Brij Kothari

Dr. Brij Kothari (Cornell University) and his team have innovated, researched, and nationalized the use of \"Same Language Subtitling\" (SLS) on Bollywood film songs on TV, for mass literacy in India. He laid the foundation for the SLS project as an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) in its Centre for Educational Innovation.

Brij is an Ashoka Fellow and the President of PlanetRead, a non-profit involved in scaling SLS efforts in India and other countries. He is also the CEO of BookBox Inc, a for-profit social venture producing children\'s animated stories in more than 25 languages. He co-founded PlanetRead.org and BookBox.com as a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University.

Brij grew up in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry and went on to get a Masters in Physics at IIT Kanpur, a Masters in Development Communication and a Ph.D. in Education from Cornell University. His doctoral research was on the conservation of local knowledge in Andean Ecuador.

Chitra Shah

An MSW and a Gold medalist from Madras school of Social work, Chitra ispassionate about changing lives of the people with disabilities (PWDs). She hasover 15 years of experience in the field of disability. Her research interest includes:Psychosocial conditions of families of CWSNs, Women & disability and Sexuality& Disability. She is also part of various government committees such as:

•National Action and Coordination Group (NACG) Puducherry, Childrenwith Disability, Child rights & abuse

•NGO Member, Committee for shelter for urban homeless

•Member – State Advisory Council – RTE ACT (Right for Education)

•NGO representative for Puducherry – PM’s BETI BACHAO BETI PADAO Programme.

She is the Founder & Director of Satya Special School, a center for children withIntellectual disabilities. Satya Special School caters to about 950 children. Satyahas the great honor to be considered one of the outstanding non-profitorganizations by Bank of America. Some of the awards that Satya won are BestInstitution, by the Government of Puducherry in 2018 and World Cerebral PalsyAward for the innovative Mobile Therapy Unit.

Ram Sehgal

Known as one of the icons in the communication industry, Ram Sehgal began his career at Air India, where he spent five years after obtaining his degree in Journalism from Regent Institute, London, and an advertising degree from Institute of Practitioners, London.

He worked for JWT for 15 years where he handled a diverse portfolio of brands like Air India, Philips, Voltas, Beecham, BHEL, ITC etc. Subsequently, Ram took over as President at Contract Advertising where he spent 15 years.

Ram Sehgal was conferred the A & M Advertising Man of the Year in 1994 for his contribution to the advertising industry. In 2001, the Advertising Club of Kolkata elected Ram to their Hall of Frame. From 1997-1998, Ram Sehgal served as President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India, and in 1998, as the Chairman of the Advertising Standard Council of India.

Victor Lourdaraj

An organized and dedicated accounts officer, Victor has over 20 years of Accounting Experience. Victor joined PlanetRead in 2011. He has strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with expertise in Accounting Softwares.

Sylvia Mariadassou

With a postgraduate degree in Information Technology from Stella Maris College, Chennai, Sylvia has taken on many roles, as a Programmer, Designer, Estimator, Sales & Marketing Manager, Language Trainer and Project Manager. Sylvia joined the team in February 2017 as a Project Coordinator; her main responsibilities include Quality Control, Language Resource Coordination and Handling Social Media Handles.

Regis

He joined PlanetRead in August 2006 as a junior editor and a flash animator. He has a BCA from St. Joseph Arts and Science College, Cuddalore, India to his credit and prior to joining PlanetRead he worked for a year in a multinational e-publishing unit as a graphics artist.

Rajesh

Rajesh joined PlanetRead in 2015 as a Flash Animator. He has a postgraduate degree in Electronic Media from the Pondicherry University. He is proficient in using Adobe Photoshop and Animate with hands-on experience creating 2D animated videos.

Arvind Kumar

He is part of R&D team in the Puducherry office. He has finished Engineering in Information Technology. Initially, he worked on Flash Automation and then moved on to NLE Automation and Research. He is currently developing custom automation applications with the DotNet Framework and lends his hands in other research activities.