Pratham was founded in 1994 by Madhav Chavan, a U.S.-educated chemical engineer with an unflappable belief that all children should, and can, learn to read and read to learn. He has taken Pratham from a small Mumbai-based UNICEF-sponsored charity to one of the largest NGOs in India, perhaps in the world: Pratham’s programs reach close to 34.5 million children all over India and are now venturing into the rest of the world.
