The demand and supply of EdTech products in India has surged post-Covid 19. At the same time stakeholders in the EdTech ecosystem face key challenges in making adoption decisions due to inadequate quality standards and lack of unbiased reliable product evaluations.
&nbsp;
Consequently, design of EdTech and its adoption is expensive and inefficient and found lacking with respect to impact on learning. In such a scenario, stakeholders such as schools, teachers, parents, governments, philanthropists, and investors feel the need for a systematic quality evaluation framework of EdTech products to make informed decisions.
&nbsp;
Product companies also feel the need for EdTech quality benchmarks that enable them to build better quality solutions. The EdTech Tulna was conceived to answer these needs and improve the EdTech demand and supply ecosystem.

Motivation

EdTech Tulna has been created out of a partnership between the Educational Technology department at IIT Bombay and the Central Square Foundation. The team members have expertise in Research in Educational Technology, Learning Sciences, Human-Computer Interaction, and Discipline-based Education Research. Members have teaching experience at school and college levels, expertise in using EdTech, instructional design, and research-based pedagogies in classroom and online settings. The team’s experience includes working with the Indian government at central and state levels, educational policy and advocacy, and building and scaling EdTech products for the low income segment.

The Team

About Us

Mr. Anil Swarup is the founder Chairman of Nexus of Good: an initiative towards recognizing positive actions and providing inspiration to society to replicate them. He is also the author of the bestseller ‘Not Just a Civil Servant.’ Anil Swarup earned his Master’s Degree in Political Science from Allahabad University in 1978, where he was also awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for being the Best All Round Student.



During his career spanning 38 years, Anil Swarup attempted to ‘make it happen.’ As a civil servant, he held various assignments within the State (Uttar Pradesh) and Central Government. During the final years of his career, he served as Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Coal, where he handled the aftermath of the coal scam. After that, he served as Secretary, School Education and Literacy, where he attempted to foster public-private partnerships to improve the quality of school education. Previously, before joining the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1981, he served the Indian Police Service for a year. He won the Director’s Gold Medal for the best Officer Trainee at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration amongst the officers of his batch.



As a strategic thinker and an innovative leader, he won several awards and nominations, the prominent ones being: Nominated as one of the Policy Change Agent by The Economics Times during the years 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2016. He was selected as one of the 35 Action Heroes in India Today’s 35’ Annual Edition.

Advisory Group

Mr. Anil Swarup

Asyia is the Global Education Policy Lead at the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation.



Asyia’s 25-year career in education began as a mathematics teacher in the UK. Before joining the Gates Foundation, Asyia was in PwC leading the Girls’ Education Challenge, an £800m challenge fund set up by the UK government.



Asyia has worked in three UK Government departments: as a senior education adviser in DFID, a senior Her Majesty’s Inspector in Ofsted and a project director in the Department for Education. Her areas of expertise include teaching, learning and assessment; school improvement; and large-scale programme management.



Asyia has a Masters in Applied Mathematics from Imperial College London and a Doctorate in Education on teaching and learning mathematics from Institute of Education, University College London.

Dr. Asyia Kazmi

Dr. Amina Charania is an Associate Professor at Centre for Education Innovation and Action Research at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).&nbsp;



She leads Reflective Teaching with ICT an in-service teacher professional development initiative, and is one of the founding members of Connected Learning Initiative at TISS. She founded Integrated approach to Technology in Education (ITE) in 2011, at Tata Trusts and leads this initiative at the Trusts. Over the years, she has gathered first-hand field and research experience exploring constructivist use of ICT to improve quality of teaching in learning at scale in some of the most marginalized rural and urban areas in India. Her focus is on design and research strategies integrating ICT to promote meaningful learning and promote learners’ and teachers’ agency thus, creating learners as producers and not merely consumers of ICT resources. Besides, formal spaces in government schools and madrasas, she has also studied and practiced ICT as a tool that bridges formal and informal learning spaces like community learning centers. She also founded an approach Integrating Dinni (religious) and Dunyavi Taalim (school education) in madrasas of West Bengal.&nbsp;



One of the sustainability factors she has been working for many years is creating teacher leaders who think, practice and lead beyond the given ground challenges of access and quality. Thus, exploring blended models of continuous professional development, and online community of practice for government school teachers in multiple states.

Dr. Amina Charania

Sahana Murthy is Professor in the Educational Technology interdisciplinary program at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.



Her research interest is in Technology-enhanced learning of thinking skills: developing students’ problem-solving, design thinking and inquiry practices in STEM domains via interactive technology enhanced learning environments. Another area of focus is Teacher use of educational technologies, which has led to the design of models and large-scale professional development workshops for effective integration of technology and pedagogy.



One such model, the learner-centric MOOC (LCM) model has formed the basis for several online and blended courses on NPTEL and IITBombayX platforms. As part of the EmergE projects, she has guided the design and evaluation of several edtech solutions focusing on the integration of disciplinary knowledge, pedagogy and technology to create meaningful learning experiences.



She has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai, MSc in physics from IIT Bombay, and PhD in physics from Rutgers University, and has done post-doctoral work in Physics Education Research at Rutgers University and MIT, USA. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator and leading the EdTech Tulna project at IIT Bombay.

IIT Bombay

Dr. Sahana Murthy

Chandan Dasgupta is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Technology interdisciplinary program at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.



He is interested in designing technology-enhanced learning environments and scaffolds for supporting design thinking and collaborative uncertainty management in STEM. His research encompasses understanding the disciplinary practices underlying productive uncertainty management, exploring feedback mechanisms for sustaining productive disciplinary engagement in classrooms, and role of emergent collaboration in makerspaces.



He has a PhD in Learning Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago (USA), MS in Human-Computer Interaction from Georgia Tech (USA), and has done post-doctoral work in Engineering Education Research at Purdue University (USA). Currently, he is the co-Principal Investigator in the EdTech Tulna project.

Dr. Chandan Dasgupta

I have a Ph.D. in Educational Technology from IIT Bombay. I have 28 years of teaching experience at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the Electronics domain. I am a trained educational technology researcher and practitioner. I have conducted many faculty development programs at various institutes across India. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help evaluate EdTech products.

Project Staff

Dr. Madhuri Mavinkurve

I am a UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report Fellow, 2021, and Project Research Scientist at EdTech Tulna, IIT Bombay. I have a Ph.D. in Economics from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai.As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help design the EdTech Tulna evaluation frameworks and evaluate EdTech products.

Dr. Leena Bhattacharya

I am a Project Research Associate at EdTech Tulna, IIT Bombay. I have completed my Masters in Education from Azim Premji University, Bangalore, and have over six years of work experience across the corporate and development sector. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help design the EdTech Tulna evaluation frameworks and evaluate EdTech products.

Minu Nandakumar

I am a self-learned Graphic Designer and Web Developer (WordPress), having 10+ years of experience in this field. I am the primary web developer for this project and led the development of the Tulna website since its inception. I am very proud of being a part of this wonderful initiative.

Kunal Pandya

I started out my educational journey as a teacher with Teach For India and delved deeper into the sector through my M.A Education from University of Jyväskylä, Finland. I have over five years of experience in language teaching, research and teacher professional development. As a project research associate at Ed-tech Tulna, IIT Bombay, I evaluate EdTech products , lead the Tulna user study and support in training state governments.

Gomathy Soundararaj

I am a Project Research Associate at EdTech Tulna, IIT Bombay. I have a Masters in English Literature from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, and a Certificate in Teaching of English as a Second Language from IGNOU. I have over eight years of experience in teaching English for both ICSE and CBSE boards. As part of the EdTech Tulna Team, I help design the EdTech Tulna Evaluation frameworks and evaluate EdTech products.

Nandini Sengupta

Sheeja Vasudevan is a post-doctoral Research Scientist at Educational Technology, IIT Bombay. She has a Ph.D. in the area of Biological Sciences from IIT Bombay. Her postdoctoral work at home and abroad was to understand the structure and dynamics of biomolecules using computational biology. Her teaching experience includes teaching graduates and post graduates at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai and school children for Abhyasika,an NGO. She is passionate about making teaching learning experiences efficient and effective using technology as a tool.

Sheeja Vasudevan

I am an EdTech Research Scholar pursuing my Ph.D. in the Educational Technology dept. at IIT Bombay. I am currently working on teachers’ professional development through ICT. I have a master’s in Education (M.Ed.) from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help design the EdTech Tulna evaluation frameworks.

Research scholars

Ishika

I am an EdTech Research Scholar pursuing my Ph.D. in the Educational Technology dept. at IIT Bombay. I am currently working on the regulation of learning in various educational contexts. I have a master’s in Computer Engineering with 6 years of teaching experience in the Computer Engineering domain. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help design the EdTech Tulna evaluation frameworks.

Vishwas Badhe

I am an EdTech Research Scholar pursuing my Ph.D. in the Educational Technology dept. at IIT Bombay. I am a postgraduate in Biotechnology and have worked as JRF in the Bioscience department at IIT Bombay. Previously, I have research experience in biology from BARC and IISER Bhopal. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help design the EdTech Tulna evaluation frameworks.

Meera Pawar

I am an EdTech Research Scholar pursuing my Ph.D. in the Educational Technology dept. at IIT Bombay. I have a master’s degree in Biotechnology. My passion for teaching has inspired my research interest in fostering professional identity development of bioscience learners through technology-enhanced learning environments. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help design the EdTech Tulna evaluation frameworks.

Sunita Ananda Raste

I am an EdTech Research Scholar pursuing my Ph.D. in the Educational Technology dept. at IIT Bombay. My thesis work broadly contributes to the domain of professional development of teachers and specifically studies the changes in teachers’ beliefs about technology integration in classrooms. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help design the EdTech Tulna evaluation frameworks and graphic design work.

Nandan P.A.

I am an EdTech Research Scholar pursuing my Ph.D. in the Educational Technology dept. at IIT Bombay. My thesis contributes to the domain of computer science education and focuses on improving undergraduate learners&#8217; problem analysis skills through technology-enhanced learning environments. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help design the EdTech Tulna evaluation frameworks.

Priya Lotlikar

I am currently working with the product team at Cuemath to design Math learning experiences for children. I have also been running various Creative Math Programs at ‘Love For Math.’ I have worked in the education space for over 4 years and have been a Teach For India Fellow. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I helped evaluate EdTech products.

Past members

Karan Singla

I am currently a Learning Experience Designer at NextLeap, a community-led learning platform for professionals. I have worked as an EdTech consultant with the Gujarat government having supported the adoption of DIKSHA, and also served as a Teach For India Fellow. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I helped evaluate EdTech products.

Harsh Doshi

I am currently a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, pursuing Master’s in Educational Technology and Applied Learning Science (METALS) at the Human-Computer Interaction institute. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I helped evaluate EdTech products.

Aastha Patel

I am an IT professional with a decade and a half of experience in managing projects and building products. I am passionate about knowledge work and learning in an organizational context. I was part of the project management and product procurement team at EdTech Tulna, IIT Bombay. I also helped evaluate EdTech products.

Raghu Sivaraman

I have been involved in diverse projects in the education-space for the past seven years. I am a research master’s graduate in Child Development and Education from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I helped evaluate EdTech products.

Radha Vathsal

I am a final-year undergraduate at IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay with an interest in interaction design and product design and management. Previous work experiences include Creative Head at Mood Indigo and UX Design Intern at Microsoft. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I designed the initiative’s logo, brand guidelines, and assets.

Rishabh Kumar

I am an EdTech Research Scholar pursuing my Ph.D. in the Educational Technology dept. at IIT Bombay. My thesis focuses on investigating the effects of perspective-taking in Virtual Reality environments. I did my Master of Design (M.Des) in Interaction design from IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. I have 3+ years of work experience as a software developer and UX designer. I helped with some of the graphic design work for EdTech Tulna.

Herold PC

I was a team lead (EdTech) at the Central Square Foundation and a Teach for India Fellow. I have an M.A. in Elementary Education from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). I helped evaluate EdTech Products and conducted pilot user studies for the EdTech Tulna team.

Jagriti Rawal

I am a user experience designer. I love crafting compelling stories around relationships people share with the environment, products, and the technology with which they interact. I am investigating the nudging behavior in a self-directed learning context in association with Learning and Educational Technologies Research Unit (LET), Academic Centre for Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University. I helped design digital assets for the EdTech Tulna team.

Kinnari Gatare

I am a creative designer with 7 years of experience in textile, graphic design, and fine arts. I am part of the project management and product procurement team at EdTech Tulna, IIT Bombay.

Amrita Sen

I have done MBA with a specialization in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. I have 15 years of work experience in Operations &amp; Sr. Project Assistant at IIT Bombay. As part of the EdTech Tulna team at IIT Bombay, I help with the graphic design work for EdTech Tulna.

Pravin Ingle

Gargi Banerjee is a post-doctoral Research Scientist at Educational Technology, IIT Bombay with a Ph.D. in the area of developing teachers’ learning design competency for teaching with ICT. She has 20+ years of Research &amp; Development experience in the Educational Technology space.