JYOTHI REDDY

Like the fabled phoenix bird, Anil Jyothi Reddy rose above the most overwhelming situations of life. From a farm labourer in Narasimhula Gudem Warangal district, Andhra Pradesh where she was born to the CEO of Key Software Solutions, a software development, IT consulting and recruiting firm in Phoenix, USA, Reddy has chartered more than a tough terrain. "Life teaches you everything," she says humbly "and there's still a lot to be done."

Her dream of setting up a school for orphans and educating at least a thousand children to become self-reliant perhaps ties back to her initial years that she spent in an orphanage. Being the youngest girl child among five siblings in an impoverished family, she was sent off to a welfare orphanage. The biggest trauma for the 10-year-old Reddy here was not being able to meet her mother, since she was technically an orphan, while she was here. But it was the pain that fueled the fire of making her life better for herself. While at the orphanage, she attended a government school and grew up dreaming of pursuing a decent career to ensure a decent lifestyle. But while she was still thinking in terms of finding a good job, she was married off at the age of 16 to her cousin and motherhood followed soon after.

Reddy was forced to work as a farm labourer, earning a daily wage of Rs 5. But she was determined and never stopped looking for opportunities. She became a volunteer of NYK (Nehru Yuva Kendra), a central government scheme which sought to create awareness among youth and later took up teaching in a school. Since the income from her job was quite meager, she would stitch petticoats at night to earn an extra buck. She learned typing and eventually earned a BA degree from Dr BR Ambedkar Open University in 1994 besides a postgraduate degree from the Kakatiya University in 1997. Her education got her a relatively better teaching job with a salary of Rs 398 per month. The school was two hours away and utilized that time in an enterprising way, selling saris on her way to work.

A relative's visit from the US prompted her to start thinking about pursuing a career in America. "It wasn't easy, to say the least," she recalls. Money was one thing, obtaining a visa in those days was quite difficult too and I also had to leave my daughters behind, plus being constantly put down by the society." While in the US, none of her relatives wanted to support her and she eventually was taken in as a paying guest by a Gujarati family in New Jersey. A string of jobs - in a gas station, as a baby sitter, a salesperson in a video shop - later, she got employed as a recruiter at a software company in South Carolina. "However, after working for some time here, I was forced to resign since I didn't have a working visa. I once again went back to working for just $ 5 an hour doing several odd jobs until the day I received H1Visa. Getting the visa stamped, was one of the most painful and satisfying experiences of my life. I had to live in Mexico for a long time and came back to the US in 2000 to start my company, Key Software Solutions with my savings of $ 40,000, in Phoenix." The company offers H1 visas to its employees and boasts of a five million dollar annual turnover. "Imagine someone from a remote village of Andhra, going and setting up small shop in Assam. Well, setting up my company in the US was perhaps a million times more difficult compared to that," she smiles. Rock solid support from her husband and daughters - who hold engineering degrees from University of Utah - and her strong determination kept her going through challenge after daunting challenge.

She speaks at various forums including universities, business schools, women's colleges, women groups etc with a special focus on women and youth, while also being involved with orphans' issues. "I would like to work for the empowerment of women, youth and the elderly in India. My vision is to empower rural women between the ages of 18-35 so that they become self-sufficient. I am no longer in a position where I need to worry about my financial health. It's time for me to give back to the society," she says.

- from India Today