Born and raised in India, Vinita Gupta M.S. ’74 earned her bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in 1973 before coming to the U.S. The following year, she became the only woman in her class to graduate from UCLA with a master’s degree in electrical engineering.
After UCLA, Gupta worked in telecommunications at GTE Lenkurt and Bell Northern Research before launching Digital Link Corporation in 1985. In 1994, she became the first woman of Indian origin to take a company public in the U.S. when Digital Link completed its initial public offering. She continued to serve as chair, president and CEO of the firm, which was later renamed Quick Eagle Networks, until her retirement around 2016. She holds two U.S. patents and published a memoir last fall chronicling her journey from India to the U.S. and her experiences as an innovator and entrepreneur.
On May 19, at the invitation of the Women Advancing Technology Through Teamwork (WATT) at UCLA, a student group operating as a branch of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Gupta returned to her alma mater at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering for a fireside chat with faculty and students in the Engineering IV building. She was joined by Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park and fourth-year electrical engineering student and WATT president Katie Wang.
