Press & media

Press & media

What a journalist, an event organiser or a conference programme needs in order to describe the Council accurately: the two boilerplates, the exact permitted forms of the Founding Chair’s designation, the standing rules that bind PrepGraph in her name, and the answers of record to the questions journalists ask most.

Media contact: council@prepgraph.com
Founding Chair: Ms. Sri Lakshmi
Interviews: By arrangement
Photography: Chair’s approval required

Scope of this page

What a writer needs, in one place

This page carries the items of the Council’s communications kit that bind the Council and anyone writing about it: the two boilerplates, the exact permitted forms of the Chair’s designation, the standing rules on her name and image, and the answers of record. They are published so that anyone describing the Council can describe it accurately. The item numbers are the kit’s own.

Items 6 and 7

Boilerplates

Both are finished copy and may be reproduced as written. The second one describes the funder, and it is published in the same place, at the same size, as the first.

Copy-ready Item 6

Boilerplate: About the Council

About the PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India. The Council is a national forum advancing responsible, research-led AI innovation in Indian schools. It was established by PrepGraph in August 2026 and works under six pillars: Responsible AI in Schools, Teacher AI Enablement, Student AI Readiness, Academic Innovation, School Leadership & Governance, and Research & Evidence. Founding Members sit alongside the Founding Chair in seats held for stated constituencies: school leadership; teacher development and pedagogy; responsible AI and technology; child development and age-appropriate use; equity and inclusion; school innovation; education policy and systems; and an independent seat at large. Membership and the office of Chair are honorary and unpaid. Membership of the Council does not constitute endorsement of PrepGraph or any technology vendor. Members participate in their individual professional capacity to advance responsible, ethical and evidence-informed use of AI and innovation in school education. Its founding instruments, issued by the Founding Chair, are published in full at council.prepgraph.com and are open for comment. PrepGraph is the founding organisation, research and knowledge partner, and secretariat; it funds, staffs and administers the Council and is its only funder. If that ever ceases to be the case, the change is published before the next Council output. The Council carries its convener's name. The Secretariat is provided and paid for by PrepGraph and its three offices are named: Umesh Sharma, Founder & Executive Convener (Founder & CEO, PrepGraph); Rekha Sharma, Executive Director & Secretary-General (Chief Operating Officer, PrepGraph); and Anisha Sarkar, Director, Education Partnerships & National Outreach (education partnerships, PrepGraph); none of whom holds a vote on any question or counts towards quorum. The Council determines the recommendations and principles. The PrepGraph-supported Secretariat enables research, coordination, publication and implementation. The Secretariat holds no vote. The Council is a voluntary, non-statutory initiative. It is not a government, regulatory or accrediting body, and it does not certify, rate or approve schools, curricula or products. The Council does not endorse individual procurement decisions or technology vendors. Its role is to advance responsible AI readiness, educator capability and evidence-based innovation in schools. council.prepgraph.com · council@prepgraph.com

Reproduce as written, without paraphrase or abridgement.

Copy-ready Item 7

Boilerplate: About PrepGraph

About PrepGraph. PrepGraph is an AI learning company, working in India and the United States, from school to first job. It sells learning software to students, families and schools, and runs a research programme on how learners remember and build skills. It convened the Council, funds and staffs it, and acts as its secretariat. PrepGraph's activity has three parts: learning software sold to students, families and schools, from school to first job; an internal research and development function; and this Council. The first two are commercial. This one is not, and the rules in the Charter and the independence policy are what hold the boundary. Three PrepGraph officers hold Secretariat offices; none of them holds a vote in the Council or counts towards its quorum. No procurement runs through the Council, no Council output ranks, rates or shortlists any product, PrepGraph's included, and no member's details are entered into a PrepGraph sales system or cited in a commercial approach. Where PrepGraph takes part in Council research, its participation is disclosed in the publication itself and the study question and method are published before the data is analysed. The Council does not publish an evaluation of a PrepGraph product funded by PrepGraph; where the intervention studied is the convener's product, the study is an evaluation of that product whatever it is titled. PrepGraph has no editorial review. It receives one written factual-accuracy pass, limited to statements about its own systems, of ten working days. Silence publishes. Every comment it makes and every change that follows is logged and published with the output. It cannot delay, amend or withhold anything. PrepGraph cannot end the Chair's term or a member's membership, and takes no part in any removal. Removal of the Chair is available only to the voting members, by two thirds of those other than the Chair, on stated grounds under the Charter.

Reproduce as written, without paraphrase or abridgement.

Item 8

The designation, and the exact permitted forms

The approved designation is Founding Chair, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India. It is honorary and non-executive, and it is held for the inaugural term of 2026-27.

The full form is used on first reference in any document, including third-party programmes and event listings; the short display form may be used thereafter. The forms below are the whole permitted set. Anything not listed is not approved. Where an unapproved form appears, the secretariat corrects it in writing within fourteen days of noticing or being told, and records the correction in the register of use at item 11, so that the record shows both the breach and the remedy.

Three Secretariat designations are governed by the same rules and are set out below with them. Umesh Sharma holds the office of Founder & Executive Convener and is Founder & CEO, PrepGraph. Rekha Sharma holds the office of Executive Director & Secretary-General and is Chief Operating Officer, PrepGraph. Anisha Sarkar holds the office of Director, Education Partnerships & National Outreach, and works on education partnerships at PrepGraph. For all three the Council office alone is not a permitted form: the PrepGraph role is carried on the same line, on first reference and on every later one, because a reader given the Council office without the employer has been told the smaller half of the fact.

None of the three holds a vote on any question and none counts towards quorum, and the sentence that says so travels with the designation wherever one of these offices is described: "The Council determines the recommendations and principles. The PrepGraph-supported Secretariat enables research, coordination, publication and implementation. The Secretariat holds no vote." A Secretariat form used without the commercial role, or a Secretariat officer described as a member of the Council, is corrected within the same fourteen days and entered in the same register of use as any misuse of the Chair's designation.

Permitted forms

Permitted, full form

Founding Chair, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India

First reference, press notes, formal correspondence, conference programmes.
Permitted, short display

Founding Chair, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation

Second and later references, slides, name badges, panel captions.
Permitted, with term

Founding Chair (2026-27), PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India

Required in any material published after the term ends.
Permitted, with qualifier

Founding Chair (honorary, non-executive), PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India

Used wherever a reader might otherwise assume an executive or paid office.
Permitted, in-document short

Founding Chair of the Council

Only where the Council has already been named in full in the same document.
Permitted, Executive Convener

Umesh Sharma, Founder & Executive Convener, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India; Founder & CEO, PrepGraph

The commercial role is part of the designation and is not dropped at any reference. The office is an office of the Secretariat: it carries no vote and no place in the quorum.
Permitted, Executive Convener, research-facing

Founder & Executive Convener — Academic Intelligence & Responsible AI Innovation, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India; Founder & CEO, PrepGraph

The alternative long form, used only where the subject matter is the point: study protocols, working-group papers, research and academic programmes, and conference biographies written for those. Not used in press notes, in school-facing material or on any commercial page.
Permitted, Secretary-General

Rekha Sharma, Executive Director & Secretary-General, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India; Chief Operating Officer, PrepGraph

She runs the Secretariat and signs its administrative correspondence. Nothing is published in the Council's name without the Founding Chair's written approval, and this designation is not authority to approve one.
Permitted, Director of Education Partnerships

Anisha Sarkar, Director, Education Partnerships & National Outreach, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India; education partnerships, PrepGraph

Used at school-network and association meetings. The commercial role is stated because her PrepGraph work is commercially adjacent, and a school leader meeting her is entitled to know that before the conversation starts.
Permitted, Secretariat short display

Executive Director & Secretary-General, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation (Chief Operating Officer, PrepGraph), and the same construction for the other two offices

Second and later references, slides, name badges and panel captions. The bracketed commercial role is not optional in the short form; it is what makes the short form permitted.

Item 8, continued

Forms that are not permitted

The list above is the whole permitted set. Anything not listed is not approved, and the forms below are the ones the secretariat corrects in writing wherever they appear.

Not permitted, dropped word

Chair or Chairperson, PrepGraph Council, without "Founding"

Implies a standing office beyond the inaugural term.
Not permitted, invented ranks

National Chair, President, Chairman, Director, Head of AI in Education, Council Board Member, or any office not conferred in writing
Not permitted, altered name

Any variant of the Council's name, including PrepGraph Education Leadership Council, PrepGraph AI Council of India, or translations not approved by the Chair

The name is fixed.
Not permitted, borrowed authority

Any pairing of the designation with CBSE, NCERT, NEP, a ministry, a state board or UNESCO, and any phrase such as government-recognised, accredited or approved

Including alignment with a policy document stated in a way a reader could take as approval by its author.
Not permitted, certification language

Council-certified, Council-approved school, Council-recommended product, Council-rated, or membership described as an award, recognition or honour

The Council certifies, rates and approves nothing, and confers no honour.
Not permitted, employment implication

Ms. Sri Lakshmi of PrepGraph, PrepGraph's Ms. Sri Lakshmi, or listing her among PrepGraph's team, advisers or leadership

She is not an employee, officer, adviser or representative of PrepGraph.
Not permitted, commercial use

The designation in sales decks, proposals, tender and RFP responses, pricing pages, offers, paid advertising, or any personal consultancy or commercial offering
Not permitted, post-nominals

Any letters after her name derived from the office

The office confers no post-nominals.
Not permitted, a Council office for a Secretariat officer

Chairman of the Council, Council Member or Founding Member applied to Umesh Sharma, Rekha Sharma or Anisha Sarkar, and any wording that has one of them sitting on, serving on, voting in or counting towards the quorum of the Council

None of the three holds a seat, a vote or a place in the quorum, on publication, on standards, on membership or on a vendor question. They are the Secretariat, not the Council.
Not permitted, commercial role omitted

Any Secretariat designation that drops the PrepGraph role: Founder & Executive Convener, Executive Director & Secretary-General, or Director, Education Partnerships & National Outreach standing alone, with or without the Council's name after it

The Council title alone is not a permitted form for any of the three, at any reference, in any medium. Naming them is a transparency gain only if what they are employed to do is named with it.

Item 12

Media Q&A: the answers of record

These are the answers of record to the questions journalists ask most. They are short on purpose. No spokesperson may improve on them by adding a member count, a school figure, a partner name or a research claim.

Independence here is a set of written exits, not a claim about character.

Standing answer on figures

To any request for a member count, school count, pilot number or research claim: the Council states figures only in what it publishes, each with its source, and a spokesperson adds none.

Why a vendor's name?

Because PrepGraph pays for it, and the name says so. A neutral-sounding name with the same funder behind it would read as independent without being so. The name is a disclosure; the safeguards are the things to examine, and they are published: the Chair and members are unpaid and are not PrepGraph employees; PrepGraph cannot remove the Chair or end her term, and removal is a power of the voting members alone; the Council endorses no vendor, PrepGraph included; membership obliges no one to buy anything; PrepGraph has no editorial review and gets one ten-working-day factual-accuracy pass on statements about its own systems, logged and published with the output; and any study PrepGraph takes part in says so in the publication. The standing rules are published at council.prepgraph.com/press.

Is the Council marketing for PrepGraph?

PrepGraph is a commercial company and the Council carries its name. What the Council will not do is rate, recommend or shortlist products, PrepGraph's included; pass member details to a sales team; or treat membership as a lead. The test is written into the rules: any Council output must be useful to a school that buys nothing from anyone. Any member may object in writing to a draft, and if it is published over the objection the objection is published with it.

What has the Council published?

PrepGraph established the Council in August 2026, and Ms. Sri Lakshmi accepted the office of Founding Chair on 29 August 2026. Its eight founding instruments, issued by the Founding Chair, are published in full at council.prepgraph.com: the Founding Charter, the Independence Policy, the Membership Terms, the Office of the Founding Chair, the Responsible AI Principles, the School AI Readiness Framework, the Research Agenda and Ethics Framework, and the programme for the inaugural term. Each is open for comment.

What official standing?

None. The Council is a voluntary, non-statutory initiative. It is not a government, regulatory or accrediting body, and it does not certify, rate or approve schools, curricula or products. We refer to public policy documents such as NEP 2020 and the DPDP Act 2023 only as the context schools already work within. No authority has endorsed the Council, we have sought no such endorsement, and we will correct anyone who reports otherwise.

Can the Chair be independent?

Her independence rests on written exits. The office is unpaid, so there is no income to withdraw; PrepGraph cannot remove her or shorten her term, and cannot take part in any removal, which is a power of two thirds of the voting members on stated grounds; nothing is published in her name without her written approval; anything she asks to be withdrawn is withdrawn; and she may resign publicly and state her reasons, with no confidentiality undertaking sought and no contest from PrepGraph. Independence here is a set of exits, not a claim about character.

Who runs the Council day to day, and do they vote?

The Secretariat, which PrepGraph provides, runs the Council's business, and its three officers are named with their PrepGraph roles. Umesh Sharma is Founder & Executive Convener and is Founder & CEO, PrepGraph. Rekha Sharma is Executive Director & Secretary-General and is Chief Operating Officer, PrepGraph. Anisha Sarkar is Director, Education Partnerships & National Outreach, and works on education partnerships at PrepGraph. The Founding Chair, Ms. Sri Lakshmi, is not a PrepGraph employee. The three are Secretariat officers and not members: none of them holds a vote, on publication, on standards, on membership, on a vendor question or on anything else; none counts towards quorum, so the Council is never quorate on the strength of the people who pay for it; and the Charter separately bars anyone deriving material income from a supplier of AI products to schools from holding office or voting at all. The Council determines the recommendations and principles. The PrepGraph-supported Secretariat enables research, coordination, publication and implementation. The Secretariat holds no vote. The Executive Convener may contribute research, evidence and proposals. Council recommendations are determined collectively and are not subject to commercial approval by PrepGraph.

Will PrepGraph's data be Council research?

Not as the Council's independent finding, and not at all where the product is PrepGraph's own. The Council does not publish an evaluation of a PrepGraph product funded by PrepGraph, and where the intervention studied is the convener's product the study is an evaluation of that product whatever it is titled. PrepGraph may otherwise act as a research partner and may contribute data or platform access to a study. Where it does, the question and method are published before the data is analysed, the participation is disclosed prominently in the publication, and null or negative results are published on the same terms as positive ones. PrepGraph has no editorial review of any of it: it receives one written factual-accuracy pass on statements about its own systems, of ten working days, after which silence publishes, and every comment it makes and every change that follows is logged and published with the output. If a study is abandoned, that is recorded too. A vendor's product evidence dressed as a council's finding is precisely the practice this Council exists to argue against.

Item 11

Standing rules on the Chair's name and image

These rules bind PrepGraph, not the reader. They are published so that a member or a journalist can read them and see when they have been broken.

PrepGraph owns every asset of the Council's communications except the Chair's name and the members' names. The rules below are standing rules for the term. They are published on the Council's page so that a member or a journalist can read them and see when they have been broken. They bind PrepGraph, its staff, its agencies and anyone publishing on its behalf, and they are not renegotiated item by item.

Approval means an email from the Chair's own address, in advance, for the specific use. Silence is not approval, a verbal yes is not approval, and approval of one use is not approval of another. Where a rule sets a deadline the secretariat cannot meet, the material waits.

1
Approve before publishing

Her biography line, photograph, designation line, any quotation attributed to her, any interview, any speaker profile, any third-party programme entry, and the first use of any new item in this kit.
2
Quotations are hers

PrepGraph may send a draft quotation for her convenience, clearly marked as a draft. Only the words she returns may be published. PrepGraph does not issue statements in her name and does not answer for her.
3
One approved photograph

A single approved image is held on file and used as supplied. No cropping into product creative, no placement adjacent to pricing, product screenshots, offers or calls to action, and no use in paid advertising or performance marketing at all.
4
No commercial carriage

Her name, image and designation do not appear in sales decks, proposals, tender or RFP responses, school-facing sales email, pricing pages or campaign creative, and are never used to imply that she uses, has evaluated, has selected or recommends any PrepGraph product.

This holds even where she has approved the same photograph for Council use.
5
Media requests routed to her

Interview and speaking requests are passed to her with the enquiry unedited. She may accept or decline without giving a reason. The secretariat may supply factual background about the Council; it does not supply lines for her to say.
6
Third-party reuse

Partners, event organisers and press receive a fixed profile pack containing only the approved forms in item 8. Misuse is corrected in writing within fourteen days of the secretariat noticing it or being told.
7
Takedown takes precedence

If the Chair asks for something to be withdrawn, it is withdrawn first and discussed afterwards.

No exception for material already in circulation or paid for.
8
Breaches are self-reported

The secretariat reports every breach of these rules to the Chair, whether or not she has noticed it, and records it in the register with the remedy and its date.

A breach the Chair discovers first is itself recorded as a failure of this rule.
9
Register of use

The secretariat keeps a dated log of every published use of her name or image, with the approval reference and any correction made. It is open to her at any time, and a summary of breaches and remedies is published at the end of the term.
10
PrepGraph cannot remove the Chair

PrepGraph cannot remove the Chair or end her term early, and takes no part in any removal. Removal is available only to the voting members, by two thirds of those other than the Chair, on stated grounds under the Charter. The term otherwise ends on its date or on her resignation, and the office is vacated automatically on her death, on written medical incapacity, or on a failure to act for the period the Charter states.

The Council's own power of removal is a safeguard, and it is not PrepGraph's to exercise.
11
If the funding stops

Withdrawal of secretariat support does not end the term. It obliges the Council to decide within ninety days whether to continue on another basis or to wind up under the Charter, and that decision is published.

PrepGraph cannot close the Council by ceasing to pay for it.
12
Resignation is hers to explain

She may state publicly that she has resigned and why. PrepGraph will not contest the statement, will not seek a confidentiality or non-disparagement undertaking from her, and will publish her statement on the Council's page unedited if she asks.
13
End of term

On resignation or expiry, published material is removed or updated within fourteen days, and anything retained for the record carries the term dates.

The Council’s seal

Name, wordmark and seal

The Council’s mark

The Council’s name, wordmark and seal belong to PrepGraph, which convenes and funds the Council. They may not be reproduced, adapted, incorporated into another mark or used by any third party without written permission from the secretariat, and permission is given for a stated use rather than in general. Partners, event organisers and press are sent a fixed profile pack containing only the approved forms of the designation.

Use of the mark carries no meaning beyond attribution. It does not indicate that the Council has certified, rated, approved, recommended or endorsed a school, a curriculum, a product or a person, because the Council does none of those things.

Using the designation

Every use of the Chair’s name is approved in writing.

Where an unapproved form of the designation appears, the secretariat corrects it in writing within fourteen days, and a summary of uses and corrections is published at the end of the term.

Independence & conflict policy Questions, answered plainly