Kiran Bir Sethi

Founder, Design For Change

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India
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Kiran Bir Sethi Biography

Kiran Bir Sethi is a designer who became a teacher, a principal who grew into an education reformer and subsequently morphed into a social entrepreneur. A trained visual communicator from the National Institute of Design, she comfortably uses the language of design as a tool for user cantered innovation.

Sethi founded the award winning Riverside School in Ahmedabad, India, in 2001. Riverside, is viewed as a laboratory to prototype design processes that uses a systems approach to build a culture of empowerment, graduating young citizen leaders with an ‘ I CAN Mindset’ – using their agency for the greater good. The values that nourish this mindset are the 5 E’s – Empathy, Ethics, Excellence, Elevation and Evolution – intentionally moving us to becoming HumanE, by design.

Riverside Learning Centre ( RLC ) started in 2016, has codified the practices and processes of The Riverside School, and housed them in 6 Pillars ( Curriculum, Parent Partnership, Personal and Professional Development, Community, Administration and Leadership ) and designed Training Programmes that empower more schools to become I CAN schools.

In 2007, Sethi founded 'aProCh'—an initiative to make our cities more child friendly, for which she was awarded the Ashoka Fellow in 2008 and was a YIDAN Fellow in 2019.

In 2009, Sethi launched “Design for Change” which uses a simple 4 step design framework – FIDS (Feel, Imagine, Do, Share) to cultivate the I CAN belief in all children. Today, DFC is the world's largest movement of change - of and by children, and is in 60 countries — impacting over 2.2 million children and 65,000 Teachers.

In 2023, Sethi published a book, ‘Every Child CAN’ for HarperCollins, which chronicles the journey and offers readers a glimpse into Riverside’s unique design-led approach to empowering children.

Over the years, Kiran, Riverside and Design for Change have won several accolades and Awards, and some of the most recent ones are:

  • 2023 – Riverside wins the World’s Best School Prize for Innovation from T4 Education
  • November 2022 – Design for Change is again included into the HundrED.org’s Hall of Fame
  • In March of 2021, Kiran was invited to be judge for the prestigious YIDAN Prize.
  • In November, 2019, Design for Change conceptualised and helped to host the first ever All Faith - I CAN Children’s Global Summit at the Vatican in Rome from 27th to 30th November, with participation of over 2500 children from across 40 countries, who were blessed by the Pope!!
  • In October, 2019, she was awarded the Earth Prize in Luino, Italy
  • In March 2019, she was amongst the first batch of the Chen Yidan Visiting Global Fellows at Harvard.
  • In January 2019, she was honoured with the Lexus Design Award for 2019, in Pune, India
  • In 2018, Kiran has been awarded the “Light of Freedom” Award, at the Vital Voices, U.S.A., Global Leadership Awards.
  • In 2018 Edutopia covered The Riverside School for best practices. In 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 -DFC has been recognised as one of the 100 most innovative educational programmes in the world by HundRED.org (based in Finland).

Kiran currently resides in Ahmedabad with her Husband – Geet Sethi and two wonderful children – their son, Raag and daughter, Jazz. She loves listening to music, watching movies, singing, dancing and has an insane love for fruit-filled Dark Chocolates!!!

Kiran Bir Sethi Videos

  • Superheroes of Education Episode 01 | Kiran Sethi
    Superheroes of Education Episode 01 | Kiran Sethi, Founder of Riverside.
  • 2018 Global Leadership Awards: Kiran Bir Sethi
    Kiran Bir Sethi is an educator who's revolutionizing the school system in India by encouraging children to solve real-life challenges. #GLA2018.
  • TED: Kiran Bir Sethi Teaches Kids to Take Charge
    Kiran Bir Sethi shows how her groundbreaking Riverside School in India teaches kids life's most valuable lesson: "I can." Watch her students take...

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  • What topics does Kiran Bir Sethi speak about?

    Kiran Bir Sethi is a keynote speaker and industry expert whose speaking topics include Asian & Pacific Heritage, Design, Education, Environment.
  • Where does Kiran Bir Sethi travel from?

    Kiran Bir Sethi generally travels from India, but can be booked for private corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. For more details, please contact an AAE Booking agent.
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Kiran Bir Sethi is a keynote speaker and industry expert who speaks on a wide range of topics . The estimated speaking fee range to book Kiran Bir Sethi for your event is $5,000 - $10,000. Kiran Bir Sethi generally travels from India and can be booked for (private) corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. Similar motivational celebrity speakers are Kavita Ramdas, Alia Mahmoud, Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Rob Redenbach and Carol Choi. Contact All American Speakers for ratings, reviews, videos and information on scheduling Kiran Bir Sethi for an upcoming live or virtual event.

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