More than eight years after moving to the United States, an Indian businessman shared a sobering examination of immigrant life, loneliness, resilience and the challenge of building a life from nothing to something in a new country.In a social media post on Instagram, the founder recalled her journey from working in data science and AI to becoming an entrepreneur, startup advisor, content creator, and AI educator in the US.“It’s been over 8 years since I moved to the United States,” she wrote, before describing how immigration changed her personal and professional life.According to the businessman, adapting to a new country requires much more than just changing addresses.
This meant learning how to navigate unfamiliar customs, social norms, and professional environments while trying to establish a sense of belonging.“Being an immigrant teaches you a lot,” she wrote.“It teaches you how to walk into rooms where no one knows your story and still thinks you belong.”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 began her career in the United States as a data science and artificial intelligence specialist before facing a long and demanding immigration process.“Then came the arduous immigration process that tested my patience, resilience, and self-belief more times than I can count.”Over time, she put traditional work aside and built her own business, working as an entrepreneur while advising startups, teaching AI, and creating content.“None of this happened overnight,” she wrote.She credited the United States with helping her grow professionally, but said immigration also came with emotional challenges that were often overlooked.“Professionally, the United States has taught me to ask for what I deserve, to speak up when something doesn’t feel right, and to stop scaling back my ambitions in order to make others comfortable.”At the same time, she described the loneliness that many immigrants experience after leaving their homeland.“But immigration also comes with a very specific kind of loneliness,” she wrote.“You’re not just moving countries.”“You’re rebuilding your entire life from scratch.”The businessman said immigrants often have to actively search for housing, employment, visas, health care, taxes, friendships and identity issues with little guidance, all while trying to settle into an unfamiliar environment.“You’re discovering apartments, jobs, visas, friendships, health care, taxes, identity, belonging, and a hundred little things that no one prepares you for.”She also spoke about the criticism she faced from strangers due to her decision to move abroad.“Strangers have asked me to come back to India and contribute to the economy.”“Strangers have told me I left my mother alone.”In response to those comments, she said that a person’s relationship with his family and his country cannot be measured by the place in which he lives.“What they don’t understand is that geography doesn’t determine how much you love your family.
Geography does not determine how much you care about your parents. Geography does not determine your patriotism.”The founder said it is possible for an individual to stay connected to their roots while pursuing opportunities elsewhere.“You can love where you come from and still choose to build a life somewhere else. You can chase greater opportunities without abandoning your roots.”Looking back on her decision to move to the US, she said it was never about turning her back on India.
Instead, it was about taking a chance on herself and pursuing opportunities in a place where success was due.“For me, moving here wasn’t about leaving home behind. It was about betting on myself in a place where I had to make my way into every room. And that’s something I will never apologize for.”
Who is Aishwarya Srinivasan?
Aishwarya Srinivasan is an Indian-origin data scientist, AI educator and entrepreneur who developed an interest in data science at a young age.
She studied Computer Science at VIT, where she completed 11 internships across organizations including EY, Microsoft, TCS and the National Informatics Centre. During her undergraduate years, she also co-authored five research papers and worked on projects ranging from handwriting recognition software to stock market forecasting models.She later earned her master’s degree from 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 spent three years at IBM in the US, where she filed a patent related to automated trading using reinforcement learning. She joined Google to work on data science applications in the retail sector.
In addition to her professional work, Srinivasan launched a volunteer mentorship platform to help students and AI professionals learn, network, and explore careers in AI and data science. Her mother was a research scientist at the International Management Institute (IMI) in Delhi.
