Roman Saini is one of the co-founders of ed tech platform Unacademy, along with Gaurav Munjal and Hemesh Singh. Unacademy recently terminated the employment of one of its tutors for urging students to vote for “educated candidates” in elections.

Unacademy sacked the tutor Karan Sangwan after he made a plea to students not to elect illiterate people to positions of power and to vote for literate candidates in the next elections during a lecture.

At the age of 16, Roman Saini was able to clear one of the most competitive and difficult AIIMS entrance test. At the age of 22, he passed the UPSC exam and was appointed an IAS officer. He got his first appointment as a district collector in Madhya Pradesh.

Roman Saini, however, was not content with becoming an IAS officer and instead desired to become an entrepreneur. In 2015, after leaving his position as an IAS officer, he co-founded Unacademy with Gaurav Munjal and Hemesh Singh.  Unacademy’s parent company, Sorting Hat Technologies, has founders. Gaurav Munjal was drawing a salary of Rs. 1.58 crore as CEO of Unacademy in 2022. Hemesh Singh made Rs 1.19 crore in pay, while Roman Saini was paid Rs 88 lakh.

“Is encouraging educated people to vote against the law? I admire someone if they are illiterate. Representatives of the people, however, cannot be illiterate. The age of science and technology is now,” Chief Minister Kejriwal posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, “Illiterate public representatives can never create the modern India of the twenty-first century.”

Unacademy fired Karan Sangwan who during a lecture, without taking any names, appealed to students to not put uneducated people in positions of power and vote for a literate person in the upcoming elections.

“Is it a crime to appeal to educated people to vote? If someone is illiterate, personally I respect him. But people’s representatives cannot be illiterate. This is the era of science and technology. Illiterate public representatives can never build the modern India of the 21st century.” Chief Minister Kejriwal wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Unacademy helps IAS, JEE ,NEET and  aspirants of other competitive exams prepare through YouTube, although they have started opening their own coaching centres in different cities across India. The idea behind Unacademy was to provide a platform to avail coaching classes that donot require students to spend lakhs of rupees.