Our Team

The mission of LAUF is supported by a passionate team with diverse experience and expertise. Team members bring their rich experience of working with youth across continents, the not-for-profit sector, assessment and development of people, fund raising, e- learning, instructional design, and domain expertise across relevant skill areas.

Our Board and International Advisory Council are supported by content and delivery partners across the world in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America.

We all believe that the immediate future of our planet can only improve when lives of large numbers of youth become meaningful. We strive to expand our team and make a scalable impact through partnerships across the world.

LAUF Board

Meena Singh (Co-Founder and Chair) is an international management consultant who has worked with over 95 for-profit and not-for-profit organizations in transformation, assessment and development of people and strategy. Her rich experience includes consulting to large transnational corporations, medium and small enterprises and public sector organizations in Canada, India and USA. She is an innovative thinker with a passion to make a difference to individual lives of young people. At LAUF, she provides leadership in strategy, research, course development and instructional design. Meena is an MBA from Simon Business School, University of Rochester, New York, prior to which she completed her Masters in Physics from University of Delhi, India. She is a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from University of Rochester,NY. As an entrepreneur, she has served on Canadian and International juries assessing youth projects. She volunteers as a guest speaker on youth issues on a multi-cultural radio program.

George Stanois (Co-Founder and Vice-Chair Emeritus) brings over 30 years of fundraising experience to help LAUF’s mission. As Managing Director of The Goldie Company, he has conducted numerous studies and led scores of successful campaigns for a wide range of municipal, healthcare, education, religious, community service and heritage organizations from coast to coast. A graduate of the University of Toronto, George is the editor of The Vigilant Fundraiser: 12 Steps to Fundraising Success, a practical guide to fundraising success based on his 12 Step Fundraising Program.

Vijay Shankar (Co-Founder and Secretary) a former head of consulting at Price Waterhouse Coopers, Mumbai, India brings his diverse management consulting experience along with expertise in finance and project management. He has managed and led large consulting projects for major multinationals across continents. His experience in the non-profit sector includes organizations across Ontario- from Toronto to Moosonee and Tikinagan ; and Windsor to Cornwall. Some of these are Parkinsons Society Canada, Canadian Lung Association, several Children’s Aid Societies in Ontario, the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, Delisle Youth Services, Our Place Peel, MCYS-Central-East Pre-school Autism Services and Design for A New Tomorrow. His role at LAUF includes networking with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and Institutions, coordinating with international stakeholders and providing technical leadership.

Alex Wojaczek is a Program Manager at Google in Sunnyvale, California, working in Technical Infrastructure. She completed her degree in Cognitive Computing at Queen’s University, and is an avid biker, skier, and baker. She believes that education is key to freedom, and is passionate about supporting young people and ensuring that they have access to the resources they need to succeed.

Brian Walmark brings his rich experience and knowledge in serving Ontario’s First Nations communities. Brian will steward LAUF initiatives in developing capacity building initiatives among youth in remote First Nations communities.

Dr. V Kumar Murty is Director of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, Toronto. After receiving a doctorate at Harvard University in Mathematics, Dr. Murty has been contributing as a researcher, professor and chair in departments of mathematics at universities across the world. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and recipient of the Inventor of the Year Award at the University of Toronto and of the Coxeter-James Prize. His influence in mathematics operates in tandem with his passion for philanthropic and entrepreneurial endeavours. His recent work on Smart Villages is dedicated to bringing the technological revolution to rural communities in an attempt to bridge the digital divide around the globe. Dr. Murty will lead and steward the work that LAUF does in the Smart Village Initiative.

Dr. Zhen Mei specializes in data fusion of demographics, household spending, consumer lifestyle, attitude and behavior databases. He has developed effective dimension reduction techniques for identifying driving factors of large consumer database and modeling consumers’ dynamic purchasing behaviors. Zhen has published over 50 scientific papers in renowned international journals and conference proceedings. As President of Manifold Datamining, Toronto, he has serviced over 150 clients including social service organizations with data analytics for various business objectives.

Soumendra Gupta brings over twenty years of professional experience in various finance and information system related areas in five of the “Big Six” firms spanning four continents. As a Chartered Accountant and Certified Management Consultant he is currently involved in Project and Program Management, Strategic Consulting, Management Consulting and Oracle (Financial Package) and Siebel (CRM) Implementation. He brings international experience from Austria, Bahrain, Canada, Dubai, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Oman, Sweden, Thailand, USA and UK.

Leadership Advisory Board

The Leadership Advisory Board at the Learn and Uplift Foundation (LAUF) is an invaluable group of dedicated volunteers who help us to fulfill our mission by playing a leadership role for current and future projects. Through their actions, Leadership Advisory Board members build relationships with current and potential leaders who can support and become involved in our work. We are privileged to have on our Board:

From India: Mr. J P Singh (former Managing Director, Bausch and Lomb, India); Mr. Harit Nagpal (CEO, Tata Sky); Mrs. K B Valsala (IAS Retd., former Managing Director, Kudumbashree, Kerala).

From Canada: Jim Hilborn (CEO, The Hilborn Group Ltd.), Sandy Toth (Executive Director, Design for a New Tomorrow, St. Catherines)