R Sundar

R Sundar is the co-founder of Mastek Ltd., one of India’s early global tech solution companies and Executive Director of Majesco Ltd, the U.S. subsidiary of Mastek. He is also a board member of Sankara Eye Foundation, a US-based non-profit organization that works toward eliminating curable blindness in India.

His love for basketball and interest in helping underprivileged children right from the grassroot level were instrumental is the founding of Hi5 Youth Foundation. He strongly believes that underprivileged children lack the infrastructure, direction and opportunity to play and excel in sports in India. ‘Play’ is also a great medium to nurture young talent, inculcate values in them and encourage the strive for excellence. At Hi5, Sundar is responsible for the overall direction, scaling, funding and financial sustainability of the organisation.

Usha Sundar

Having been an instructor and volunteer at various social sector organizations involved with children, youth and adult education in India and US, Usha Sundar took up the role of Director of Operations at Hi5 Youth Foundation. She was keen on co-founding Hi5 Youth Foundation because she has always been involved in helping out other NGOs that nurture lives of underprivileged children and basketball is a sport that’s close to her and family’s heart.

Apart from managing the daily operations of all the centres at Hi5 and functioning of the programs, she is also personally involved in designing and rolling out the life-skills training to the children with a special focus on empowering girls at Hi5.

Anshul Jain

Anshul Jain is a sports management professional with 6+ years of experience in grassroots sports and coach training. Prior to Hi5, Anshul has worked with companies like KOOH Sports, Box8 and American School of Bombay and has been the co-founder of a sports education company. Anshul holds a Sports Management Diploma from Griffith University and an Engineering degree. Before joining the sports industry Anshul has worked in education and consulting field for 4 years. He loves spending time on the ground with the children and enjoys playing a game or two of any sport on the weekends.

Farheen Thange

Farheen Thange is a finance professional with 1 + years of experience in the financial sector. Before being a part of Hi5 youth foundation Farheen had a working experience in the FPnA section of OYO and Shipping department of the Indian Oil Corporation. Farheen holds a professional degree of a Cost and Management Accountant from the Institute of the Cost Accountants of India and also is a Bcom graduate from Mumbai University. Apart from academics she has always been inclined towards dance and drama activities. Farheen also has a sports touch to her personality as she has also been a table tennis player.

Vignesh Iyer

When I came to junior college, I was hooked to the game. I only played basketball the entirety of 11th grade. In fact, I chose to pursue Commerce because everyone around me discouraged pursuing Science because I would then have to study a lot and wouldn’t have been able to play basketball at all! My parents didn’t restrict me for anything really because I would scrape average marks even if I was playing basketball all day. As long as I was doing well and good work, they were happy with me. There is an NBA player, Steph Curry, who is my all-time favourite basketball player. Watching him play is how I have learned a lot about basketball as a game. Before I had watched him, I didn’t even know that something like a 3-pointer existed!

When I was in my first year of college, I had coached at a private organization but they were not serious about coaching so I got very disinterested in it. But I didn’t want to quit basketball and I got introduced to Hi5 through Ramu Sir at the same time. I never thought this would become by full-time job when I joined but the more time passed, the more I was attracted to becoming a coach to these kids. Because they’re brilliant, these BMC kids are way responsive when compared to other privileged international schools and even better than the BMC school kids are the children from the tribal school in Vajreshwari!

Kevin Francis

Even though I was passionate about the game, my parents didn’t support the idea of playing basketball professionally as a career. In fact, when I was young, they didn’t even know I played basketball for those many insane hours! Academically, I studied engineering and sought a job in my field itself later. Although I didn’t find a job that was well paying and according to my requirements. I even tried my hand at entrepreneurship but it didn’t work out.

I never stopped playing though and one day, when I was playing at a center close to my house, Mr. Lohe from the BMC saw me coaching other players and approached me to coach students part-time. Initially, I refused because I didn’t see myself as a coach. I didn’t think it was something I’d be good at. But after sometime, I tried it and loved every bit of it!

When I got introduced to Hi5, it was a blessing! Their curriculum approach to coaching basketball showed that they were serious about coaching. They also invested time in teaching the coaches and giving them a support system that enables them to do better. I am now a part of testing and designing the curriculum as well as coordinating with other coaches. We measure everybody’s performance on a common scale and method.

This is now my full-time career considering we’ve been successful and are scaling. Plus teaching these kids is a joy. They are aware of this opportunity presented to them and learn the sport seriously. I am happy that I am finally doing something I think I was meant to do. As a coach, I get the respect and I also get to do play basketball every day, my vision matches with the leadership, what more can I ask? This is like a dream job for me!

Arpan Ghole

My name is Arpan Ghole. I completed my MBA in marketing from D.Y.Patil college in 2013. I have experience of 7 years in marketing in various Ed-tech companies. I choose the education industry as a career because I feel education is a gift that changes lives forever.

Hi5 is even a step forward with giving equal importance to education as well as sports in the lives of underprivileged students.

Talking about my hobbies ,I love travelling and trekking alot.

Vishal Khare

Vishal holds a Bachelor’s as well as Master’s degree in Social Work and has been working in this sector, with young children attending to various issues. He chose to start working with Hi5 because Hi5 works differently with underprivileged children as they’re using the game of basketball to increase their quality of life. They are giving them life skills education and the students have visibly changed. He appreciate that because social work has different strategies to work with children and using basketball is a great medium to interact with them and make a difference. Vishal believes there are many kids who do well in sports don’t have the opportunity to develop themselves. He hopes to motivate them and make them realise the importance of sports and empower them to do better through this work.

Shubhangi Shinde

Shubhangi was an accountant/data coordinator before joining Hi5 in 2018 as a data coordinator. Apart from work, she likes to read books in her free time.

Asfa Siddiqui

Asfa Siddiqui is a postgraduate in management from Institute of Management Technology . Achieved 10 years of working experience in the social development sector with great success. Managed cross-functional team through several large projects. Closely worked with children in education, skills to livelihood programs & Health and sanitation.