“We were two sisters and I was the younger one—so it was a privilege to be born because we were born in a time where female infanticide was very common in India. So for my mother, she had to literally fight for me to be born,” explained Shah.
Shah added that in her younger years, her mother wanted to pursue fine arts, but her parents made her to study Home Science to prepare her for marriage and motherhood.
“She married my father who was very unconventional, and I would say very ahead of his time for those days. He's the one who really helped her to pursue her passion. And for us, it was really their combined experiences that really taught us the amount of progress that we had for our times. And the fact that they really wanted us to just be independent and make it in life.”
Not only has Shah ‘made it in life,’ but the self-described 'student for life' holds a master’s in computer science and engineering as well as an MBA in marketing and strategy. She also continues to advance her knowledge in pharmacology and medicine with course work at Harvard Medical School.
