‘Back in India’: Indian-American founder opens up about 8-year immigration journey and how she ‘breaks into every room’

More than eight years after moving to the United States, an Indian entrepreneur shares a reality check on immigrant life, loneliness, resilience and the challenges of starting from scratch in a new country.In an Instagram social media post, the founder reflected on her journey from working in data science and artificial intelligence to becoming an American entrepreneur, startup consultant, content creator, and artificial intelligence educator.“It has been over eight years since I moved to the United States,” she writes, before describing how immigration has changed her personal and professional life.The entrepreneur says adapting to a new country requires more than just a change of address. This means learning to adapt to unfamiliar customs, social norms, and professional environments while working to build a sense of belonging.“Being an immigrant can teach you a lot,” she wrote.“It teaches you how to walk into a room where no one knows your story and still believe you belong there.”She said the experience also meant adapting to a different culture, work environment and social life, while gradually building confidence in her abilities.The founder explained that she started her career in the United States as a data science and artificial intelligence professional before facing a long and demanding immigration process.“Then came a grueling immigration process that tested my patience, resilience and faith in myself countless times.”Over time, she put traditional employment aside and built her own business as an entrepreneur while consulting for startups, teaching AI, and creating content.“None of this happened overnight,” she wrote.She credits the U.S. with helping her advance professionally, but says immigration also poses emotional challenges that are often overlooked.“Professionally, America has taught me to seek my own worth, speak up when something doesn’t feel right, and not to scale back my ambitions to make others comfortable.”At the same time, she describes the loneliness that many immigrants experience after leaving their home countries.“But immigration also comes with a very special kind of loneliness,” she writes.“You don’t just move countries.”“You rebuild your whole life from scratch.”The entrepreneur said immigrants often must actively navigate housing, employment, visas, health care, taxes, friendships and identity issues with little guidance while trying to adapt to an unfamiliar environment.“You have to figure out apartments, jobs, visas, friendships, health care, taxes, identity, belonging, and a hundred little things that no one has prepared for you.”She also spoke about the criticism she faced from strangers over her decision to move abroad.“I’ve had strangers tell me ‘Go back to India and contribute to the economy.'”“I’ve had strangers tell me that I ‘left my mother behind.'”Responding to these comments, she argued that a person’s relationship to their family and homeland cannot be measured by where they live.“What they don’t understand is this: Geography doesn’t define the depth of your love for your family. Geography does not define how much you care about your parents. Geography does not define your patriotism. “The founders say they can stay connected to their roots while looking for opportunities elsewhere.“You can love your hometown and still choose to build a life somewhere else. You can chase bigger opportunities without abandoning your roots.”Looking back on her decision to move to the US, she says it was never about turning her back on India. Rather, it’s about giving yourself a chance and pursuing opportunities in a place where success must be earned.“For me, moving here wasn’t about leaving home. It was about betting on myself to be in a place where I had to earn my own money to get into every room. That’s something I will never apologize for.”

Who is Aishwarya Srinivasan?

Aishwarya Srinivasan is an Indian-origin data scientist, artificial intelligence educator, and entrepreneur who developed an interest in data science at an early age. She studied Computer Science at VIT and completed 11 internships with organizations such as EY, Microsoft, TCS and National Informatics Centre. While in college, she also co-authored five research papers and worked on projects ranging from handwriting recognition software to stock market prediction models.She later earned her master’s degree at Columbia University, where she contributed to the open source machine learning library scikit-learn and worked on a research project focused on predicting acute kidney injury during surgery. After graduation, she worked for three years at IBM in the United States, where she applied for a patent related to machine trading using reinforcement learning. She joined Google to work on the application of data science in retail. In addition to her professional work, Srinivasan has launched a volunteer mentoring platform to help students and AI professionals learn, network and explore careers in AI and data science. Her mother is a research scientist at the International Management Institute (IMI), Delhi.