Shaheen Mistri
About
The CEO of Teach for India & the Founder of Akanksha Foundation, Shaheen Mistry’s vision is to provide children from all strata of society with the education, the skills, & most importantly, the character that they would need to lead empowered lives.
She founded the first Akanksha Center in 1989, enrolling 15 children & employing college friends as volunteers. The Akanksha Foundation today runs 21 Akanksha Schools across Mumbai and Pune and impacts 10,000 children.
Inspired by the Teach For America model, Shaheen founded Teach For India in 2008 with the audacious vision of providing an excellent education to all children across India by building a movement of leaders committed to ending educational inequity in India.
Teach For India educates 40,000 children across seven cities & is working towards the pursuit of equity in education for over ten years. Many of TFI’s alumni work as teachers, principals, policymakers & curriculum designers who work towards the same goal - to educate all the children in India.
The Teach For India Alumni community is 3800+ members strong, impacting 1 million children directly and reaching 33 million children indirectly.
Shaheen is an advocate for student voice and partnership, and has created high-impact initiatives like the Maya Musical, the Kids Education Revolution, and The Greatest Show on Earth which explore student leadership.
Knowing the importance of teachers as leaders, Shaheen created Firki, a Teacher Training Portal that serves as a highly curated, one-stop shop for teachers to learn and grow together, currently with 150,000 users.
Shaheen founded TFIx, an incubator for passionate education entrepreneurs eager to customize Teach For India's model to their context and geography in rural areas, as a result of her desire to help every child in India. Over 62,000 children are currently reached by TFIx entrepreneurs in India.
Shaheen is the author of the book, Redrawing India and the Miss Muglee children’s books.
Awards and accomplishments
Awards and accomplishments
- Shaheen is an Ashoka Fellow (2001)
- A Global Leader for Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum (2002).
- An Asia Society 21 Leader (2006)
- She is a recipient of the ‘Jamnalal Bajaj Award for Development and Welfare of Women and Children’ in 2019.
- She has also received the ‘Beyond Business – ETPrime Women Leadership Award’, 2020.
- Shaheen also serves on the boards of Ummeed, The Thermax Social Initiatives Foundation, The Akanksha Foundation, The Indian School Leaders Institute, and Design For Change, and is an advisor to the Latika Roy Foundation.
- She also serves as a committee member for the National Council for Teacher Education – NCERT.
Why Shaheen Mistri?
Shaheen Mistri began her diligent journey with the humble goal of providing education to children from all socioeconomic backgrounds, and she has been successful ever since. She has earned global recognition for her dedication and commitment to the fight for educational equity. Her talks are about exceptional stories elucidating the fact-how little things in life matter, & subsequently weaves it into a more pressing topic of re-imagining education in India. With over 25 years of experience and her selfless service, Shaheen truly shines as an ‘Education Warrior’.
