Two employees of Microsoft, including Indian-American Vaniya Agrawal, disrupted a ceremony celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary.
On Friday, at a Microsoft event, one of the company’s employee Ibtihal Aboussad disrupted a speech by the company’s AI head, Mustafa Suleyman, to call for the company to end its work with the Israeli government. Later, another employee, Indian-American Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted a Q&A session, which included Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. After the incidents, event staff asked both employees to leave the venue.
After the protest, Vaniya sent her resignation, effective April 11. However, the company accepted her resignation effective immediately. Moreover, the company also fired Aboussad. The company said that her employment had been terminated due to “acts of misconduct,” said a report by Bloomberg. Agarwal, in her resignation, accused Microsoft of violating its own human rights commitments.
Who Is Vaniya Agrawal?
Vaniya earned her Bachelor of Science in software engineering from the Arizona State University (ASU) in 2016-19 and graduated with a summa cum laude, says her LinkedIn profile.
She was among the select 35 students at ASU to receive the prestigious Grace Hopper Scholarship. Moreover, this enabled her to attend the 2017 Grace Hopper Conference.
Before beginning her career in software engineering, Vaniya worked in several other roles as well. Prior to beginning her career as a software engineer, she worked as a tea consultant and social media manager at Adagio Teas. Vaniya also worked as a medical assistant and receptionist at the True Health Medical Centre, between March 2016 and December 2017.
Vaniya was working as a software engineer in Microsoft, reported Bloomberg last week. She was affiliated with No Azure for Apartheid, a group that has protested Microsoft’s sales to the Israeli military over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.
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