Dr. Gitanjali Swamy is a Managing Partner at IoTask, an “Innovation of Things” (IoT) company. She has founded, built, served as a board director in successful innovation enterprises, worked on investments from seed stage to over a Billion USD and held investment/strategy professional roles at global leaders including Carlyle Group, Booz-Allen & Hamilton or operating-roles at MathWorks, Mentor Graphics. Her projects include global innovative public-private entities such as MIT's Opencourseware, the Auto-ID Consortium and the MIT Engine investment vehicle. Dr. Swamy received her B. Tech(EE) from IIT Kanpur, Ph.D.(EECS) from U.C. Berkeley, her MBA from Harvard.

Under the leadership of Senator Cindy Friedman she and fellow IITAGNE members Mandy Pant and Ranjani Saigal have been working on Senate bill 939, or S.939 to fill the loopholes in the Sexual Harassment protection especially as it relates to the world of investment. 

Learn more about this landmark legislation. 

Please click here to support this bill. 

Engineering was always very beautiful because of its logic, structure and creativity. I have always loved building things and engineering was all about building new things. 

I think what I am most proud about is the way of thinking rationally and systematically about any problem. Engineers are problem solvers! 

I was motivated to the business world when I realized that however much I loved solving engineering problems, the course of my life would be determined by effectiveness in human systems. There is limited purpose in building an engineering product that no one wants to buy or invest in. 

Many people forget that money is just an enabling tool to help realize human potential.  To  me I am most excited when we allocate money that would create a better world and bring out new innovations to benefit humanity. I’ve always found that most exciting; Whether it’s helping start MIT open courseware, founding tech startups, helping pivot a tech venture to a successful outcome, funding socially responsible community owned companies with Fabindia, or writing the business plan for the MIT Engine to raise capital  — each one is exciting in what we enabled through putting investment capital to good use. 

We created Iotask to be an “innovation of things” advisory and consulting business. Iotask provides us with a platform to engage in a variety of different types of projects; we help clients vision, roadmap and realize innovation businesses, we work with governments to create public-private ventures and we take principal positions in incubating new businesses. 

As a woman entrepreneur and investor, I had first hand experience of just how loaded the game was. Women form 50 percent of businesses in the United States, 30 percent of business globally and only receive 2-3 percent of venture and related types of funding. Think about that — 50 percent of the population continues to receive just 2-3 percent of private capital! All this despite the fact that women founded businesses have double the capital efficiency and a significantly higher percentage of growth companies. 

Much of this gap is due to bad social norms and non existent legal protections  — it turns out that in 50 states in the US, the sexual harassment and discrimination code does not cover private investors like venture capitalists. It covers employer-employee and landlord -tenant relationships but surprisingly not investors that entrepreneurs are completely dependent on for livelihood. 

So it’s not actually unlawful for a Weinstein type perpetrator to proposition an entrepreneur ( or someone working for an entrepreneurial company)   In return for (or under the promise of/threat to withhold) investment — something that would correspondingly land any regular employer in very hot water! 

Under senator Friedman’s leadership we are working to close this glaring loophole that is impacting women’s livelihood and the nations  economic progress in such a dramatic manner. 

The statistics above speak for themselves. We have a pointless labour and capital market gap — Morgan Stanley estimates that it is a trillion dollar economic investing  blind spot that is destroying women’s ability to earn livelihood. The state and country are losing an incredible amount of economic growth, progress and jobs that would result if these businesses were funded properly. Additionally, the  lack of proper legal protections have resulted in an incredibly predatory and exploitative entrepreneurial ecosystem where unacceptable, perverse individuals and social norms thrive today. 

Here are 3 things everyone must do 

1. Ask your local state senator to support or cosponsor the bill (MA Bill 939)

2. Forward the request for support to as many people as you know

3 Reach out to us or the office of senator Friedman to express your support for the bill