Ravi Rangan S
Founder & Chief Executive
Social entrepreneur, engineer and maker; founder of ISPF and its curriculum partner ThinkTac.
LinkedIn
About ISPF
Innovation & Science Promotion Foundation
We deliver experiential, curriculum-aligned STEM to government classrooms across India, building real foundations in science, maths, and the 21st-Century competencies that give every K‑10 learner a fair start.
Since 2017
grassroots STEM in government schools across 14 states & UTs
Our story
From a single lab to a movement for experiential learning.
ISPF began with a simple conviction: children learn science best when they build it with their own hands.
Innovation & Science Promotion Foundation was founded by educators and engineers who kept meeting the same bright, curious children, and the same broken pattern. Concepts were copied into notebooks and memorised for exams, but rarely understood. In the government schools that serve most of India's learners, hands-on science was often the first thing to be cut.
We set out to change that, classroom by classroom. We co-developed affordable, durable learning kits, trained teachers in inquiry-led pedagogy, and aligned every activity to the curriculum so that nothing competed with the syllabus. Instead, it deepened it. What started as a handful of labs has grown into a programme spanning multiple states, anchored in measurable learning gains rather than headcounts alone.
Today ISPF works largely at the grassroots, partnering with governments, schools and funders to put real experiments, capable teachers, and structured pathways in front of children who would otherwise never get them, empowering every learner, enabling every future.
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2017Foundation established
ISPF is registered as a not-for-profit with a mandate for inclusive, experiential, competency education.
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2018First hands-on labs
Our first experiential STEM labs open in government schools, with kits co-developed alongside curriculum partner ThinkTac.
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2020Educator empowerment at scale
Structured teacher-training and holistic assessment tools roll out, crossing 1,000 educators trained.
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2022Multi-state expansion
Programmes go live across 10+ states and union territories through co-designed government partnerships.
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20252.4 lakh+ learners reached
More than 240,000 children reached with experiential STEM and 7,600+ educators trained across 14 states & UTs.
Why we exist
Vision & Mission
Our Vision
Inclusive, Experiential, and Competency Education for Every K‑10 Learner.
Our Mission
To deliver experiential, curriculum-aligned STEM that builds strong foundations in science and mathematics together with 21st-Century competencies for every K‑10 learner, and to back that learning with pathways, mentorship, and empowered educators.
- Experiential, curriculum-aligned STEMHands-on science and maths that deepen the syllabus rather than compete with it.
- 21st-Century competenciesCritical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity built into every activity.
- Pathways & mentorshipStructured routes and guidance toward engineering, medicine and research for keen students.
- Educator empowermentPedagogy training, classroom resources and assessment tools that let teachers lead.
Gain, not just reach
we measure what children learn
Our approach
Pedagogy as proof: lab to activity to measurable gain.
Every ISPF programme follows the same chain, and we hold ourselves accountable to the last link in it.
- The lab Affordable, durable kits turn an ordinary classroom into a working science lab, so every concept can be built, not just read.
- The activity Curriculum-aligned, inquiry-led activities led by trained teachers turn that lab into real learning, day after day.
- The measurable gain Holistic, classroom-level assessment captures the gain, in conceptual understanding and in 21st-Century competencies.
Our impact
Numbers that mean a classroom changed.
Audited reach and outcome figures from our most recent annual report: each one stands for real children, real teachers, and real ground covered.
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Children reached with experiential STEM
Cumulative unique learners enrolled in ISPF programmes, FY2017–25, deduplicated by school roll.
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Government schools partnered across India
Schools with an active ISPF lab or programme MoU as on 31 March 2025.
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Educators trained in hands-on pedagogy
Teachers completing at least one certified ISPF training module, cumulative to FY2024–25.
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States & UTs with active programmes
States and union territories with one or more live ISPF programmes during FY2024–25.
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Improvement in STEM confidence: our headline outcome
Mean shift on a validated pre/post self-efficacy scale across a sample of 12,400 learners, FY2024–25.
My students used to copy formulas without understanding them. After a year of ISPF labs they argue about why an experiment worked, and our class average in science rose by nearly twenty marks.
Context: rural government school, limited lab access
Intervention: ISPF kits + 3 training modules
Outcome: +18 marks class average
Anita Deshmukh
Science teacher · Zilla Parishad School, Maharashtra
Our people
Educators, scientists and stewards behind the work.
A lean leadership team and an independent board keep ISPF mission-focused, accountable, and close to the classroom.
Leadership & Board of Trustees
Vishal Bhatt
Co-founder & Trustee
Co-founder of ISPF, focused on hands-on, experiential science learning.
LinkedInDr Procheta Mallik
Co-founder & Principal Scientist
Co-founder and Principal Scientist; a PhD astronomer turned science educator.
Core team
Full bios are being finalised.
Swathi G R
Accounts Manager
Namrata Sonavane
Associate Program Manager
Lakshmi R J
Content Development & Facilitation
Rajesh Surya
Content R&D
Dileep T P
Media
Governance & transparency
Registered, compliant, and accountable for every rupee.
ISPF is a registered not-for-profit. Our books are independently audited every year, and our compliance is current across all statutory registrations.
- FCRA Foreign-contribution clearance
- 80G Tax exemption for donors
- 12A Income-tax registration
- NITI Aayog Darpan NGO Darpan registered
- CSR-1 (MCA) Eligible for CSR funds
How we use your donation
For every ₹100 given to ISPF in FY2024–25, here is where it went.
- Programmes Labs, kits, training & delivery in schools 82%
- Operations Administration, monitoring & compliance 11%
- Fundraising Donor engagement & partnerships 7%
Board & governance. ISPF is governed by an independent Board of Trustees that meets quarterly, with a majority of independent members. An Audit & Finance committee reviews accounts and a documented conflict-of-interest, child-protection and whistle-blower policy applies across the organisation.
Footnotes: All impact figures are drawn from ISPF's most recent audited annual report (FY2024–25) unless stated otherwise; the STEM-confidence outcome is measured on a validated pre/post self-efficacy scale across a representative learner sample. Registration numbers and downloadable reports shown here are demonstration placeholders for this mock-up.
Trusted by funders, foundations & government partners
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