San Leandro/Calif, Jul 19: Indian American thought leader and social entrepreneur Priya Haji was found dead in her home July 14 at the age of 44.
She leaves behind two young children, an 11-month-old daughter, Zen, and two-year-old son, Omi.
Haji — whose unusual name reflected her ethnic mix of a Hindu mother and Muslim father — was one of the most effective and influential activists in the South Asian American community.
Best known for her most recent venture, a personal financial savings app called SaveUp that empowers low-income people to save money using a unique incentive program, Haji was also the cofounder of World of Good, a fair-trade and sustainable marketplace model that was acquired by eBay in February of 2010.
But it was Free at Last, a nonprofit she founded in working-class East Palo Alto while she was still a senior at nearby Stanford University, which first put her on the radar among Indian Americans because of the way she took her experiences in the real world and then applied them to her education, instead of the other way around.
In East Palo Alto, she told the TriplePundit news site, “drug turf wars led to an exceedingly high murder rates and there were no treatment programs and absolutely no access to alternate sentencing.
“Free at Last created mobile health clinics, affordable housing, economic development and counseling to thousands of people. From Free at Last, I went to business school. I wanted the opportunity to think freely and to study some of the things that I had learned by doing, and I really wanted to think about how to utilize market-based-models and self-renewing approaches to create social change.”
SaveUp co-founder and CFO Sammy Shreibati told TechCrunch, “I am incredibly saddened to write that my friend and co-founder Priya Haji passed away at her home on the evening of July 14, 2014. Her 11-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son survive her.” India-West's inquiry to SaveUp was not returned by press time.
“Priya's nickname was ‘Firecracker,' a name that her mother gave her because her birthday was on the 4th of July. At SaveUp we fed off her energy and passion to build something that helped the world.
“From her non-profit work at Free at Last to her ventured-backed companies World of Good and SaveUp, Priya was always striving to help people in everything she did. She was a courageous leader and colleague, but first and foremost a friend.”
According to TechCrunch, Haji's cause of death was not yet verified by medical authorities, though the site said that “early assessments indicate a pulmonary embolism or cardiac event may have occurred.”
Twitter and Facebook are flooded with tributes to Haji. One friend has also started a crowdsourcing fund to help care for her children at https://fundly.com/fund-for-priya-haji-s-children.
Her first start-up was a free clinic in Texas with her father when she was just 16. After earning a BA from Stanford, she went on to earn an MBA from UC Berkeley and was the recipient of honors including a Social Innovation Award from the Social Venture Network, and a recognition by MTV and the DoSomething Foundation as one of the most important young leaders in America. She spoke at the World Economic Forum and was profiled in Forbes and by NPR among many other news outlets.
Haji's upbeat and productive attitude, and proven results, inspired many people. She posted one of her most memorable comments to Twitter in March, in honor of feminist Gloria Steinem's birthday. “I'm a single Indian woman w/2 beautiful children. We can do anything.
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