Avnita Bir

Mrs. Avnita Bir, Director Principal, R N Podar School, Mumbai, is an internationally known personality in the education sector. A graduate in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College and Post-Graduate in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, Mrs. Bir has worked in the field of Education for over 3 decades. She has served as a member of the Governing Body of CBSE, the leading education board of the country. She has been a member of Education Reforms Committee. Ms. Bir was also a member of the India Jurisdiction at the Global Education Leaders Programme (GELP). Her dedication to the cause of good education propelled her to author two books on Economics. In the early years of her career, she was appointed to give special lessons in Economics to the children (Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra) of the late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.

Mrs. Avnita Bir is the recipient of the prestigious National Award for Teachers (2009) conferred by the Hon'ble President of India. She has also received the EQFI India Education Awards 2008 for Excellence in Education. She has also been honored by the President of Singapore for her contribution to the education sector. She was awarded the Microsoft Mentor School Award for Innovation in Education. She also received the FICCI Outstanding Woman Achiever Award for her work in the field of education. More recently she was invited to Google, to speak at the Google Global Education Symposium at the Google HQ in Mountain View. She has been appointed as a member of the Advisory Board of Google's GlobalEDU.org initiative. Mrs. Bir has been driving change at R N Podar School and it has been selected as the Ashoka ChangeMaker School in the first cohort of Ashoka ChangeMaker Schools in India. Mrs. Bir is known for her guest column on parenting for the Times of India group and has been covered widely in media like BBC, New York Times, Times of India, Times Now for her thoughts on education.