In celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, it’s essential to recognize and honor the incredible contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women in the tech industry.
Their stories of resilience, creativity, and leadership inspire and underscore the vital role of diversity in fostering technological advancement.
During this special month, we have highlighted the achievements of some of these trailblazers, celebrated their contributions, and explored how they are paving the way for future generations.
Reshma Saujani – Girls Who Code And Moms First
Reshma Saujani is a leading activist and the founder of Moms First and Girls Who Code.
Saujani has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women’s and girls’ economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in the tech sector, and, most recently, advocating for policies to support moms impacted by the pandemic.
In her nine-year role as the CEO of Girls Who Code, Saujani grew the organization to one of the country’s largest and most prestigious non-profits, with over 300,000 girls taught through computer science education programming.
Saujani is also the author of the international bestseller Brave, Not Perfect.
Trisha Prabhu – Founder And CEO Of ReThink
Trisha Prabhu is the 23-year-old founder and CEO of ReThink, a custom-built keyboard designed to prevent cyberbullying before it takes place.
Innovator, social entrepreneur and global advocate Prabhu created the platform ReThink to help detect and stop online hate.
Her research has found that, when using ReThink, adolescents change their minds 93% of the time and decide not to post an offensive message.
Prabhu has received worldwide acclaim in the business world. In 2016, President Obama and the US State Department invited her to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit to showcase her work.
ReThink was also featured on ABC’s Shark Tank and was named the youngest member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 2021 Social Impact List
Tessa Lau – Dirty Robotics
Dr. Tessa Lau is an experienced entrepreneur with AI, machine learning, and robotics expertise.
She is the current founder and CEO at Dusty Robotics, which is on a mission to create robot-powered tools for the modern construction workforce.
Before Dusty, she was CTO/co-founder at Savioke, where she orchestrated the deployment of 75+ delivery robots into hotels and high-rises.
Previously, Dr Lau was a Research Scientist at Willow Garage, where she developed simple interfaces for personal robots.
Dr.Lau has won several awards, including INC’s Top 5 Innovative Women to Watch in Robotics in 2018 and SVBJ Woman of Influence in 2017.
