The event will be held on September 22 in Arlington, VA.
Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, will deliver keynote address at Pratham USA’s annual gala in Washington, DC.
Another headliner at the event will be singer and songwriter Vasudha Sharma, said Chetan Rao, president of Pratham’s DC chapter, in an email Wednesday.
The gala will be held at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View on September 22, he added.
Founded in 1994 by social activist and entrepreneur Madhav Chavan and educationist Farida Lambay, with the mission of providing “quality education†to children in India, Pratham has had a robust presence in the United States since the late 1990s.
Saujani, a former New York City Deputy Public Advocate, founded Girls Who Code in 2012 to encourage and increase the number of women in computer science. In April, the organization announced that it has reached 90,000 girls in all 50 states. Its goal is to achieve gender parity in entry level computer science jobs by 2027.
Last year, Pratham raised $275,000 at its annual gala to support its program in India. The chapter raised more than $500,000 in 2017.
Keynote speakers at Pratham’s DC galas in previous years include Indian actor R. Madhavan (2017), US-India Strategic Partnership Forum President Mukesh Aghi (2016), MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga (2014) and Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India Arvind Subramanian (2013).
Singer Sharma was a founding member of the now-disbanded Indian pop group Aasma. The Berkley-educated musician is one of the rising stars of Indian Indie music.
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