Faculty Recruiting Support CICS

Ventures @ CICS Welcomes New Entrepreneur-in-Residence Esha Sahai

Esha Sahai
Esha Sahai

College of Information and Computer Sciences alumna and investment manager Esha Sahai (BS '02, MS '04) has been named a Ventures @ CICS entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR).

Sahai is a venture partner at Varidus and a venture fellow at Alumni Ventures Group, where she supports investments in high potential startups. Until recently, she was a member of Microsoft's Corporate Strategy and Development team for the Cloud & Enterprise and AI divisions focusing on inorganic growth.

Previously, Sahai served as a Legatum Fellow at MIT, where she worked on multiple for-profit and nonprofit ventures. Her mobile startup, Curious Learning, was a semi-finalist in MassChallenge and MIT's 100K. Past stints include Oracle Corp., edX, LearnLaunch Accelerator, and a Techstars startup. She has served on the boards for Girls Inc., Circle of Women, UMass Amherst's Maroon Ventures Fund, and GetMAGIC.

Sahai graduated as a Bay State Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science in 2002 and 2004, respectively. She received a degree in management and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015. Sahai is the recipient of 2018 CICS Outstanding Achievement and Advocacy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Society.

"We welcome Esha to our Ventures @ CICS team and appreciate her enthusiastic support to CICS innovators," said Brant Cheikes, co-manager of the Ventures @ CICS program and executive director of the Center for Data Science. "Her significant experience working with and founding technology startups, and her knowledge about our college makes her the ideal EIR."

Founded in Spring 2018, the Ventures @ CICS EIR program is designed to help anyone in the CICS community move their ideas from whiteboards towards marketable products with societal benefit.

Sahai will join three other volunteer Ventures @ CICS EIRs -- Gavin Andresen, Jim Flynn, and Vikram Mahidhar -- who provide ideas, advice, inspiration, and helpful connections for potential CICS inventors.

To learn more about the Ventures @ CICS program or make an appointment with one of our EIRs, see: cics.umass.edu/ventures.