Pranav Kothari is CEO of Educational Initiatives (Ei) in India, an organisation that
employs the twin levers of cutting-edge pedagogical research and technology-based solutions to help students across different socio-economic backgrounds learn with understanding.

Through his work, Kothari has sought to address the challenge that while school
enrollment has expanded in India with the broadening of the country’s education
infrastructure, schooling has not translated into learning. Rote learning, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ teaching approach, low-quality assessments, and weak accountability are among the issues he seeks to tackle, pointing out that children reach young adulthood without having acquired basic skills like calculating the correct change from a transaction, reading a doctor’s instructions, or understanding a bus schedule.

Ei works to confront these problems through large-scale assessments and Ei
Mindspark - a Personalised Adaptive Learning tool that identifies individual student learning levels and misconceptions in Mathematics, their vernacular language, and English at a nuanced level through diagnostic tests based on product research from over 20 million+ assessments. It then creates an individualised learning path for each student, providing targeted instruction to enable teaching at the right level. It employs a gamified interface, using questions, activities and challenges to engage learners.

Available for grades 1-10 in eight Indian languages and English, Ei Mindspark has been able to reach over 500,000 students across five different countries. Regular use of the tool has been shown to lead to a twofold increase in Mathematics scores and 2.5 increase in Hindi test scores for those using Mindspark over four and a half months relative to those who do not. Ei Mindspark empowers teachers by allowing them to both control the activation of topics and use student data to understand progress and learning gaps.

Kothari’s company also recognises the importance of high-quality competency-based assessments and deep insights into misconceptions. These not only help in identifying knowledge gaps in student learning levels but also promise a solution to the prevalent rote-learning crisis in the country. Ei has tested more than 10 million students in India since 2001. This spans primary and secondary levels and every state and urban, rural and tribal parts of India. Another important aspect of EI’s work is to build systemic capacity within state and governmental institutions like Educational Boards on creating, using and understanding assessments and assessment data.

Kothari is a TEDx speaker and an INK Fellow. In 2019, The World Economic Forum's Schwab Foundation named him the Corporate Social Intrapreneur of the Year, a recognition that reflects his commitment to driving social impact through business. He studied Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. Prior to joining Ei, he worked at GTI Capitaland the Boston Consulting Group in five countries.