Some of the wealthiest Indian Americans in Silicon Valley and the United States raised $1 million for education, medical and leadership programs in impoverished areas of India at the 13th annual American India Foundation gala, held at the Concourse event center in San Francisco on April 13.
The nonprofit, based in Santa Clara, with branches in six other American cities, was created in the aftermath of India’s devastating 2001 Gujarat earthquake and has raised more than $80 million and helped 1.7 million people in the past decade, thanks in part to the group’s co-founder, Lata Krishnan, chief financial officer at Shah Capital Partners in Santa Clara.
The event, themed, “Serve. Learn. Lead. Building the Next Generation of Global Leaders,” honored nearly a dozen participants in the fund’s William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India program, as well as venture capitalist Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures for his philanthropy. Co-chairs included venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and his wife, Neeru; interactive advertising executive Diaz Nesamoney and his wife, Usha; Krishnan and her husband, Ajay Shah; and ICICI Bank. Among the 578 guests were Tibco software billionaire and Golden State Warriors investor Vivek Ranadive and Melissa Roesler; tech executive Kumar Malavalli and his wife, Vijaya; Pradeep Kashyap, a retired Citibank executive in New York; and Erik Anderson of West River Management in Seattle.
Said Sanjay Subhedar, an early AIF supporter and managing founder at Storm Ventures, “The only intervention I like and that makes a difference is education. Other charitable endeavors are temporary fixes that create dependency, rather than solve problems.”
