Kiran Bir Sethi

Kiran Bir Sethi is a designer who became a teacher, a principal who grew into an education reformer and subsequently morphed into a social entrepreneur. A trained graphic designer from the National Institute of Design, she comfortably uses the language of design – iteration, prototype, design specs – to develop not only curriculum innovation, but also community-based social programmes.

Sethi founded the award-winning Riverside School in Ahmedabad, India, in 2001. Riverside, is viewed as a laboratory to prototype design processes that uses a systems approach to build a culture of empowerment, graduating young citizen leaders with an ‘I CAN Mindset’ – using their agency for the greater good. The values that nourish this mindset are the 5 E’s – Empathy, Ethics, Excellence, Elevation and Evolution – intentionally moving people to becoming HumanE, by design.

Riverside Learning Centre ( RLC ) started in 2016, has codified the practices and processes of The Riverside School, and housed them in 6 Pillars (Curriculum, Parent Partnership, Personal and Professional Development, Community, Administration and Leadership ) and designed Training Programmes that empower more schools to become user centered.

Kiran is also the founder of 'aProCh'—an initiative to make their cities more child friendly, for which she was awarded the Ashoka Fellow in 2008.

In 2009, Kiran launched “Design for Change” which uses a simple 4 step design framework – FIDS (Feel, Imagine, Do, Share) to cultivate the I CANmind-set in all children. Today,DFC is the world's largest movement of change - of and by children, and is in 60+ countries—impacting over 2.2 million children and 65,000 Teachers.