Board Of Directors

MR SHANTILAL MUTTHA

Mr Shantilal Muttha is the Founder-Chairman of  SMF. He is also the founder of Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana (BJS).
Read More.. in The Founder.

MR SAMEER MUTTHA

Mr Sameer Muttha is Director of the Muttha Group, which strives to create iconic residential and commercial space driven by the spirit of philanthropy. He started his career in the software business, executing over 1200 projects for clients in over 60 countries in a period of less than three years. He received the Best IT Parks Award from the Maharashtra Government in 2009. He is a member of CREDAI, and took a delegation of around 80 real estate developers from India to South Korea, leading to generation of business worth over 10 million USD.

PROF R GOVINDA

Prof R Govinda is ex-Vice Chancellor of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi. Previously, he worked in reputed educational institutes such as the Institute of Education, University of London; MS University of Baroda and the International Institute of Educational Planning (IIEP), UNESCO. He is a member of several national and international bodies. He has been on the editorial board of the Global Education Monitoring Report; Consultant Fellow to International Bureau of Education; Member of the Governing Board of UNESCO Institute of Statistics, Montreal; Member of the Central Advisory Board of Education; and Member of the National Advisory Committee on Right to Education of Government of India. His research interests include primary education and literacy, decentralized management, programme evaluation, and reforms in higher education. He has published widely on these issues in several books and journals. Oxford University Press has recently published an edited volume of his studies titled Who goes to School? Exploring Exclusion in Indian Education.

MR SHYAM B MENON

Professor Menon is with the Ambedkar University, Delhi, since August 2008 as its first Vice Chancellor. He has been a Professor at the Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi; the Dean of Faculty of Education, the Proctor and Professor at the Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi; Director, School of Education, Indira Gandhi National Open University; and a Professor at the Central Institute of Educational Technology, NCERT. He also taught at the MS University of Baroda for several years.
As a Fulbright Fellow, he was in the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His doctoral work was in the area of curriculum and cognition, and his postdoctoral research was in higher education. Much of his work has been in curriculum studies, higher education and teacher education. He edited the journal, Perspectives in Education, for many years. He is at present on the International Advisory Board of Comparative Education, Teaching Education, and Asia Pacific Journal of Education. He is a member of the Task Force on Access and Equity in Higher Education, constituted by the International Association of Universities

PROF DR S PARASURAMAN

Prof Parasuraman is Former Director, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He has over 25 years of experience as a teacher, trainer, activist, administrator and development worker. His specific skills lie in establishing and nurturing institutions; facilitating capacity-building on rights-based approach to development; contributing to team building; conflict resolution; professional and personal development of staff at all levels in the organizations and managing complex programmes spread across large regions.
He has held key positions in international organisations: as Asia Regional Policy Coordinator, ActionAid Asia; Senior Advisor to the Commission, and Team Leader of the Secretariat, World Commission on Dams; and as Programme Director, Oxfam GB, India Programme. Dr Parasuraman has been associated with the Narmada Movement since 1987 and was a member of the Prime Minister’s Committee to review the Tehri Hydroelectric Project. He is also a key member of the ‘Practioners Forum on Human Rights in Development’ (facilitated by the UNHCHR), involving UN agencies, bilateral and multilateral agencies, and NGOs with Asia regional offices; and key member of an NGO network engaged in advocacy with the Asian Development Bank.
He was awarded the Bharat Shreshta Acharya Award 2012 by MIT, Pune. Prof Parasuraman has over 50 publications to his credit in the form of articles in national and international journals, books and research reports. He was conferred an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Literature, Honoris Causa) by the Assam University.

DR M P VIJAYAKUMAR IAS (RETD)

Dr Vijaykumar was State Project Director, Universal Elementary Education project (SSA), Tamil Nadu, and was responsible for introducing activity-based learning (ABL) in the entire state, covering 37,486 primary schools and nearly 6.5 million children. He also helped develop and scale active learning methodology (ALM) in all the 12,500 upper primary and secondary schools in Tamil Nadu.
Joining the Tamil Nadu Government civil service in 1975, he served in several important positions, including in the office of the Chief Minister and the Women and Child Welfare and Family Welfare departments. He was the Collector of Vellore and Commissioner of Chennai Municipal Corporation.
Keenly interested in improving learning attainments in elementary education, he conceived and led the ABL project in 264 primary schools in Chennai during his stint as commissioner of the municipal corporation. For this innovation and achievement, he was one among the four IAS officers to receive the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration in 2007-08. As State Project Director, Universal Elementary Education project, SSA, Tamil Nadu (2006-08), he scaled ABL to cover the entire state. Post-retirement, the Tamil Nadu state government retained him as Honorary Advisor to the Elementary Education Project till 2011. The Government of India has nominated him as a member of the National Resource Group (SSA) for NCERT, New Delhi as well as the Southern Regional Council, NCTE. He also serves as the Union HRD Minister’s nominee in the Academic Council of the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti.

MR VIVEK SAWANT

Mr Vivek Sawant is the CEO & Managing Director of Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd (MKCL) since its inception in 2001. Under his leadership, MKCL has emerged as a high-tech initiative of the Government of Maharashtra and 10 universities in Maharashtra for development and delivery of education, governance and empowerment technologies, solutions and services. In MKCL, he successfully built a network of around 5420 authorized learning centers across Maharashtra state, the single largest private-public-partnership network of its kind in India, to provide employment and self-employment opportunities in the field of IT to youngsters at their native places.
Mr Sawant participated in the design and development of India’s first indigenous supercomputers PARAM at C-DAC from 1988 to 2000, where he served in various leadership roles. He served as the Founder-Director of the International Institute of Information Technology at Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, Hinjawadi, Pune. He has also served on the boards of studies and academic councils of several universities and organizations, such as Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education (MKCL); Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Limited (RKCL); Odisha Knowledge Corporation Limited (OKCL); Haryana Knowledge Corporation Limited (HKCL); MKCL International Free Zone Establishment, Dubai; MKCL Arabia Ltd, Riyadh; MKCL Malaysia and MKCL Sri Lanka. He is an honorary fellow of the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of several awards for his contributions in the fields of education, high performance computing, entrepreneurship development, leadership development and innovation.

MR VALLABH BHANSHALI