Website Akanksha Foundation
Working at The Akanksha Foundation
Akanksha is on a mission to build one of the largest and most innovative networks of schools in India, serving children from low-income communities, to maximize their potential. Our aspirational vision for students integrates academic excellence with life skills (including socio-emotional development), that will enable each child to live an empowered life. We believe an empowered citizen must possess a sense of mastery to pursue excellence, a sense of agency to make informed choices and a sense of purpose to serve their communities.
Over the last 30 years, Akanksha has been at the forefront of proving what’s possible for children from low-income communities in Mumbai & Pune. Our 4,500 alumni are on the path to living an empowered life. Today Akanksha runs 27 schools in partnership with governments of Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Navi Mumbai and Nagpur serving ~13,000 children in grades Jr Kg – Gr 10.
Our schools are led by competent, passionate and purposeful educators who believe in demonstrating excellence. And our central staff teams are committed to the ideal of building a high performing institution in alignment with our core values:
Be the CHANGE
● We Collaborate – We unite as a team to achieve our vision, support each other in securing our goals and find joy in each other’s success.
● We Have Belief – Every Akanksha member lives and breathes the organization’s mission and believes in our ability to achieve challenging goals that go beyond expectation.
● We Act with Integrity – Our team takes ownership of their actions and we take pride in holding ourselves accountable to our set commitments.
● We Never Give Up – We are big believers in learning and continue to stay strong and resilient till we reach the very end.
● We Give Respect – At Akanksha, we embrace the diversity all around us and treat each other with dignity.
● We Excel & Enjoy – We raise the bar and push ourselves to go the extra mile as a team, all the while ensuring that we enjoy and celebrate our wins along the way. We believe it is important to help each other succeed.
Over the next 3 years (2022-2025), Akanksha will be focusing on the following key priorities;
1. Doubling down on excellence and innovation across our current schools
a. To accelerate the academic learning (post the pandemic) leveraging personalized learning using technology and partnering with parents
b. Continue our efforts on well-being and safety of our children through a focused implementation of socio-emotional learning programs.
c. Designing and implementing new programs to develop new age competencies like entrepreneurship, digital literacy, environmental consciousness and financial literacy.
2. Launch and grow our multiplier initiative in partnership with the governments and likeminded non-profit organizations, through codification of Akanksha’s ‘best in class’ practices around Art, socio emotional learning, parents as partners and English as second language.
3. Continue supporting our alumni to push the boundaries of achievements and ensuring they stay on track to break the cycle of poverty.
What Can The Akanksha Foundation Offer You
1. An opportunity to be a part of one of the most reputed organizations in the education sector in India, that focuses on transformative impact on children by getting them out of poverty.
2. An environment that is challenging, offers a significant degree of autonomy and is focused on holistic well-being of its people, so they can be the best version of themselves in life.
3. Access to learning and career growth opportunities in a steadily growing organization
4. Remuneration that is competitive in top one-third of Indian NGO scales and benefits that include medical insurance (covering your family including parents), provident fund and access to free counselling support.
Position Summary:
Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the Director / Senior Director Technology will be a key leadership position requiring a forward-looking technology leader who can define a technology roadmap for the organization in line with its vision, strategy and growth aspirations and drive through to execution.
As a member of the Technology leadership, the Director / Senior Director will be working with other Leadership Teams (Program and Functions), to evaluate and assist with their technology needs, drive implementation and ensure smooth operations and integration of all IT systems including specialty softwares used by various teams within Akanksha’s Central Team and at Akanksha schools.
This is an influential role, making investment and priority trade-off decisions, negotiating and managing vendor contracts, developing and managing the departmental budget, and recruiting, retaining, and developing a high performing technology team.
Overview of the Team:
The Technology team at Akanksha is responsible for providing strategic direction and determining and implementing systems to meet the technology needs of all teams at Akanksha. The team has the overall responsibility for managing the deployment, development, monitoring, maintenance, upgrading and support of Akanksha’s IT systems, including technology implementations, Information and Communications Technology, hardware and software solutions for all teams at Akanksha.
Responsibilities:
● Collaborate with leadership team & set the Technology vision and strategic plan for the organization based on the technology needs of various functions & Akanksha’s vision & mission
● Keeping up-to-date with recent technologies and best practices and advising team heads on what technological solutions will meet team & organizational requirements Support the implementation of Technology vision by establishing effective IT policies and systems. This includes responsibility for data and cyber security of foundation’s digital assets
● Overseeing the design and implementation of IT projects that bring about positive changes in our functioning and in turn, in the lives of children.
● Identifying external partners/vendors who can build and deploy the necessary applications and technologies for us or oversee the development of in-house technology platforms and integration with third-party components
● Defining best in class practices to evaluate partners, award contracts and manage their outcomes effectively within cost, timeline and quality parameters.
● Manage results with frugal investments. Manage technology budget and implementation timelines
● Lead & manage a high-performing Technology team and oversee the team vision, goals, strategy, and annual operations plan
Role requirements:
Experience, Knowledge & Skills:
● A seasoned and mature leader with at least 8 years of relevant post-qualification experience
● Should be someone who is strategic, creative, energetic and resilient and has managed diverse stake-holders
● Demonstrated working knowledge of current and emerging technologies and the ability to apply those technologies to organization needs & build strategy
● Should have at least 3 to 5 years’ experience of leading the technology vertical & overseeing IT teams and projects
● Knowledge of web based technologies, cloud based platforms and ERP
● Strong project management skills and ability to pay attention to detail
● Problem-solving, decision making and outcomes management
● Experience of directing and supporting the implementation of new software and hardware
● Passionate about social impact through education
● Working experience in an NGO within the last 5 years will be an added advantage
Qualification:
● MCA/MTech/ME/BS/BTech/BE with relevant IT certifications
Location: Mumbai/ Pune
Please send your resume to aneri.shah@akanksha.org
To apply for this job email your details to aneri.shah@akanksha.org
