Business / South Asian Heritage Month 2022: 10 South Asians Shaking Up The Tech Space

South Asian Heritage Month 2022: 10 South Asians Shaking Up The Tech Space

Business May 02, 2022

by Hina P. Ansari

Welcome to South Asian Heritage Month 2022 edition! This month we have a 4-part series honouring South Asians who are making positive impacts across the board. We kick it all off with our look at 10 South Asians who are shaking up the tech space.

Parag Agrawal

CEO, Twitter

**South Asian Heritage Month 2022: 10 South Asians Shaking Up The Tech Space: Parag Agrawal.** Photo Credit: www.yahoo.ca

Parag Agrawal is arguably the most newsworthy tech CEO right now. When Elon Musk one of the largest shareholders of Twitter was offered a board seat, Agrawal found himself in the eye of the storm. A week later that board seat offer was rescinded as Musk as per reports, didn’t want to go through the background check, a process expected by all boardmembers. Speculation quickly arose as to why the seat was offered and then not. There was some chatter among the business community that the real reason Musk stepped away is because of the condition that he not own more than 14.9% of Twitter stock. Musk then came back looking to purchase all of Twitter at $54.20 USD a share. Agrawal quickly brushed back Musk’s attempts by instilling the Poison Pill approach often used by companies to avoid hostile takeover. However that didn’t last. Due to shareholder’s request for Agrawal to take Musk’s approach seriously, a week later Elon Musk became the new owner of Twitter, putting Agrawal’s future in limbo.

Sharmi Albrechtsen

Co-Founder & CEO, SmartGurlz

Sharmi Albrechtsen founded SmartGurlz a first robotics company focused on girls with various products includig digital learning with hardware and software tools and Augmented Reality products. A former communications specialist and journalist, Albrechtsen’s passion for STEM led her to realize that there wasn’t anything worthy for her daughter Nina to play with. So in 2016 she founded SmartGurlz and a year later she found herself on ABC’s Shark Tank where she managed to get close a deal with Daymond John. In 2020 her company received a $9 million USD valuation. Now SmartGurlz holds the title of being the only company that creates robotics to help girls learn to code and understand the value of STEM.

Baiju Bhatt

Co-Founder, Robinhood

Baiju Bhatt along with his friend Vled Tenev co-founded the fintech company Robinhood in 2013. Since then, Robinhood’s no-commission stock trading app has revolutionized that space. He was the Co-CEO up until November 2020. Now Bhatt holds the title of Chief Creative Officer as well as being a boardmember of the company which went public on NASDAQ in July 2021 with a valuation of $32 billion USD. Bhatt owns 8% of the company giving him a personal valuation of just over $2 billion USD.

Jay Chaudhry

CEO, Zscaler

When it comes to cybersecurity Jay Chaudhry can be seen as the godfather. A serial tech entrepreneur who has founded and sold numberous companies, Chaudhry’s biggest company to date, Zscaler which he founded in 2008, is the one of the biggest companies out there when it comes to cloud cybersecurity. He took his company public in March of 2018 and currently has a market cap of $28.98 billion USD with his family owning just over 42% of the company.

Sal Khan

Founder & CEO, Khan Academy

Salman Amin also known as Sal Khan holds multiple science and electrical engineering degrees from Massachussets Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard Business School. His passion for education started in 2004 when he started making math tutorials for his cousins, so they could learn from him remotely. While working as a hedge fund manager in 2009 he decided to focus his full time to his rapidly growing online school, Khan Academy. Since then the free non-for-profit Khan Academy has created over 6,500 videos through YouTube and Khan Academy. They are focused on educating the world and are of Maths, Physics, Cosmology & Astronomy, History, Economics, and Finance. He understood the value of remote learning and digital education long before it became commonplace and of course due to the Pandemic, the popularity of his online classes skyrocketed boasting numbers of 6.4 million YouTube subscribers as of January 27, 2021. Based out of Mountain View, California, Khan Academy employs over 100 people and has more than 42 million registered users in a dozen languages and across 190 countries.

Apoorva Mehta

Founder & Chairman, Instacart

A graduate of The University of Waterloo, Mehta knew that the tech space was where his heart was at. After successful stints at Blackberry, Qualcomm and Amazon, Mehta decided to venture out on his own in 2012 and launched an app where groceries can be bought and delivered to the home or office. Thus Instacart was born. Based out of San Francisco, California this Canadian knew the value of tapping into the app market and became the go-to app ten years later when the Pandemic locked everyone in and turned to Instacart to get their groceries delivered. During the early days of his new startup shoppers weren’t available so he would shop and deliver the groceries to his customers via Uber (as Mehta didn’t own a car). As of March 2022, Instacart has been valued at $24 billion USD.

Shivani Siroya

Founder & CEO, Tala

Shivani Siroya became familiar with the problem of equal access to capital while she was working with the UN Population in India in 2006. She realized the lack of financing opportunities provided to emerging markets. Markets needed money but there wasn’t a place for them at the economic table. It was during that time she would be meeting with small business owners in India who are strapped for cash with no way out. She would then start lending them her own money with strict guidelines. When she returned to New York two years later she knew that she needed to do something about the problems that she faced. With no tech background she started learning how to code, eventually creating an algorithm which identifies those with good credit. She developed Tala an Android app which one can apply for credit and get an instant answer. Tailored to those in emerging countries. To date Tala has lent over $9 million USD in small loans in 2019 and two years later in 2021 was named by Forbes as one of the Top 50 Fintech Companies in the world.

Anjali Sud

CEO, Vimeo

Appointed CEO in July 2017, Anjali Sud has recognized the vision of the company and what it can offer. Of course being dwarfed by other gigantic competitors (namely, YouTube), she realized that instead of trying to compete with that bohometh it’s best to carve out a unique path for itself. That’s why Vimeo has become the go-to place for corporates to share their narratives and be able to create video content for their clientele and the masses. In May 2021, Sud became the first South Asian woman to take her company public. Since then Vimeo has raised more than $150 million USD to continue with their efforts to provide a platform for small and large business to share their stories, with continued plans for global expansion.

Sabena Suri

Co-Founder, BOXFOX

When Sabena Suri, Chelsea Moore and Jenni Olevero wanted to send a thoughtful gift to their sick friend, they realized that there wasn’t much to write home about. Outside of the traditional baskets, the personal touch was missing. That’s why she decided to join with her co-founders and create BOXFOX in 2014 “creating stronger relationships through personal gifts, powered by the simplest user experiences”. Now with BOXFOX and throught their exclusively created algorithmic platform, customers can create a carefully curated gift box without losing that much needed personal touch. Since their launch in 2014 and with no outside investors, the California-based business made a profit after 5 months and exceeded sales of $7 million USD in 2018 attracting such corporate heavyweights as major clients including Southwest Airlines, Twitter, LinkedIn, Airbnb, VISA and Nike.

Padmasree Warrior

Founder & CEO, Fable

Padmasree Warrior is one of the most powerful women in tech. A former Chief Technology Officer at Motorola, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer at Cisco, she also holds various board positions with Microsoft, Spotify, The Gap Inc. So when she launched Fable in 2019, it was no surprise that the tech world would embrace it. Fable is a digital book club focused in the betterment of mental health and wellness managed to raise $20 million USD in December 2021, in addition to the $7.5 million USD already raised during seed funding round. Fable, based in Palo-Alto California, members can create or join book clubs, get expert recommendations. All the while Fable focuses on the mental health with reading and discussions. Fable most recently gained popularity on BookTok the TikTok for avid readers.

Main Image Photo Credit: www.instagram.com

https://www.bamtheagency.com/blog/2020/03/31/south-asian-women-in-tech

Hina P. Ansari

Author

Hina P. Ansari is a graduate from The University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario). Since then she has carved a successful career in Canada's national fashion-publishing world as the Entertainment/Photo Editor at FLARE Magazine, Canada's national fashion magazine. She was the first South Asian in...

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