Madhavi Vuppalapati

Early life and education

Born in Chirala, Andhra Pradesh, India to Ramarao Vuppalapati, an industrialist and professor of physics, and Murthy Devi, a homemaker, Madhavi is the second of 3 children. She attended St. Anthony’s High School, where she was the top student in her class. She went on to study computer science at Osmania University in Hyderabad, where she graduated in 1993 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree. Madhavi went on to attend Carnegie Mellon University, graduating in 1995 with a master's degree in Computational Mathematics.

Career

Madhavi joined Alcoa as a contract design engineer shortly after graduating, and began working on various assignments in the Pittsburgh area. After being laid off three times in three years due to project cancellations and a sketchy economy, a time she attributes to being the turning point in her career, Madhavi decided to go into business for herself. She founded Prithvi Information Solutions in 1998, and together with several friends from CMU oriented the company toward providing software R&D and data analytics services. Initially to float the business, Prithvi engaged in consulting work which it further expanded to software and IT services provided from the Prithvi’s India facility. The company grew quickly and went public in 2005 on revenues of $60 M.
In 2006 Madhavi returned to her alma mater to help Turing Award winner Dr. Raj Reddy establish the Global Innovation Center in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Entrepreneurship

As an entrepreneur herself, Madhavi supports entrepreneurship through her involvement with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) and personal mentoring of five craft-based microbusinesses (see Philanthropy and Charitable Works below). She served on the Boards of TIE Pittsburgh from 2006–2008, and TIE Seattle from 2010.

Recognition

Commitment to education

Chief among Madhavi’s interests is promoting education and livelihood generation (see Philanthropy and Charitable Work below) in India and Africa. In the United States, her efforts are predominantly focused on improving opportunity through education. She is an active member of the Bellevue School District, and through Prithvi invests in developing internet-based learning solutions for the schools of tomorrow.

In 2010 she was elected to the Board of Pratham (Seattle), a non-profit organization focused on education in India.

Philanthropy and charity

Madhavi is deeply concerned about access to education and livelihood generation. Expanding on the concept of microfinance, livelihood generation couples business and marketing expertise with micro-financing. Through NPO Avani Giving, Madhavi provides business mentorship and financial assistance to four groups in India and one group in South Africa.

Madhavi maintains strong connections with India, and spends some of her time living there and participating in charitable work. She is a patron of the Anbagam charity which pays for higher education of orphans supported by the Anbagam Orphanage near Trichy (India).

Controversy

On September 6, 2013, United States District Court Western District of Washington at Seattle entered a judgment against Prithvi Solutions Inc. ordering them to pay over $17 million to Kyko Global Inc. in a lawsuit filed by the latter. To recover the penalty, Madhavi Vuppalapati received court’s notice for sale of personal property on February 12, 2014. The court directed the Sheriff to auction and sell her 2006 Lexus RX4005D, along with her jewelry and miscellaneous household items. An arrest warrant was issued against Vuppalapati on 16th Oct 2014 by The King County Court, Washington.