Youth Spotlight: Driven to Succeed
Adhira Choudhury’s blazing accomplishments in college are a testament to what a young person with initiative and willingness to work hard can achieve.
Graduating from Georgia Tech with the highest honors is rare enough. Doing so in just two years and at just 19 years of age is even more so. What puts Adhira Choudhury in a class of her own is that she wasn’t satisfied with just acing through a bachelor’s degree in computer science. Her many other initiatives and achievements in college, and now her professional career, speak of her immense desire to excel.
Adhira’s team was the third-place winner in Georgia Tech’s Fall 2023 Idea-to-Prototype (I2P) program. She is seen here (R) with leaders of other winning teams.
Adhira’s fast-tracking through college began in high school when she worked on research at Georgia Tech and took core college courses. This experience earned her course credits and gave her an early familiarity with the emerging world of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
As an undergrad student, Adhira headed BloodSight AI, a prototype under Georgia Tech’s Idea-to-Prototype (I2P) program that sought to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze data from blood reports to glean insights on a patient’s health. The prototype not only won third place in I2P but also became the semifinalist in the Emmy Award-winning InVenture Prize at Georgia Tech.
[Right] With her teammates at Partnr, the co-pilot project that won “Overall Track Winner” in AI ATL, the first 36-hour Generative AI Hackathon in Atlanta. From left: Adhira, Ryan Punamiya, and Abhishek Pillai.
More importantly, it gave Adhira a taste of the start-up ecosystem and the thrill of practical work, inspiring her to always look for opportunities beyond coursework. “I’m a huge proponent of practical work in addition to theoretical learning,” Adhira explained. Even while juggling the intense course load she needed to graduate early, Adhira worked as an intern at companies like Cognosos, a local software company, and Deloitte, the global consulting giant.
Evenings and weekends were dedicated to her extracurricular interests. During her two years at Georgia Tech, Adhira served as the Executive Vice President of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Society and a Lead Project Manager of Big Data Big Impact, an organization that uses big data to provide insight into some of the world’s greatest challenges, from poverty to climate action.
In addition to a heavy course load, internship, and other extracurricular commitments, she also participated in hackathons. In 2023, she and her teammates won the title of “Overall Track Winner” in AI ATL, the first 36-hour Generative AI Hackathon in Atlanta. Partnr, the co-pilot project they created, harnessed the power of generative AI and large language models to help consulting firms manage communications.
[Left] Educational supplies being distributed to underserved students in India—made possible by LEAP, an organization co-founded by Adhira.
Speaking about where she got the idea for Partnr, Adhira says, “As an analyst for the AI sector at Deloitte, I was just looking at daily problems many people faced, not just in the consulting firm but in other work environments as well,” Adhira explained. “I realized that, often, a major problem is the consolidation of communication within teams or with clients—communication that is usually spread out in meetings, email correspondence, and reports and proposals.
“So, we created an application to take all that information, organize it by project, and provide automated analytics.” This product could help consultants stay up to date on their team members’ progress on a project or gather details on their recent communications with a client through a chatbot that draws from their communications, meeting audios, and project information.
While Partnr’s innovative nature played a large part in the team’s success, Adhira emphasized that winning a hackathon involves much more than developing a good proof of concept. She feels many students don’t account for the time it takes to create a good pitch, presentation, and video, which adds the icing to the cake. They also fail to simplify their projects to make them understandable to the judges.
[Right] Organizing a fund drive event for LEAP.
Adhira’s penchant for problem-solving extends beyond the world of tech. It drives her mission of supporting underprivileged students abroad, for which she co-founded LEAP (Leveraging Education and Academics for the Poor) Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit while she was in high school. “My dad and I have seen the level of talent in India in terms of education, especially when it comes to kids who are in poverty. Our focus at LEAP is to encourage that talent because educating the youth is a way of bringing a whole village out of poverty.”
In the recent past, LEAP partnered with Asha for Education to create the Nishtha Project, which arranged for high school volunteers in the U.S. to hold virtual tutoring sessions in English and mathematics for underprivileged young girls in West Bengal. With the support of fellow LEAP leaders, the foundation taught middle school students in the U.S. and India to code and create study materials for students in Uttar Pradesh. They used funds raised through bake sales to donate educational supplies to underserved students in India. “It was supposed to be a Diwali gift to the girls we were tutoring. We had volunteers from Asha for Education deliver it to them while we were on call. It was incredible to see their reactions. It was three years ago, and I still remember the look on their faces.”
While Adhira did have to pause LEAP’s main functions because of her college commitments, she plans to revamp the foundation’s projects.
Currently, Adhira is an AI Specialist Solutions Engineer Analyst at Deloitte. She also looks forward to pursuing an MBA a few years down the line. But in her eyes, these opportunities are all stepping stones towards her dream of driving opportunities in the start-up world. “My biggest goal would be to build a software technology that benefits the medical field. I can see the increase in efficiency and impact that generative AI and machine learning can bring to healthcare workers and patients, reducing worker burnout and saving lives with preventive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics.”
[Left] With Eric Arnold, her former computer science teacher at Denmark High School, who she credits as a “lifelong mentor.”
What motivates her to go all out on her interests? “It’s a combination of drive, discipline, and a commitment to my long-term passion and vision that has allowed me to balance so much. From the start, I’ve been motivated by the goal of one day leading my own tech company—a vision that continues to inspire me every single day. Leading my own tech company isn’t just a distant dream; it’s the driving force behind everything I do today, and it continues to fuel my ambition and determination to grow. That focus kept me grounded through the intense course loads, late nights, and countless extracurricular commitments, even when the workload seemed impossible,” she says.
However, for Adhira, it hasn’t been all work and no play. “In college, I would unwind with friends. We’d take breaks from the grind by cooking meals together, studying as a group, or just hanging out in someone’s apartment. Those moments brought balance and sanity to my busy days. I also made it a priority to socialize and connect with new people. Taking that time to recharge through creativity, sports, and meaningful connections has always been important to me—it’s how I stay inspired, energized, and grounded.”
Adhira also greatly appreciates the mentors who have supported her along the way. She credits two “guiding stars” in particular for igniting her passion for computer science and startups. The first is Eric Arnold, her former computer science teacher at Denmark High School. “He isn’t just a high school teacher to me; he has remained a mentor and lifelong support system. I’m still in contact with him, and his guidance has been incredible.”
The second is her father, Bimal Choudhury, who Adhira says is “probably the biggest motivating factor” for her interest in tech in the first place and a lifelong mentor. “He works as a digital transformation leader, and ever since I was a kid, he would share industry concepts, and I would listen with interest,” she shared. “He’d teach me about very high-level frameworks and concepts. He’s always been a guiding star.”
[Right] With her father, Bimal Choudhury, who Adhira says is “probably the biggest motivating factor” for her interest in tech.
When asked what advice she would give students interested in computer science, AI, and the business side of tech, Adhira suggested that the best way to explore their interests and develop their knowledge is to learn independently outside of class. “I’m a believer in lifelong learning, which means that classes are just the beginning of what you learn,” she said. “The biggest thing with tech is that it’s always evolving. So for anyone interested in tech or AI, It is important to be open to learning. For instance, take an AI course and improve your knowledge by training a simple machine learning model, a full stack application, just for your understanding because that teaches you the full end-to-end process. I promise you will learn so much more just by building something on the side.”
Bhavana Kunnath is a J.D. Candidate at Georgetown University Law Center where she is a RISE Fellow and a Blume Public Interest Scholar. In her free time, she enjoys writing and cooking.
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