Indiaspora releases report on impact of Indian diaspora in America

This report celebrates the remarkable achievements of Indian Americans.

Sesh Iyer of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) / Ritu Marwah

Indiaspora released a report titled ‘Indiaspora Impact Report: Small Community, Big Contributions’, the first volume in a series to look at the impact of the Indian diaspora, with a special focus on public service, business, culture and innovation in the United States. The exhaustive report was released in Washington DC on June.13.

“Though spelling bee champions and CEOs may grab the limelight, as more Indians call America ‘home’, their impact is reaching across US culture in ever more significant ways,” said Sesh Iyer, North America Regional Chair, Boston Consulting Group that conducted the report.

The project profiles inspiring individuals who epitomize the contribution of the diaspora across the full range of economic and cultural areas.

MR Rangaswami, founder of Indiaspora. / Ritu Marwah

Raj Subramaniam, Chief Executive Officer, FedEx Corporation, spoke of the impact created by Indians when he explained the role played by American-Indians during Covid-19. When Covid-19 was raging in India, on a Saturday, Subramaniam decided to put together a group to help.

“When your neighbor's house is on fire and you are the one with the hose, you must help,” said Subramaniam. “By Sunday 11 am, there were CEOs of 60 of the Fortune 100 companies on the call!!”

“One evening, I got a call from a young girl in Dallas. She said: ‘my father is dying in Hyderabad. I have an oxygen concentrator in my hand. Can you please get it to him?’ The next 12 hours, we developed a process by which clients could bring oxygen concentrators to a FedEx retail outlet. We have 40 flights to India in and out. We started mobilizing oxygen concentrators and ended up sending 1,500 of those.”

Aruna Miller, Lieutenant Governor of Maryland since 2023 and who has been inducted into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame, spoke of the importance of representation. She shared her story of growing up in St Louis and collecting money as a teenager along with her sister for disaster relief for the victims of the Telangana hurricane. “Every single household gave us money,” she recalled. “We are not so different from Americans despite all the stories you may hear.”

The speakers Sethuraman Panchanathan, National Science Foundation (NSF), Ambassador (ret.); Atul Keshap of US India Business Council; Shekar Narasimhan; Congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi; Shri Thanedar; and Sesh Iyer of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) along with Santosh Appathurai spoke of their individual experiences.