Vikas Pota is Board Chair of the Varkey Foundation, a family foundation seeking to improve global teacher capacity and promote universal access of quality education. He has spearheaded the training of over 25,000 teachers and has pioneered an innovative technology platform to reach marginalized girls in Sub-Saharan Africa, has designed a leadership programme for school directors in Argentina, convenes the Global Education & Skills Forum, and organises the Global Teacher Prize, which seeks to celebrate the achievement of classroom teachers and uplift the status of the profession.

Vikas is a Visiting Practitioner in Education at Harvard University, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, serves on various UNESCO panels on education, was a member of the Global Agenda Council on the Future of Jobs, and was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader for his work in education. Vikas received a Honorary Degree in 2016 and was listed by London’s Evening Standard Newspaper as being in the Progress 1000 list of most influential Londoners in 2016.