Our Team

S.K. Joshi

Mr. S K Joshi was Director (Finance) of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a fortune 500 company. During his long tenure (over three decades) in Oil Industry he was involved in several issues impacting the oil industry in India. Mr Joshi was actively involved in recruiting more than 150 Chartered Accountants and mentoring them in BPCL.

Mr Joshi is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He also holds an MBA degree from the University of Hull, UK.

Post retirement Mr. Joshi is engaged in Investment Banking & Capital markets activity to pursue his interest. He is currently working as Executive Director in Khambatta Securities Ltd and heading the Wealth Management business.

Shamini Murugesh

Chief Mentor, WCF

Ms. Shamini Murugesh has set up WNS Cares Foundation which works for the underprivileged and has vast experience in creating sustainability programs. She provides guidance and expertise to the Foundation on a pro bono and honorary basis.

She strongly believes that each of us has the power within us. The power to create an equitable society.               

WNS Cares Foundation provides the instrument needed to wield that power through education.

Their mission is to "Educate, Empower, Enrich" and extends well beyond the economically and socially weak recipient, it reaches the soul of the donor.

Prem Yadav

Co - Founder and Program Director

Prem being a co-founder of Pratham Infotech Foundation, he joined Pratham in 1994 and was a part of the core team that laid the foundations on which the organization has been built. Having worked as the Chief accountant for Pratham, in 1998, Prem helped set up 15 computer labs in municipal schools of different wards of Mumbai, with the help of ICICI bank. The initiative called Pratham InfoTech Foundation, which was co-founded by him with his team today reaches 1.75 lacs children from disadvantaged sections of society in 400 schools across 09 states of India.Having been earned a B.A. degree in Sociology from Pune, Prem Yadav did his Master of Resource Mobilization & Management from S. P.Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai. Besides contributing to many educational publications, especially on Computer related learning, he has been the Area Coordinator, CORO (Committee of Resource Organization for Literacy), Treasurer, Suvidha Co-operative, which was set up to operate the Integrated Waste Management Project; and is currently the Director at Pratham InfoTech Foundation. Prem Yadav is a recipient of the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship - USA in 2010 and also TED speaker in World Economic Forum at Perm Region in Russia.

Rajesh Thokale

Co - Founder and Trustee

Equipped with a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from the Mumbai University, he has worked on various projects and in diverse fields. He has been the Co-ordinator for CORO for Literacy, worked on Integrated Waste Management Project, handled different roles at All India Radio, Mumbai, been actively involved in Construction Work; and is now the Director of the Vocational Skills Training Program besides being a Trustee of Pratham InfoTech Foundation.

Meera Tendolkar

Trustee

Meera has been working with Pratham since 1997 and has handled various responsibilities in these years. She is currently responsible for setting up the District Resource Centres in various States of India, and is also working on building the capacities of the Pratham national team. She is interested in developing teaching material for children and innovative teaching modules.

Dr. Manisha Date

Trustee

Manisha joined Pratham in March 2011. She heads the internal capacity building team. She is responsible for designing and conducting Pratham’s Leadership Development Programme. She also works on the content development and training of trainers for programs like the Foundation Course for Employability. Manisha holds a Doctorate in Management and a Masters in Economics. She has worked in the field of education and training for the last eighteen years.

Prem Yadav

Co - Founder ,Trustee and Program Director

Prem being a co-founder of Pratham Infotech Foundation, he joined Pratham in 1994 and was a part of the core team that laid the foundations on which the organization has been built. Having worked as the Chief accountant for Pratham, in 1998, Prem helped set up 15 computer labs in municipal schools of different wards of Mumbai, with the help of ICICI bank. The initiative called Pratham InfoTech Foundation, which was co-founded by him with his team today reaches 1.75 lacs children from disadvantaged sections of society in 400 schools across 09 states of India.Having been earned a B.A. degree in Sociology from Pune, Prem Yadav did his Master of Resource Mobilization & Management from S. P.Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai. Besides contributing to many educational publications, especially on Computer related learning, he has been the Area Coordinator, CORO (Committee of Resource Organization for Literacy), Treasurer, Suvidha Co-operative, which was set up to operate the Integrated Waste Management Project; and is currently the Director of CAL & IT Training Program and a Trustee at Pratham InfoTech Foundation. Prem Yadav is a recipient of the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship - USA in 2010 and also TED speaker in World Economic Forum at Perm Region in Russia.

Jayawant Shirke

Head-Finance

Jayawant Shirke, PIF’s Chief Accountant joined the family back in 2005. With a Bachelors of Commerce degree in hand, this young man decided to become an accountant and since then has worked tirelessly to achieve his goal. 8 years of dedicated work at PIF has now made him capable enough to handle all of PIF’s financial matters. His next big plan is to enrol with the ICWAI (Institute of Cost and Accounting Work at India).

Roopa Billava

Program Head

Roopa Billava joined Pratham Education Initiative in 2001 where she managed the data generated from the Balwadi and Bal sakhi programs. She completed a Diploma in Secretarial Practice and later spent 3 years with a corporate in the financial sector. She joined back in 2010 and was part of the PIF family. Here she worked as an intern with The India Beehive, a community portal. During this period she also completed a Post Graduate Diploma Course in Journalism. She now works primarily for PIF's Donor Management and Outreach along with many other related projects. Project and data management are her core strengths.

Shruti Limaye

Program Head

Shruti Limaye joined Pratham InfoTech Foundation (PIF) in October 2017. After completing her bachelors in Hotel Management and working in the hotel industry for more than a year, she decided to move to the development sector. To gain the required skills, Shruti completed her MSW. Post her MSW while working, she also pursued a part time MBA in Social Entrepreneurship. She later joined PIF and is currently managing the India Digital Inclusion Program.

Tabita Fernandes

Head- Communications

Tabita Fernandes, although having joined as an intern, has found her way to handling PIF’s Communications today. She says she is in the right place in the organization as she is always found having a lot to communicate. Tabita joined the PIF family back in 2010. Being her 1st job, soon after her Masters in Industrial Psychology, Tabita says she has learnt a lot in the past few years working with PIF and will keep the learning going on. At first she was with The India Beehive, a community portal in line with PIF’s Public Online Media followed by overseeing work with PIF’s Community Information and Training centres and The Digital Community Connectors program. With the urge to polish her skills further and contribute more effectively, Tabita also completed a Post Graduate Diploma Course in Journalism and Mass Communication. At present she takes care of PIF’s Communications. Loving to write, talk and reach out to others, Tabita finds herself happy and on the right track.

Pradeep Kumar

Being born in a middle class family, Pradeep Kumar had quite a number of struggles along his journey to becoming what he is today. Overcoming all odds, he managed to do his M.S.W .as well as L.L.B. and works as Pratham InfoTech Foundation’s, Operations Head- Delhi and Haryana. Pradeep’s main goal in life is to help infuse a little innovation in every sector of India through the ever transforming medium of educational technology. He sees PIF as an excellent platform with the help of which he intends to achieve his goal. Pradeep believes that in order to bring about a change in society, one does not need power or a prestigious position. Hard work, motivation and an open mind is all it takes. He is proud of his team and strongly believes that together they will be able to reach great heights.

Shehzad Khan

Shehzad has been part of the Pratham family since 2005 when he was asked to handle the accounts for ‘Catalytic (Rural) Programme’ at Pratham office. At that time he was in the second year of his graduation. From there he was asked to work with Pratham’s ‘Digital Newspaper Project’ on Cultural Exchange and Educational Programs in Delhi. In 2007 Pratham purchased a Computer Server inorder to centralize all the data. Shehzad was offered a chance to work with this and was also asked to do his MCSE (Microsoft Certified System Engineer) Course, fully sponsored by Pratham from a good institute in Jaipur. Next he was with the Education for Education Program till 2012. In 2013, Shehzad joined PIF and works as Operation head- Rajasthan.

Omprakash Yadav

After completing BSC Agriculture in the year 2001, Omprakash was looking out for a job when he came across Pratham. He worked with various program like Balwadi, Balsakhi and Library and was successful in starting 750 centres. 2008 was the year in which Omprakash joined Pratham InfoTech Foundation where he was with the CAL program in Uttar Pradesh and continues work till date with the same zeal as State Head.

Sachin Patil

Sachin Patil, Advisor for Development and Global Operations, provides strategic counsel on global partnerships, program design and implementation planning forPratham InfoTech Foundation. In this capacity, he leads efforts in fund raising, donor outreach and program marketing. Additionally, he advises on technology implementation, instructional content and program execution for IT based educational and community development programs in India. At present, Sachin is championing community capacity building initiative, called India Digital Inclusion, which focuses on online information, IT training, professional soft skill development and livelihood assistance for youth in underserved communities. He is also advocating another initiativefor learning skill development in order to teach school age students “how to learn” to become lifelong learners.Around late 1998 in his early twenties, Dr. Madhav Chavan at Pratham offered him an opportunity to help Pratham design and develop educational software (Later became well-known as Jigar) for the then launched Computer Aided Learning program. This engagement slowly turned into a passion. Later, at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC, he collaborated with universities, research labs, foundations and special interest/policy action groupson educational technology research and policy projects. Sachin is a software technologist by profession and passionate about designing IT based social initiatives that facilitate the socio-economic development of underserved communities.He has earned his Master of Computer Science at the George Washington University, Washington,DC and Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Pune University, India.

Parasvil Patel

Parasvil Patel is an active member of the Pratham Boston team and led the efforts to run a pilot introducing Scratch to middle school students. He is currently pursuing an MBA from the Harvard Business School and supporting the Scratch project roll out across the PIF network. Prior to business school, he worked with clients across multiple industries across two geographies (India and US) as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay. He is passionate about technology and enjoys hiking.