India now has many opportunities, says Vineeta Gupta, who is credited as the first woman of Indian origin to take a company public.
Vinita Gupta, who is known as the first woman of Indian origin to take her company public in the US, said that India now is different from its era. At that time, returning to India was not an option, but now good engineers have a lot of opportunities in India.
Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle on the issue of Indian tech leaders in Silicon Valley, Gupta said she still does not feel that coming to the US is a waste or unnecessary.“India has become prosperous enough where good engineers, with technical skills, can get you a good job,” Gupta said. “This was not true when I came.” “We couldn’t go back.”Gupta said Silicon Valley embraces people from all over the world and is the most equal place.
Although new doors have opened in India, technologists still have to come to the United States. “They still have to come here because this valley is based on individual talent and not where you were born or educated,” she said. “It embraces all people from all over the world. It’s more equal than it could be anywhere else.”
“Gupta came to the United States in 1974, a year after earning her bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications from IIT Roorkee, India, in 1973.
She earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1974. In 1985, she co-founded a communications equipment company – Digital Link Corporation – which went public in 1994.Gupta holds two US patents: one for a solid-state relay issued in 1984 and one for a square-root circuit issued in 1986. After retiring from the company, Gupta became a champion of bridges.The environment in the United States became hostile to Indians as Republicans called for an end to the H-1B and OPT programs. A recent poll conducted by YouGov and the Carnegie Foundation of 1,000 Indian-Americans showed that 40% of respondents consider leaving the United States either frequently or occasionally, citing frustration with American policies and concerns about the cost of living and personal safety. A quarter of participants also indicated better career opportunities in other countries.
