally launched on 27th February 2020.

In this episode of EI Dialogues, we talk to Saransh Vaswani, a co-founder of Saajha. Saajha works to build the capacity of School Management Committees (SMCs), which were mandated by the Right to Education Act. These SMCs comprise the school principal, a teacher, parents, a local ward councilor, and an educationist. Inspired by the potential of parent-teacher engagement, Saajha tries to create an ecosystem of support in government schools for child development.

Before founding Saajha, Saransh was a Gandhi Fellow and, later, a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University. During the conversation, he reflects on how these fellowships played a role in the conception of Saajha, how it went from training 90 schools to 1000+ schools in Delhi, and why it is important to create opportunities for a parent to support their child’s development.

This episode was originally launched on January 27, 2020.

In this episode of EI Dialogues, we interact with Prachi Jain Windlass. She is currently Director-India Education at the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF). In her role, Prachi leads the foundation’s efforts to improve the fast-growing affordable private schools sector and other high-quality market-based solutions for education in India. She is also on the board of several for-profit education companies and advisory committees to state governments and education departments. During the conversation, she elucidates on Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF)’s investing strategy in education, the rising significance of Development Impact Bonds (DIBs) and MSDF’s role as outcome funders, the need for technology to bridge the last mile gap when it comes to improving children’s learning outcomes, and what education entrepreneurs should keep in mind while doing business. This episode was originally launched on September 16, 2019.

In this episode, we talk to Sridhar Rajagopalan, the President and Chief Learning Officer of Educational Initiatives. During the conversation, Sridhar talks about why he co-founded Educational Initiatives after running a school for 6 years, the idea behind doing Assessments and using EdTech for improving learning outcomes. He further tells us about the discipline of Science of Learning, what investments we must make in education to yield maximum outcomes at scale, how can India do better on tests like PISA, and the role of nurturing gifted students for them to become leaders of tomorrow. This episode was originally published on July 31, 2019.

In this episode, we converse with Vishal Talreja, co-founder of Dream a Dream, an organisation working towards empowering children and young people from vulnerable backgrounds using a life-skills approach. An active writer on development challenges and human-interest stories, Vishal is an Ashoka Fellow, an Eisenhower Fellow, and a Board Member at PYE Global.  During the conversation, he shares more about the life skills approach, his journey with Dream a Dream, scaling it, and collaborating with Governments. This episode was originally published on February 8, 2021. 

In this episode, we converse with Prof. Karthik Muralidharan, who is the head of global education research at JPAL. He is also the Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His research spans development, public, and labour economics with a focus on improving the effectiveness of public spending in the social sector. Here, Karthik breaks down for us what research for social impact is, the role of research to inform policy, role of independent evaluations and assessments in saving money, time, and effort. He also talks about why has he remained in this sector for so long, and what keeps him going, and what should the people joining the sector know about it. This episode was originally published on June 25, 2019.

In this episode, we converse with Anil Swarup. He is the Former Secretary of School Education and Literacy and comes from a long tenure in the civil services. In his career, he has been known to bring about a change in the way technology is used in governance, and has used social media extensively to advocate the #NexusOfGood movement, which identifies local heroes and homegrown solutions which have worked across India. He is also the author of Not Just A Civil Servant in which he articulates his journey. During the conversation, he tells us more about the #NexusOfGood movement, sustainable solutions, technology in Education and Governance, and scaling interventions. This episode was originally published on June 3, 2019.

In this episode of EI Dialogues, we have Dr. Dhir Jhingran in conversation with Pranav Kothari. He is the Founder Director of the Language and Learning Foundation. He has worked in the primary education sector for over two decades, within and outside the government. As an officer of the Indian Administrative Service, he served as Principal Secretary, Education with the Government of Assam and as Director in the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Mission Director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan as well as the District Primary Education Programme. During the conversation, Dhir highlights the learnings from his career, give some tips on multilanguage teaching, talk about how to take transformative ideas to scale, and describe his personal experiences in starting an organisation from scratch, after his stint in the government sector. This episode was originally published on April 5, 2019.