About Us
30 years ago, our founder Dr. Ratnam Chitturi had a dream that empathetic educational excellence could unleash an individual’s potential and change a life forever. Thus the North South Foundation was born in 1989.
A few basic tenets were, and still are, at the root of our Foundation:
- Everyone deserves access to education.
- A commitment to hard work and excellence can help anyone get closer to his/her potential.
- An empathetic, “pay it forward” approach creates a flywheel effect that cannot be matched.
We started by funding scholarships in India in the late 1980s, and this has now reached 20,000 scholarships.
We hosted practice contests in the United States in the early 1990s, and produced champion after champion in venues such as the Scripps National Spelling Bee and the National Geography Bee. More than 200,000 contestants benefited from NorthSouth activities in spelling, vocabulary, math, science, geography, brain bee, history, essay writing and public speaking.
The contest fees, and the exposure of our programs in the context of excellence, led to more funding and more scholarships in India for the poor who otherwise could not afford it. In time, we collaborated with districts in India to bring STEM and English fundamentals to hundreds of public schools.
Our dream indeed changed lives forever, because of a Foundation that brought that dream to reality, one child at a time. We look forward to showing U.S. students that our academic model can be both fun and effective in cementing the critical fundamentals necessary for solid careers and a bright future for entire communities.