Our speaker today is Shruti Challa, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, investor, and international public speaker. Her education began at Topeka Collegiate School in Mrs. Young’s Pre-k. During her time at TCS, she was involved in every possible activity, among which was advancing to Nationals for History Day, placing 1st in the nation during her 8th grade year. My memories of Shruti started before I ever had her as a student! It was through her talent show performances that I was first exposed to the beauty of Indian Dance. While my first memory of Shruti involved her dance, my most lasting memory involves the award I gave her at her 8th grade awards ceremony. I am not sure what I called it, but it had to do with the fact that although Shruti was not on the mathcounts team, one would NEVER know it from the amazing effort she put forth. She worked as hard (if not harder) than any one of the team members. Shruti wanted to learn, not so she could win an award, but simply because she wanted to learn! This passion for learning is still alive, and I am sure is responsible for much of her current success
Watch Shruti's presentation on YouTube
After graduating in 2001 from TCS, Shruti attended Topeka High School where she competed heavily in Debate and Forensics, placing at both the state and national levels. She also was a state level tennis player, served as senior class president, and ranked 2nd in her graduating class.
Shruti attended Stanford University where she majored in Economics and Poitical Science. At 27, she has worked for a premier venture fund with investments in Facebook and Space X, been part of a core team acquired by Groupon in November of 2011, and has started her third company focused in video enabled services. She recently spent three weeks in South Asia, on behalf of the US State Department, giving talks on entrepreneurship, and has written for major publications including Forbes, Fast Company and TechCrunch.
TCS is proud of Shruti and deeply honored to have her give this year’s graduation address.