Asha Jadeja Motwani
Founder, Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation
Asha Jadeja Motwani is a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist who has invested in over 200 technology startups in the Bay Area. As an entrepreneur herself, her investing philosophy is designed to ignite young entrepreneurs into becoming disruptive change makers. “Making a dent in poverty requires money. Without a strong focus on economic growth, developing countries like India will continue to be stuck in a cycle of poverty.
The need of the hour is to let technology-driven growth enable India to break out of the cycle of poverty. It is critical that we identify and remove legacy obstacles to growth as fast as possible.”
All of Asha’s venture and philanthropic initiatives in India have been designed to help the nation break free of this cycle of poverty. “Exponential growth is possible through technology-enabled entrepreneurship, lean government, world-class education, and women’s leadership.”
Gender equality, inclusive growth, lean government, and national security are core interests of MITLI (Motwani Institute for Thought Leadership in Innovation) – an unprecedented bridge between the US and India. Asha created MITLI as an advocacy platform designed to drive policy changes in India.
A firm believer in the power of grassroots socio-economic movements Asha created MakerFest in 2013. A powerful network of makers and innovators that pro-actively problem-solve for their own communities. Makerfest is now prolific in Africa, India, and more recently in Brazil. She created India’s first network of dozens of Fablabs designed to spark a just in a time manufacturing environment in India.
With the help from Prof. Sugata Mitra, Asha also set up India’s first self-supported School in the Cloud in Ahmedabad. This has now grown to over 60 locally managed and sustained “schools in the cloud” within South Asia.
Asha is a prolific thought leader rooted within the milieus of Stanford, UC Berkeley, Google, Hoover Institute, Council on Foreign Relations, and Brookings USA. She is a limited partner in over 20 Bay Area venture funds, Acumen Fund NY, and Kawasafi Fund, Africa.
As a prolific collector of Indian art, Asha is currently engaged with Stanford University Cantor Art Museum in bringing top Indian artists into a global forefront.
