Dr Urvashi Sahni is a social entrepreneur, women’s rights activist, and educationist who has been a pioneering activist in the field for 39 years. She has a Masters and PhD in Education from University of California, Berkeley, USA. In 2017, she won the Social Entrepreneur of the Year India award conferred by the Schwab-Jubilant Bhartia Foundation. She is a fellow at Harvard University in their Advanced Leadership Initiative of 2024. In 2020, she co-created Catalyst 2030, a global network of over 800 social entrepreneurs.

Dr Sahni is an Ashoka Fellow and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Universal Education at The Brookings Institution, USA. She is also a former member of the Rajasthan’s Chief Minister’s advisory council, heading the education sub-group. She has been nominated by the Uttar Pradesh Government to serve on the Steering Committee for the implementation of the National Education Policy of India, 2020, and by the National Institute of Open Schooling to serve on their committee for the revision of their Gender Policy. Combining her activism with research, Dr. Sahni has several publications to her credit.

She is a leading expert in curriculum design and reform, teacher training, and education governance, with a special focus on girls’ education and gender equality. She is the founder of Suraksha (a women’s rights organisation), DiDi's (a social enterprise for sustainable livelihoods for women), and the Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF). Currently, she is the president and CEO of SHEF.

Over the last 39 years, Dr Sahni’s work, through SHEF, has impacted over 100,000 teachers and 5,000,000 children, most of whom are girls from disadvantaged communities.