Shaheen was born in Mumbai, grew up in five countries around the world and at the age of eighteen, returned to Mumbai to do something about the unequal opportunities that children have in India. Shaheen founded the first Akanksha (“aspiration” in Sanskrit) centre in 1989 with 15 children. The Akanksha Foundation today runs 26 Akanksha Schools across Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur impacting over 14,000 students and 4,000 student alumni.
In 2008, searching for a way to impact more children and inspired by the Teach For America model, Shaheen founded Teach For India with the audacious vision of providing an excellent education to all children across India by building a movement of leaders. Today, Teach For India impacts 34,000 children through the direct work of over 1000 Fellows. Additionally, the Teach For India Alumni community is 4200+ members strong, impacting 1 million children directly and reaching 50 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.
Driven by the need to reach the last child in India, Shaheen started TFIx, which is an incubator for passionate education entrepreneurs who are willing to adapt Teach For India’s model to their context and region in rural areas.
She is the author of the book, Redrawing India and the Miss Muglee children’s books.
Shaheen serves on the boards of The Akanksha Foundation and the Advisory Board of Museum of Solutions. She has been an Ashoka Fellow, a Global Leader for Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum, and an Asia Society 21 Leader. Among many accolades, she has been a recipient of the Jamnalal Bajaj Award for Development and Welfare of Women and Children in 2019 and the Beyond Business – ET Prime Women Leadership Award for 2020, Niti Aayaog’s Women Transforming India Award.
Key themes emerging out of our conversation:
- Defining Education
- How Letting go was a Gift
- Love being Central to every Action
- Upholding Values and Pursuing Excellence
- Understanding that as Humans we are all Flawed
- Caring for people, not only as Professionals, but as People
- It's the little things that matter, getting Inspired by tiny steps
- Understanding the needs of the Beneficiaries and Growing from there
- Everybody wants to do Good, often people just don't have that Platform
- Building culture, Hiring the people who share those core values and beliefs
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