Baithak
Venture Overview
Baithak uses Artificial Intelligence to power Gul, a voice assistant that educates young men and women on reproductive health and rights in local languages via WhatsApp. Founder Ayesha Amin, a Fulbright Scholar and feminist activist based in Pakistan, has worked since 2015 to expand women’s access to sexual and reproductive health rights. Through AI and community engagement, Baithak challenges taboos and expands access to critical health education.
Website: www.baithak.co
Venture Issue Area: Health & Wellness
Venture Headquarters: Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan
Venture Founder
Asha Owens is an award-winning product designer and software engineer committed to building equitable, community-centered technology. She has been named a Roddenberry Fellow, selected for Google for Startups’ Black Founders Fund, and served as a Civic Innovation Fellow. She is also a former Columbia University Design Leader, 4.0 Schools Fellow, and alum of Techstars Atlanta (Social Impact ‘20). Throughout her career, Asha has utilized her interdisciplinary background in Neuroscience (B.S., Brown University) and Instructional Technology & Media (M.A., Columbia University) to build innovative products and lead fast-paced, high-impact teams. For her work, she has been awarded Palantir’s Women in Engineering Scholarship, recognized as one of CTA’s 2020 Faces of Innovation, and named one of 28 Emerging & Inspirational Black Leaders in Edtech by LearnLaunch.
As a founder, Asha has designed and built tools that received national recognition. In 2020, her team was awarded the Rise Prize (Early Stage)—a prize for innovative solutions supporting the postsecondary success of student parents. Additionally, Asha’s design of BestFit’s other product—a college search tool—won the ideation stage of the Gates Foundation & NYU’s “Algorithm for Change” competition.
