OUR MISSON
We are committed to build a world-class education system based on the principles of National Educational Policy 2020.
Train
24 Million
Students
Teach
100,000
Faculty
THE PEOPLE BEHIND IT
Balanced Leadership Team
Pupilfirst is led by an experienced entrepreneur, a teacher, a technologist, and an administrator, all of whom bring a passion to transform the national education system.
Sanjay Vijayakumar
Chairman and CEO
Sanjay is a serial entrepreneur, co-author of India's Student Startup Policy and Governing Board Member of Kerala Technical University.
Suma Sundararajan
Chief Operating Officer
With a double masters from US and a decade of work experience at IIT Chennai's Social Incubator, Suma has deep operational expertise across students, academia and industry.
Hari Gopal
Chief Technology Officer
Hari is a full-stack software engineer with 14 years of experience and leads engineering efforts at Pupilfirst.
Dr. Reena Singh
Head of Teaching Learning Operations
Before joining Pupilfirst, she was an Assistant Professor at MIT, Manipal. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from IIT Mandi, and now leads our teaching efforts.
MEET THE Team
Diverse skilled team
Our team bring diverse skills and experiences to the table, allowing us to tackle complex challenges and deliver innovative solutions.
Teaching Learning Layer
Dr. Reena Singh
Head of Teaching Learning Operations
Before joining Pupilfirst, she was an Assistant Professor at MIT, Manipal. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from IIT Mandi, and now leads our teaching efforts.
Nandhu Suresh
Manager, Course Operations
A mechanical production engineer by degree and a tech-enthusiast by passion who is ready to learn, adapt, upskill and contribute to the emerging technologies. Also, an avid follower of sports and loves to travel.
Mamatha Krishnan
Communication Training Expert
Mamatha is an experienced teacher with a passion for education. She has experience in teaching at different levels, and on various platforms, and has various certifications including B. Ed, NET, SET, TKT, and CELTA.
Varun Sharma
Associate, Teaching Learning Operations
Varun has a Bachelor's degree in Technology from MDU University. With over 11 years of industry experience, he has honed his expertise in product and project management roles across diverse sectors, including banking, telecom, and travel.
Mohd Saad
Associate, Teaching Learning Operations
Mohd Saad is a recent graduate with a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Chemistry. Alongside his studies, his curiosity for coding led him to develop web development skills. Currently, he works as a teaching-learning operations associate, and prior to that role, he spent two years as a teaching assistant for web development courses.
School Operations Layer
Suma Sundararajan
Chief Operating Officer
With a double masters from US and a decade of work experience at IIT Chennai's Social Incubator, Suma has deep operational expertise across students, academia and industry.
Aravind Mahadevan
Manager, Course Operations
Aravind is a programme manager handling course operations at Pupilfirst. With a PGDM in Marketing and Operations from SJIM Bangalore, he worked in the banking sector for 3+ years before joining Pupilfirst.
Nagarajan Gunasekaran
Manager, LITE operations
Nagarajan is currently an Associate Manager for course operations at Pupilfirst. As a mechanical engineer with a plethora of interests in academia, he is determined to help the student community evolve. He holds an MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nottingham, UK.
Manika
Associate, Course Operations
Manika has 8+ years of experience in various sectors, and at Pupilfirst, her goal is to be a part of a positive change in the education ecosystem. An optimist by nature, she loves spending time reading and travelling. She also loves talking to people and knowing their experiences & stories.
Jilu Joseph
Associate, Course Operations
An Electronics & Communication Engg. graduate from Kerala Technological University, aspiring to be a future leader & entrepreneur.
Engineering Layer
Hari Gopal
Chief Technology Officer
Hari is a full-stack software engineer with 14 years of experience and leads engineering efforts at Pupilfirst.
Bodhish Thomas
Senior Full-Stack Developer
A natural jack of all trades, Bodhish is currently focusing on building a repertoire of full stack web development skills. He's very active in the developer community, and is our go-to person for new & exploratory projects.
Vinu T V
UI/UX Designer
Vinu is a designer at Pupilfirst focused on user interface design and branding with 6 years of experience. He thrives on the challenge of interaction and visual design efforts with the engineering team.
Raj Suhail
UI Engineer
Raj is a User Interface Engineer with more than three years of experience. He has a passion for making UIs accessible and delightful.
Yaswanth Kumar Bethu
Junior Web Developer
A recent undergraduate from the class of 2022 in Computer Science and Engineering, he was also a student and teaching assistant at Pupilfirst before joining the team full-time. He is currently focused on building web development skills, and he strongly believes in 'knowing something about everything and knowing everything about something.'
Kaiser Sakhi Bhat
Junior Web Developer
One of our newest members, Kaiser has joined as a junior developer. Kaiser holds a master's degree in Computer Applications, and before joining us, he completed an internship in Android development.
Shilendra Soman
Senior Full-Stack Developer
Shilendra has a B.Tech in Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering from from College of Engineering, Trivandrum, and was a part of a founding engineering team of a cyber security startup that was recently acquired. His web development experience covers Django, UI & UX design and the building of event driven systems.
Research Layer
Dr. Leena Chandran-Wadia
Member NEP 2019 Drafting Committee
Leena received her PhD in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and did her post-doctoral work in high-performance computing at ETH Zurich. She has both academia and industry experience having worked at CDAC, TIFR, IIT Bombay, and Netcore Cloud, in India. As of 2010, she has been working in the area of policy research and advocacy, mainly in the area of education. She was a member of the drafting committee of the draft National Education Policy 2019 prepared by the Dr Kasturirangan committee. At present, she serves as Professor and Head of the Vocational Education Cell at The University of Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU)
Aparna Sivakumar
Researcher
Aparna has a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from College of Engineering, Trivandrum. She has worked in technology, education policy and advocacy, and community organising. With over 21 years of experience, she has worked at Infosys, Observer Research Foundation and at leading roles in Netcore Cloud & Free A Billion.
Administration Layer
Sanjay Vijayakumar
Chairman and CEO
Sanjay is a serial entrepreneur, co-author of India's Student Startup Policy and Governing Board Member of Kerala Technical University.
Shanthi R
General Administration
Shanthi has over 9 years of experience in the field of business administration and office-management. At Pupilfirst, her expertise is used to manage our accounts, deal with day-to-day business needs, and to keep the office humming along smoothly. In her free time, she loves to play badminton & watch movies.
Rajesh Radhakrishnan
Senior Manager, Finance
Rajesh is a finance professional with more than 15 years of experience. At Pupilfirst, he looks after the accounts and finance of the company.
Course creators
Meet the teaching fellows
Web Development Courses
Vignesh Rajendran
Principal Engineer, Oracle
Vignesh is a seasoned UI technology evangelist with around 10 years of experience building and developing amazing user experiences across various platforms and domains. He works with Oracle as a Principal Engineer solving UI engineering use cases for their cloud and cloud-native products. The stack he works on covers everything UI, although now he mainly codes on JavaScript and TypeScript.
Melson J Zacharias
CTO, Perleybrook Labs LLC
Melson is CTO at Perleybrook Labs LLC, where he primarily works with C++, Python, and TypeScript. In his spare time, he would be reading a book or can be seen answering questions in StackOverflow.
Avishek Jana
Co-Founder, Principal Engineer, GEOGO Techsolutions Pvt. Ltd
Avishek is an Engineer, a full-stack developer and an open-source contributor. Currently, he is working at GEOGO Techsolutions as Principal Engineer. He started his professional career in 2013 and worked on technologies like Ruby on Rails, Node.js, React, TypeScript etc. Apart from work, he loves to mentor and train fresh graduates to enhance their skills as per industry demands; teaching is his way to contribute back to society.
Electric Vehicles Courses
Swapnil Mankame
CEO, Founder at Mankame Automotive
Swapnil is a Robotics engineer with 6 years of experience in building multiple autonomous robots of various architectures. He also has a passion for motorsports which led him to work in multiple race teams building high-performance ICE and electric four-wheelers. He owns and operates Mankame Automotive, and works as a design engineer building high-performance electric vehicle components. He also uses his experience to work as a consultant for other electric vehicle companies, helping them find technical solutions.
Kishor Kumar K
Leader - Electrical Design and Integration, Garrett Advancing Motion
Kishor Kumar K is a team lead at Garrett Advancing Motion. Throughout his 11 years of experience, he has been driving advancements in motor and controller development in the EV industry. Previously, he made significant contributions at SEG Automotive, Simple Energy, and ATI Motors. Beyond his professional endeavors, Kishor is passionate about giving back to society and co-founded the Athira Edutech Foundation, an NGO focused on providing STEM-based education to rural students.