I grew up in India in a home where education wasn't just valued - it was the chosen family profession. My grandfather and both parents were professors, and our house was always full of books, students dropping by with questions, and dinner-table debates that ran long past dessert. I learned early that a good teacher doesn't just deliver answers; they teach you how to think. That belief has shaped every chapter of my life since.

But my story is not one of ease. I lost my father when I was seven, and my mother raised me and my younger brother on her own - no small feat in India, where a single-parent household came with cultural challenges all its own. I would be remiss not to mention my grandmother and my aunts, who were a constant source of strength when despair hit hard. I miss my grandmother every day. In a childhood where so much felt uncertain, education was the one thing I could control, the one thing I could make work for me. So I hustled. I studied harder than anyone, became a top student, and treated every exam and every classroom as a door I could push open myself. No one was going to hand me an opportunity - but no one could take away what I learned.

Education opened the world to me. It carried me from my childhood classrooms in India to a career in technology that has spanned three continents - Asia, Europe, and North America. Along the way, I've worked on engineering teams with colleagues from every imaginable background, solved problems under pressure, managed budgets and timelines, and learned how to listen carefully to people who see the world differently from me. I climbed that ladder without a mentor to guide me - every step, from young engineer to technology executive, was built on my own decisions, my own risks, and my own hard work. That's why, when I build teams, I look beyond professional polish and believe in sharing opportunities. I ensure my teams are the most diverse in the organization. Living and working across cultures taught me something I carry with me every day: talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. Great schools are how we close that gap.

When my husband and I chose to put down roots here, we did what so many families do - we looked at the schools first. This community and this district are where our children are growing up. I've sat at the kitchen table helping with homework, cheered from the sidelines and auditorium seats, volunteered in classrooms, and had the conversations every parent has about what's working in our schools and what could be better. I'm not running for school board as an outsider with theories. I'm running as a mom with kids in our schools. I see both their promise and their challenges up close, and I have been involved and engaged with the district since 2015.

My volunteering has always been entrepreneurial: when I see a gap, I build something to fill it. I co-founded Access Education RRISD, a first-of-its-kind organization in Central Texas supporting public education, and earlier in my career founded a Women in Technology advisory board to open doors for women in my industry. I've led a Girl Scout troop for six years, taught at Chinmaya Mission Austin, and served on Round Rock ISD's Student Health Advisory Committee and its Leadership Program. Today I serve on the board of the National Association of Counsel for Children and as a City of Austin Commissioner for Immigrant Affairs. I don't wait for someone else to solve a problem - I roll up my sleeves and start building.

I bring to this role the analytical mindset of an engineer, the global perspective of someone who has built a life on three continents, and the deep respect for teachers that comes from being raised by them. I know what it takes to ask hard questions about data and budgets, and I know that behind every number in a district report is a child, a teacher, and a family.

My grandparents and parents devoted their lives to their students. In my own way, I want to do the same - by making sure every child in our district, no matter where they come from, what their beliefs are, or what language is spoken at home, gets the kind of education that opens the world for them, the way it did for me.