In the 1990s, Pooja Sankar was a shy growing up in Patna. She ways taught away from the boys, which made her year at the boys-infested IIT Kanpur a lonely battle. Sankar, who found programming just as had as making friends, studies alone she was too shy to ask her male classmates for help.Hunted by the experience in January 2011 Sankar launched pizza , an  interactive web site that allows student to ask explore and answer all kind of questions under the guidance of their instructors her start up already has 200,000 users. The backing of Silicon valley movers and shakers. Who I am today in all because I was a shy girl in India “she says.Sankar’s story high light the unique situation Indian women entrepreneurs are in, even in the entrepreneurs heaven that is Silicon valley. Her story is not much different from that of Aarti Parikh. Who co-founded mobile and internet publishing house Sach Manya . Parikh is forced to use a gender natural online to communicate more easily with engineers both male and females “ when they a talking to a man they assume the person knows more,” says Parikh. “Another  things is just that because you are Indian, people assume you will do it. They look upon us dismissively in app for children being Global beat Disney at the 2012. Appy Awards.“Indian think out of the box because the have struggle much unlike most entrepreneurs in Silicon valley who think like each other and develop each other  and a vocal voice in the valley on female entrepreneurs. He point to the annual TechCrunch Disrupt conference a mecca for web and mobile entrepreneurs it is the full of white male you have 100 companies developing the same solution. You do not see Indian women there because the do not fit in there. And this is why they are building different companies in education healthcare and really in every space possible.”Gender Divide: one such woman is Parvati Dev who, after researching medical learning for over 18 years at Standford University founded Clinispace. Her starts up use reality to create immersive gaming like virtual worlds in a medical learning environment. So, a Clinispace interactive learning iPad app to train nurse treating wounded soldiers on a battlefield is set in a medical camp at a war zone with realistic depictions.

In 1968 Dev was among a few girls at IIT Kharagpur. But her experience was the opposite of sankar,s “At IIT, I lost any worry woman and man she was almost called never by her first name. she is more irked by the reaction of some Indian community members “ Indians find it amusing to see a women in a sari leading a standford lab. Its as if it’, question of credibility.

Even an apparently liberal  Silicon Valley stories of asking women entrepreneurs uncomfortable question mostly related to their commitment after master-nity – are note uncommon. A women co-founder being mistaken is not rare either. And if the woman is Indian the situation gets more complex. “Indian women are taught not think to ask for things” says Kiran Malhotra director of TiE Silicon Valley a global network of entrepreneurs and professionals. “As entrepreneurs you have ask for thing like money form a VC all the time. So it is al least twice as hard for Indian woman entrepreneurs.” The TiE woman forum. Sakina Arsiwala a Google and You tube veteran who just sold her social startup campfire labs to Groupon learnt this the hard way. A candidate  was selected for a critical technical role in her sratsup. Although he did not have the relevant expertise she did not speak up three months later the starts up started losing money and the project was turning out to be a Turkey. When later told colleagues she had seen this coming, they wonder aloud why she did not speak up. “ Indian girls we are trained to please every body and agree.” Now, she wiser. “ sometime  you just have a take a stand,” she says.

Indian Mindset: in many ways Silicon Valley Indian woman entrepreneurs find themselves in a situation similar to what their male counterparts in the 1980s They had then formed The Indus Entrepreneurs known better as TiE, which today is the worlds largest entrepreneurial body.

A handful of fledgling organizations like TiE woman forum and woman 2.0 are hoping to do the same help woman entrepreneurs help each other. “We were like immigrant entrepreneurs back then, with no powerful networks to help us out. So, we made our own says Angie Chang, co-founder of woman 2.0 which reach out to over 30,000 woman entrepreneurs.Sure, there are a few unique advantage of being Indian. Unparalleled family supports in a foreign land is one of them. For instance sankar started pizza out of brother’s garage. On another front Reena Gupta, CEO software as a service company learned subtle one of a kind management lessons early on a life whilst growing up in a joint family with 21 cousins in Bihar.

“But the basic do not change so quickly,” Indian woman entrepreneurs who broke barriers in the 1980s with her company Digital link Corporation which she took public. “The Indian community it self remains judgemental, when in conversation with woman tend to be relegated to subjects like cooking family and motherhood the community it self really needs to evolve,” says Gupta.Parikh Sach Manya adds the Indian mindset in the valley is obsessed with success as defined by status and money. “This is why you will see many Indian woman senior corporate positions but not it entrepreneurial positions because it is so much about risk with no guarantee of money.”Out side of the community been different can be an advantage says Gupta.  When she was eight months pregnant She had to travel to Minneapolis on urgent business. Tow decades on, client still remembers the “ very pregnant woman with the strange accent”. Now, that’s recall many entrepreneurs would be willing to give birth for.