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.

Kiran 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.

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

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

In 2009, Kiran launched Design for Change which uses a…