When her son entered the traditional schooling system, she noticed a fundamental gap: many schools were designed to reward compliance rather than cultivate curiosity, conversation, and agency. Determined to create a space where children were empowered instead of merely controlled, she founded Riverside School to bring together design thinking and childhood development.
In an exclusive interview, Kiran Bir Sethi reflects on her journey from graphic design to becoming a global advocate for educational transformation. Today, her work extends far beyond a single campus. Her Design for Change (DFC) movement has reached more than 70 countries, while the Riverside Learning Centre works with educators, schools, and systems across India and internationally to build learner-centred cultures. By democratizing the design process for children and prioritizing school leadership, she demonstrates how a design mindset can help nurture empathetic, confident citizens equipped to solve real-world problems.
From Design to Education Reform
Before dedicating her life to education, Kiran Bir Sethi graduated from the National Institute of Design (NID) and built a career designing physical spaces like restaurants and water parks. Her professional trajectory shifted dramatically after becoming a mother. When her son entered the traditional schooling system, she began questioning whether education was truly preparing children for the future.
What Sethi witnessed was a gap: a system that often prioritized compliance and control over curiosity and conversation. That gap became the opportunity for Riverside to exist. Designed from first principles, Riverside set out to cultivate a school culture where children are trusted to think, question, create, and act with purpose, growing up with the confidence to say, “I can.”
Reflecting on this pivot, she notes:
“I realized that there was such a huge gap in getting children to be good and compliant and to be controlled rather than curious and confident… coming from a design mindset and a designer’s background, I think you always are looking at what opportunities are there for change.”
The Power of FIDS and the ‘I Can’ Mindset
At the core of Sethi’s educational philosophy is the “I Can” mindset, which actively works to unteach the societal conditioning that tells children they are incapable of driving change. To demystify the design process for young learners, she developed the FIDS framework: Feel, Imagine, Do, and Share.
In this framework, “Feel” and “Imagine” help children understand who they are helping and why, while “Do” ensures they take meaningful action backed by practical skills. The approach shifts the narrative from telling children they will change the world someday to empowering them to improve the world immediately around them.
The power of this methodology was demonstrated early on by one of Design for Change’s first stories from Dimapur, Nagaland. Students noticed that a neighbouring orphanage lacked access to clean drinking water and basic amenities. They raised funds to install a water filter, while one student’s doctor parent volunteered medical check-ups for the children. The story became an early example of what happens when children are trusted to identify problems and act on solutions.
Highlighting the importance of localized impact, Sethi explains:
“We are not telling children, change the world. We are telling children, change your world… If we listen to our children, they will tell us what they want to change.”
Reclaiming Urban Spaces for Children
Beyond the classroom, Sethi launched the aProCh initiative in 2007 to make urban environments more child-friendly. Working to shift how adults and city officials viewed public spaces required immense perseverance, especially while navigating changing administrations and bureaucratic roadblocks.
Looking back, Sethi says the Municipal Corporation and Police officials were absolutely right to test the team’s commitment. They needed to know whether aProCh was simply another campaign driven by publicity or a movement that would consistently show up to create lasting change. What began as a five-day initiative has since evolved into a movement that reclaims city streets for children every Sunday across multiple cities in five countries.
As she reflects:
“The Municipality and Police officials were absolutely right to test us. They wanted to know if we were just ‘selfie activists’ – take a selfie and call it activism, or whether we would keep showing up for real impact. That’s how trust is built. You don’t earn it through ideas alone; you earn it by showing up, consistently, over time.”
Scaling Global Impact and Leadership
Today, Riverside operates not just as a school but as a living laboratory for educational innovation. Through the Riverside Learning Centre, educators, schools, and systems across India and internationally are supported in creating learner-centred school cultures. Design for Change has amassed a repository of more than 40,000 student-led stories of change globally, and Sethi’s journey of bringing design into education was chronicled in her book Every Child Can, published by HarperCollins.
Over the past 25 years, Riverside has developed and refined a proven, home-grown, India-first approach to cultivating school cultures that empower children by design. Rather than relying on isolated programmes or interventions, the approach transforms the everyday culture of school, embedding curiosity, empathy, agency, and purpose into the fabric of learning.
Looking toward the next decade, Sethi identifies school leadership as the most critical missing piece in modern education. While schools may have access to excellent curricula and technology, sustainable cultural change depends on leaders who intentionally shape cultures where both children and adults can flourish.
As she says:
“I think leadership can become bridges or barriers for change. So, when leaders change the way they look at their role and what they are in service of, that’s when we’ll see magic happen.”
Advice for Aspiring Change-Makers
For professionals looking to transition from corporate careers into the social sector, Sethi warns against the urge to tackle massive systemic issues all at once. Attempting to solve broad challenges immediately often leads to burnout and limited impact. Instead, she advises people to begin with the part of the problem that aligns with their own strengths and expertise.
“Take the piece of the puzzle that you can do really well and that matches your skill set… because I find that most people want to change the whole thing, and then two years later I don’t see them anymore.”
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Kiran Bir Sethi’s work demonstrates that children need not wait until adulthood to become active citizens. By shifting education from compliance towards empathy, agency, and action, her design-led approach empowers children to improve the communities around them.
As Riverside marks 25 years of educational innovation, its journey offers a compelling example of how a proven, home-grown, India-first model can transform school culture by design, helping every child discover the confidence to say, “I can.”
How can educational institutions move beyond preparing children simply to succeed within existing systems and instead create learning experiences that nurture empathy, agency, problem-solving, and the confidence for every child to say, “I can”?
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