My 10-year journey in the field of education – across research, teaching, business and philanthropy – is guided by the mission to cultivate lifelong learners who are capable of leading with values, a sense of agency and skills required to make an impact. In some ways, I have always known that education was my calling; but I came close to giving it all up. I owe much to Prof. Marshall Ganz at Harvard and his incredible teaching community for creating the opportunities to hone my teaching craft, and to approach it with a sense of responsibility and agency.
My students and clients include curious and talkative 10 year-olds in Delhi, a global collective of women politicians, award-winning professors from Ivy League universities, and other inspiring groups both online and located around the world. Here is a sampling.
<aside> 🤝 In addition to facilitating leadership development experiences, I have spent the last few years designing online learning in universities and for edtech platforms.
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During the pandemic, it quickly became clear that we couldn’t just “copy-paste” the usual teaching methods of lectures and homework online. In 2020, I created Zoom Instruct with Prof. Todd Jick of Columbia Business School, as a way to model for instructors how to teach on Zoom. To date, 1000+ instructors have enrolled in the free course and watched our videos on YouTube.
Resources on online teaching here and here.
The creator economy and edtech gave rise to a new wave of interactive online courses. As Head Coach at Maven and then Head of Education at Coleap, I have partnered with 150+ experts to create learning experiences that are practical, interactive and accessible to a global audience. Subjects span fundraising, tech leadership, no-code, edtech and product management.
“When should I start an online course?” Read here.
<aside> 🤝 Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. I love meeting people with a shared interest in education.
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🚞 I am a small-town girl at heart – my childhood was spent in the cozy hill station of Coonoor, Nilgiris
🎤 **At 15, I dropped out of school to design my own education. Some call this unschooling, or a version of homeschooling. Listen to my extended Story of Self on this podcast
📕 As alums of Rishi Valley School, my friends Atty Aravind & I created *The RV Storybook*
🚀 I believe in being entrepreneurial about careers. Most of my jobs and projects have come from pitching myself for a new role, rather than applying for an existing one
🏡 My husband Akshay and I live in Bangalore. We met and fell in love in the US, but always knew we wanted to return and live in India
💸 I am very passionate about women (particularly, Indian women) achieving career success and financial security