GTWN Board Member and CEO of 114ai and 3rdiTech, Vrinda Kapoor was invited in June 2023 to join a delegation of Indian entrepreneurs who accompanied Indian PM Narendra Modi for trade talks at the White House.
Anand Mahindra with Mukesh Ambani (far left), Sunita Williams and Vrinda Kapoor (right) | Photo: Twitter/@anandmahindra
The above selfie1 was taken on 26 June 2023 by Anand Mahindra with Mukesh Ambani, Sunita Williams and Vrinda Kapoor in Washington DC. It shows the well-known figures of Chairman of the Mahindra Group, Anand Mahindra and Chairman of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, who are instantly recognised both in India and around the world for their successful business empires.
Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams is also well known for her spacewalks. Vrinda Kapoor was, however, less known to the general public, that is before her inclusion in this important trade delegation last year. Since then, her public profile as a tech entrepreneur and tech leader has had a massive boost in both India and the US.
While in Washington, Vrinda was a guest along with Mahindra and Ambani at the State Dinner hosted by US President Joe Biden for PM Modi. The next morning, she was seated next to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the India-US Hi-Tech Handshake, which was also attended by the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. The thematic focus of the forum was on ‘AI for All’ and ‘Manufacturing for Mankind’.
We are very proud that since joining the International Board of the GTWN she has played an important role as a thought leader, contributing to our ongoing discussion about how humanity can reap the full benefits and overcome the challenges of Artificial Intelligence.2
Vrinda is an AI expert as the CEO of 114ai, a data infrastructure company which builds tools to make AI more accessible and usable. The company was established in 2019, after Vrinda experienced the use of AI enabled technology in the healthcare sector. With a background in life sciences and healthcare, rather than computer science, Vrinda became increasingly interested in the digital transformation of patient management systems, in both the public and private hospital systems in India. From there she became interested in addressing the challenges of AI systems, which were preventing the promise of AI from being realised. She hopes that enabling more women to work in AI related areas will normalise the involvement of women in this specialised area.
Vrinda is in fact a deep-tech entrepreneur with an impressive list of achievements to her name. She works at the intersection of national security and technology and has grown prominently in the technology industry in the past few years. In addition to 114ai, she is also the CEO of semiconductor company 3rdiTech (pronounced third-eye tech), which was incubated in IIT Delhi in 2018 and was part of the Berkeley SkyDeck accelerator programme in 2020. .The company designs application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or customised chips for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). It entered into a strategic partnership in 2022 with US defence major General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) and has emerged as one of the key players in the aerospace and semiconductor sectors in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last June.
GTWN wishes Vrinda and her team all the best as she continues to build her profile as a leading global tech entrepreneur and visionary.
- https://www.narendramodi.in/prime-minister-narendra-modi-s- participation-in-the-india-us-hi-tech-handshake-event-571472 ↩︎
114ai is a data infrastructure company, which builds tools to make AI more accessible and usable. The company was established in 2019, after Vrinda experienced the use of AI enabled technology in the healthcare sector. With a background in life sciences and healthcare, rather than computer science, Vrinda became increasingly interested in the digital transformation of patient management systems, in both the public and private hospital systems in India. From there she became interested in addressing the challenges of AI systems, which were preventing the promise of AI from being realised. She hopes that enabling more women to work in AI related areas will normalise the involvement of women in this specialised area. “I would like to see the industry make an effort to inform young women graduates about the full range of work opportunities that are out there for them – not just those who study computer science, or even STEM, but women from all the liberal arts”, adds Vrinda. Of the challenges facing us over the next ten or so years, Vrinda sees cybersecurity as a major one, especially for individuals who tend not to understand how vulnerable they may be, as smart devices are brought into the home environment, especially around children. “I would like to see senior leaders in the industry, including the GTWN members, working together on making AI more understandable and building back trust with the community.
