LEADERSHIP TEAM

Karishma Shanghvi

Founder and Director

Karishma Shanghvi is the founder and director of Shikha Academy.

Shikha Academy is a high quality, innovative and scalable school model, following the IGCSE board, providing transformational education through essential 21st century skills to exclusively disadvantaged students.

Shikha Institute of Education is a research driven organization that creates engaging, rigorous, relevant and technology supported school curricula and training programs.

Shikha Labs is an AI technology company creating cutting edge educational products for students, teachers and schools to leapfrog learning and teaching for the future.

Karishma is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Educational Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. She holds a master’s degree in education (Ed.M.) from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology with a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School, a B.A.S. in Bioengineering, an M.S. in Biotechnology and a minor in South Asian Studies, all from the University of Pennsylvania.

Karishma is a member of the Board of Trustees and Board of Management at Ashoka University. She has previously worked with Dasra and is actively involved with the Shantilal Shanghvi Foundation.

Snehal Joshi

Principal, Shikha Academy

Founder Principal of Shikha Academy, Snehal comes with an experience of more than three decades of teaching and leading international curricula. Snehal holds a Masters degree in Physics and a Post Graduate Advanced Diploma in Educational technology.

She strongly believes that there is no end to learning and is on a mission to inspire children to become life-long learners. True to this belief, Snehal obtained a Certificate in School Management and Leadership by the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Jonathan Mendonca

Head of Scale, Shikha Institute

Jonathan is on a mission to decentralize education by empowering leaders at the grassroots so that the voice, values, and goals of their communities shape education. As co-founder and Director of Strategy at Barefoot Edu Foundation, his non-profit builds educational leadership across three states in India. Jonathan holds a masters in International Education Policy at Harvard Graduate school of education and has been awarded the New world social innovation Fellowship from the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also an Ashoka University Young India Fellow, Saul Zaentz Fellow, Mother Teresa Fellow, and was recently awarded by Falling Falls Foundation in Berlin for shaping the future of education.

Dr. T. G. Lakshmi

Head of Research, Shikha Institute

Dr. T. G. Lakshmi, with 18 years of experience, holds a Ph.D. from IIT Bombay’s EdTech department. Recognized with the ‘Future DigiLeader 2020’ award by Digital Futures @ Stockholm, she is an education researcher specializing in design, implementation and evaluation of edTech interventions. She has led impactful projects in the education social sector, including a large-scale edTech implementation and the conceptualization of the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy project.

Prarthana Patil

Head of Curriculum Design, Shikha Institute

With over 27 years of experience in the field of Design Education, Prarthana brings richness of all her knowledge and expertise in the form of designing curricula and mentoring faculty. Equipped with a background in science, history, culture, global research and art, she creates course plans that are culturally contextual, conceptual, and easily applicable.

She has developed and implemented innovative pedagogies that transform the foundational aspects of thinking in classroom learning and teaching, leading to students developing a curious mind set along with a sense of purpose in their educational journey. Her aim is to disrupt the traditional educational process to foster deeper understanding, critical thinking, and a more engaged learning environment for both students and teachers.

Dr. Madhuri Mavinkurve

Head of Teacher Training, Shikha Institute

Dr. Madhuri leads Teacher Training at the Shikha Institute, bringing with her nearly three decades of teaching experience at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Electronics Engineering.

She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Technology from IIT Bombay and is a skilled researcher and practitioner in the field. Her expertise lies in the conceptualization and design of digital learning solutions, with a focus on creating effective assessment tools to evaluate their impact.

Dr. Madhuri has served as an EdTech advisor for Mahika, a company that develops eLearning solutions to train women in the ITeS/BPM sector. She has also been a key contributor to IIT Bombay’s EdTech Tulna project, where she played a significant role in developing the Tulna Index, a tool used to evaluate the quality of EdTech products, and trained government officials in its adoption. In addition, Dr. Madhuri has extensive experience conducting faculty development programs, primarily for engineering institutions across India.

Tanmay Dhote

Co-Founder, Shikha Labs

Tanmay is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, where he completed his B.Tech+M.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering in 2016. He worked as a Data Scientist at Microsoft for 6 years where he worked on improving the relevance of search on Bing and Microsoft Teams before working on his own startup in AI.

Pratik Rajurkar

Co-Founder, Shikha Labs

Pratik began his career as a Fellow with Teach For India in 2015, as a middle school teacher in Pune. He then worked as a social impact consultant on engagements with NITI Aayog, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, and the Government of Madhya Pradesh. He also has worked with the Nashik Zilla Parishad, Pune Municipal Corporation, and the Government of Maharashtra on different engagements in education and brings in startup experience having worked on building his own AI startup.