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Our Core Team

E.S. Ramamurthy is the Founder - Chief Mentor of the Foundation. He has had a long and distinguished career in industry, culminating in his position as the CEO of a large organisation. Subsequently, Ramamurthy functioned as a Senior Adviser to the Govt. of India for a period, before taking a decision to become engaged exclusively, and on a full-time basis, with socially productive causes.

 

V.R. Prasanna Executive Director of the foundation come on board in 2007. Under his stewardship Sikshana has grown from 49 schools to cover over 1000 schools in 5 years. Prior to his engagement with Sikshana, he was the Founder CEO of Softrends, Inc USA for 10 years, where he designed Transaction Processing Software Systems. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from S. J. College of Engineering, Mysore and a Master's in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.

After 17 years in USA, Prasanna decided to relocate to India, where he is putting his energy and talent to use in a different area: making a difference in the lives of the less fortunate. This is not a new area for him—while in the USA, Prasanna had worked with various NGOs in India. In 2005, he co-founded Pragathi, with a few like-minded individuals in Austin, Texas, with a goal of funding deserving NGO’s in India.

 

Prashanth Prakash is the Chairman of the Foundation. He is a partner at Accel Partners, India a venture capital firm based out of the Silicon Valley. He holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of Delaware, USA, and an Undergraduate degree, in Computer Science, from the Bangalore Institute of Technology, India.

He started his career at S3 Technologies USA, a division of GSE systems, building Case Tools for real-time simulations (GemCase). He went on to found VisualReality, a multimedia publishing company. He also founded NetKraft, which grew into one of the leading offshore solutions companies, with a focus on retail and healthcare verticals. NetKraft was subsequently acquired by Texas-based Adea Systems. After a stint as Partner at Erasmic Venture Fund, Prakash became a Partner at Accel., where his focus is on internet, healthcare and retail domains. He serves on the Boards of Kaati Zone, Cnergyis, HolidayIQ and other early stage companies.

 

Meenakshi, the driving force behind Ramamurthy, always believed that giving was more important than receiving. Her viewpoint has only grown stronger, and more concrete, with time. It is worth noting that the foundation was started with her funds—at a time when she could least afford it.

 

Srivatsa Krishnaswami—an M.Tech from IIT, Chennai—is a senior software professional with a major multinational firm in Bangalore. With a passion for the cause of developing an excellent public education system, he is a strong motivating force behind the Trust and all its programmes.

 

Indira Sharma, a Post-graduate in Business Administration from the University of Mysore, received State- and University-level awards for her excellent academic performance. She is presently a Vice-President in a large, reputed company, responsible for marketing its products in a highly competitive environment. She has a strong parallel interest in primary education, to which she devotes considerable effort and time

 

A. Balamuralikrishna, the financial expert in the Sikshana Initiative group, is a highly successful Chartered Accountant, with an extensive practice both in India and abroad. His personal interest in assisting social causes drew him to work with us.

 

Ravindra Krishnappa, Director and Co-Founder of Inatech Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd. has been in the IT industry for more than two decades. After earning a degree in Mechanical Engineering, he began his career with Tata Unisys and has worked in the US, UK and Switzerland. He left TUL in 1995 to help start a business and software consulting venture called EWI Business Consulting. Oracle Corporation acquired this company in 1999 and renamed it Oracle Solution Services. He left Oracle in Feb 2003 as the Executive Director of their offshore consulting division.

Krishnappa’s special professional interests include business and strategy consulting, application of new technology and change management. He is a regular speaker at seminars and is also on the board of several companies in an advisory capacity. On a personal level, he has a passionate interest in the public education system.

 

Dr V.A. Sastry, Director of RelQ, holds an Electrical Engineering degree from REC Warangal and a PhD in Computer Applications from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

In his 25 years’ experience in the software industry, Dr. Sastry has been responsible for the successful completion of a number of software projects of varying sizes in the field of Process Control and Simulation. He has been associated with Tata Consulting Engineers and Macmet's Simulation System Division. Dr Sastry has been credited with the achievement of obtaining an ISO 9001 / TickIT certification for Infosys Technologies Ltd, Bangalore, at which he was a Director on the Board responsible for quality and productivity. Dr. Sastry is a co-founder of RelQ, where he manages the quality processes implementation. He is also a Director at MUSA Software Engineering, which consults on ISO & CMM for various large IT companies.

Dr Sastry subscribes to the idea that a healthy mind makes a healthy body and believes this is best achieved through meditation and spiritual cleanliness.

 

Dr Ashoka Gurudas, is a physician by profession. He completed his M.B.B.S. from J.N.M.C. Belgaum, Karnataka University in the year 1981. Subsequently, he acquired a postgraduate specialisation as Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) from Bangalore Medical College.

He has worked as a lecturer in General Medicine at M.S. Ramaiah Medical College, Bangalore. He is also one of the Promoters of the 15-year-old Bangalore Hospital, South End Circle, Bangalore, highly reputed for its excellent medical facilities and care. In addition to his profession activities, Dr Gurudas has been actively involved in the family business of horticulture, farming and real estate for more than 20 years.

Dr Gurudas is currently the Secretary of Basavanagudi Brahmo Samaj and one of the Trustees of Brahmo Samaj Appavu Pillai Girls School. He is the Managing Director of Niju Scribe a Medical Transcription Unit in Bangalore South.

 

K. K. Subramaniam ("Subbu"), is a post-graduate in computer science with a deep interest in designing elegant and reliable system software products. He has over two decades of experience in UNIX/Linux based software in the areas of real-time embedded kernels, device drivers and network stacks.

He has held various R&D positions as designer, architect, development manager, and world-wide product manager and consulting engineer in multinational companies like IBM, Novell, Oracle and Network Appliance. In 2005, he founded a company, Axcode Consulting, to focus on design consulting services in system software and network stacks that leverage FOSS developments.

On a personal level, he has deep commitment to the cause of education in the true sense of the term, and has been studying the subject extensively from academic and technical perspectives.

 

Gayathri Parthasarathy (Gai) is an Executive Vice-president, member of the Management Committee and lead for Capco's Global Delivery Organization (GDO). Gai is responsible for managing the ramp up of the organisation’s offshore capabilities, supporting the regions in their onshore/offshore business development, leading the GDO and assuring it closely aligns with Capco's best practices, competitive business metrics and service offerings.

Before joining Capco, Gai was President of India Operations and Chief Delivery Officer for Quinnox. Prior to that she was a partner with Accenture, managing their largest client and the outsourcing technology solution globally. Gai's strong financial services experience comes from her 14-year stint with i-flex where she had been a Vice-president. She was actively involved in business development, pre-sales support, innovative solution delivery and offshore build out in both the products and solutions/services offerings.

Her desire to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate children attracted her to Sikshana.