Privahini Bradoo, Suma Reddy, and Ann Marie Sastry.By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: President Obama is slated to host three Indian Americans at the White House for their roles in shaping different startups that served as trailblazers within their respective industries.
The three women are among the “presidential ambassadors for global entrepreneurship ” chosen to attend White House’s first ever Demo Day, which is focused on inclusive entrepreneurship and showcasing startups whose founders come from diverse backgrounds that are largely underrepresented in the tech community.
Privahini Bradoo of San Francisco, Calif., Suma Reddy from New York, N.Y., Ann Marie Sastry of Ann Arbor, Mich., and other honorees will meet with President Obama on Aug. 5, the White House announced ahead of the inaugural event.
Privahini Bradoo’s BlueOak recycles electronics and mobile phones in an effort to mitigate the steady onslaught of electronic waste produced by humanity’s insatiable demand for the latest gadgets.
According to the company’s website, in the U.S. alone consumers dispose of some 3.2 million tons of e-waste annually; more than 80 percent ends up in the trash, contributing more than 70 percent of all the toxic metals that end up in U.S. landfills.
“Every day U.S. consumers throw away enough cell phones to blanket 50 football fields. To … Bradoo, people might as well throw away their jewelry: a ton of phones contains as much gold as 70 tons of gold ore,” wrote White House.
Suma Reddy is a co-founder of Waddle, former Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, and an MBA graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Reddy decided to wade into the tech sector more than a year ago with a mission to develop a fun and useful product that would allow friends to help each other discover interesting venues to go.
Waddle integrates with social platforms, displaying a map of where the subscriber has traveled, based on posts to FourSquare, Facebook, Twitter and the like. By using date filtering to figure out when these events occur, the app lets users recall events by location, as opposed to having to sift through a timeline, disclosed the organization Startup Weekend, which is an offshoot of Google for Entrepreneurs.
She began developing her networks and skills by learning UX Design from New York’s The Flatiron School and becoming an NYC Co-Director of Lesbians Who Tech, reported the Office of the Press Secretary.
Ann Marie Sastry, whose father migrated from India, is a leading materials science researcher with over 25 years of experience and 120 scientific publications to her name.
After spending 17 years as a Professor at University of Michigan, doing research for DARPA, the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and other sponsors in government agencies and the private sector, Sastry decided to found her own company, called Sakti3, according to LinkedIn.
“[Sastry] is using materials science to develop the next generation of solid state lithium batteries that will power mobile phones, computers, and even cars,” the White House said of the academic-cum-entrepreneur.
In addition to meeting with the presidential ambassadors for global entrepreneurship during Demo Day, Obama will also announce a new public- and private-sector commitments that promise to provide more Americans with the opportunity to pursue bold, potentially revolutionary ideas.
According to Wired, the goal of the day is to shed light on the fact that around only 1 percent of venture-capital backed startups are launched by African Americans, and only around 3 percent are founded by women.