Brij Kothari

Brij Kothari (born 9 June 1964) is an Indian academic and a social entrepreneur. He invented Same Language Subtitling on TV for mass literacy in India.

Brij Kothari
Brij Kothari (left) speaks to a group of children
Born (1964-06-09) 9 June 1964
Nanded, India
NationalityIndian
Alma materIIT Kanpur and Cornell
OccupationAcademic and Social Entrepreneur

Early life

Brij Kothari born to a business entrepreneur. His parents were particular about education and sent him to Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (SAICE) in Pondicherry. He is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur,[1] and did his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He is a Schwab Social Entrepreneur and an Ashoka Fellow.[2] He was a Fellow at Stanford University's Reuters Digital Vision Program and completed the "Leadership for System Change: Delivering Social Impact at Scale" program at Harvard University.

Career

After completion of his academic pursuits Kothari returned to India. In 1996 he joined the faculty of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. While continuing to teach communication to MBA students, he started work on SLS at IIM. He has been on the Faculty of IIM Ahmedabad, as Associate and Adjunct Professor, since 1996.

Same-Language Subtitling

In 1999, in an effort to improve functional literacy rates in India, he experimented with subtitles on Chitrageet, a Gujarati television program. In 2002, the Doordarshan network subtitled their national program Chitrahaar. Since 2006, SLS has been implemented on one weekly program each in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Marathi. The main goal is to persuade broadcasting policy in India to implement SLS on all songs on TV, in all languages.[3]

Kothari is the president of PlanetRead, a non-profit involved in furthering Same Language Subtitling throughout the world. He is also the founder of BookBox,[4][5] a social venture funded by First Light Ventures that produces animated, read-along stories for children in languages such as English, Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, and over 21 others.

His work was also selected by the Google.org as one of the projects for funding.[6]

Personal life

Brij Kothari is married. He has two sons and a daughter.

Awards
  • iF Social Impact Prize, 2017[7]
  • Library of Congress, International Literacy Prize, 2013[8]
  • USAID, Winner, All Children Reading Grand Challenge, 2012[9]
  • NASSCOM, Social Innovation Honour, 2011[10]
  • Indian Social Entrepreneur of the Year, 2009, Schwab Foundation and UNDP[11]
  • Clinton Global Initiative, 2009 and 2011, Feature[12]
  • Ashoka Fellow, 2004,[13]
  • Tech Laureate (Education), The Tech Awards – 2003[14]
  • Winner, Development Marketplace, Global innovation competition – World Bank, 2002[15]

References
  1. "Metro Plus Chennai / Miscellany : Easy read". The Hindu. 7 April 2005. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  3. Gurcharan Das, 6 April 2008, 12:13AM IST (6 April 2008). "Power of subtitles – MEN & IDEAS – Gurcharan Das – Home – The Times of India". Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 1 December 2016.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. BookBox is a social enterprise that uses Same Language Subtitles in animated books to help children learn to read. bookbox.com
  5. "BookBox". BookBox. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  6. "Official Google Blog: Same-Language Subtitling". Googleblog.blogspot.com. 12 December 2005. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  7. "IF SOCIAL IMPACT PRIZE 2017 – supported projects".
  8. "First Winners of Library of Congress Literacy Awards Announced | Library of Congress". Loc.gov. 22 September 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  10. "Ganesh NatarajaN". NASSCOM Foundation. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  11. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 9 November 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-13.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. "Clinton Global Initiative: 'Same Language Subtitling' on TV for Mass Literacy in India". YouTube. 23 September 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  13. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 13 August 2011. Retrieved 2012-08-26.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. "The Tech". Techawards.thetech.org. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  15. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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