Rupa Laxmi Shah leads global philanthropy and partnerships at MIT RAISE, where she helps build support for AI education.
From Fair & Lovely Ads to MIT RAISE, Rupa Laxmi Shah’s Journey from Kathmandu
Before she built partnerships for AI education at MIT, Rupa Laxmi Shah had two very different experiences as a teenager in Kathmandu. She appeared in a Fair & Lovely campaign and volunteered as a tutor for children displaced by Nepal’s civil war. The second experience foreshadowed the work she does today as MIT RAISE’s Director of Global Philanthropy and Partnerships.
Shah’s September 2026 interview with Anup Ghimire on *The Doers* brought her modelling years back into view. Her career since then has taken her from celebrity publicity in Beverly Hills to earthquake relief fundraising for Nepal, a children’s hospital campaign and a global coding platform for young learners.
A Fair & Lovely campaign graphic featuring Rupa Laxmi Shah from her early modelling years in Nepal.
The work she found at 15
Shah was in ninth grade when she started volunteering with Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre, known as CWIN. In a 2021 interview, she recalled tutoring children her own age in maths, English and science. Some had missed years of school after being displaced by the conflict.
The modelling chapter drew a different kind of attention. A January 2002 profile identified the 17-year-old model as Yashawi Shah and noted that she had previously gone by Rupa Laxmi Shah. The profile reported that the first Fair & Lovely commercial had been filmed at Changu Narayan.
After finishing her undergraduate studies in the United States, Shah took an entry-level job at a public relations firm in Beverly Hills. Part of her work involved making sure celebrities wore particular designers for media appearances. She told *Women Who Win* that she soon realised she wanted a different career. She left the job and went to Cornell University on a full scholarship to study nonprofit management.
Rupa Laxmi Shah in a scene from a Fair & Lovely commercial she appeared in as a teenager in Nepal.
A reason to return to Nepal
When the 2015 earthquake struck Nepal, Shah said she raised US$30,000 within the Cornell community to provide relief supplies to new mothers and infants in camps in rural Nepal. The effort showed her what fundraising could do when people understood whom their money would help.
In 2019, she returned to Nepal to launch a fundraising campaign for the Kathmandu Institute of Child Health. The institute says its flagship children’s hospital in Budhanilkantha began operating in January 2026, with 50 of its planned 200 beds in service at that stage.
By 2021, Shah was Director of Philanthropy at the Scratch Foundation. Scratch began at the MIT Media Lab and gives children a way to code their own stories, games and animations. In her 2021 interview, Shah said more than 30 million children worldwide were using Scratch at the time. Her job was to build a fundraising plan that could sustain the platform and show donors what children could create with it.
Rupa Laxmi Shah, MIT RAISE’s Director of Global Philanthropy and Partnerships, with Day of AI President Ethan Berman at the 2025 Day of AI Global Summit in Dubai.
Building partnerships for AI education
Today, Shah leads global philanthropy and partnerships at MIT RAISE, short for Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education. The initiative’s projects include Day of AI, which offers free classroom materials and teacher training. MIT RAISE’s 2025 impact report says Day of AI had reached more than two million students and that educators in 175 countries were using its curriculum.
Shah’s current work also extends to AI training beyond schools. In October 2026, she joined a Google for Education discussion about Pathways for AI Training and Hiring, an initiative led by MIT RAISE and Georgia State University. Backed by Google.org, it brings colleges, employers and government together to develop AI training tied to workplace needs.
“The favorite part of my job is helping individuals connect with a mission,” Shah said in her 2021 interview. At 15, she sat alongside children who needed help catching up in school. Today, she helps find the partners and funding that can put learning tools in the hands of students and teachers around the world.
