India-born woman helps design rocket that takes Jeff Bezos to space tomorrow

Gulf Today Report

Indian-Americans are making a stellar mark for themselves in the US in a major way. The fact that in less than two months, over 50 Indian-Americans have occupied key positions in the Biden administration speaks volumes for their enterprise and talent. As President Joe Biden remarked, in a light vein though, "Indians are taking over the country."

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Some of the top American firms are helmed by Indian-Americans: Sundar Pichai (Google), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Vikas Khosla (co-founder of Sun Microsystems), Baiju Bhatt, who founded the stock trading app Robinhood, to name a few.

Richard Branson carries Sirisha Bandla on his shoulders after the successful trip to the edge of space . File/Reuters

However, there are some India-born women who are already headlining news.

Sirisha Bandla, who hails from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, is one. She is the Vice President of Government Affairs in Virgin Galactic and has already made a trip to the edge of space with the swashbuckling Richard Branson.

Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson.

Another woman who has stolen the limelight is Maharashtra-born Sanjal Gavande, a systems engineer at Blue Origin, the company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos. She always dreamt of designing aerospace rockets and had a role in designing the New Shephard rocket set to take Bezos and the crew to space tomorrow, July 20.

Bezos will be flying to space in the world's first unpiloted suborbital flight.

Sanjal has done her Masters in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technological University.