Building Culturally Intelligent Futures: A Conversation with Rhea Sharma

At the intersection of technology equity and systems design Rhea Sharma is emerging as a powerful voice in the South Asian diaspora working to shape the future of culturally intelligent artificial intelligence As the founder behind Diverse AI an upcoming platform being built to centre cultural context in technology she is focused on expanding access and opportunity for South Asian women and other underrepresented communities in the global tech ecosystemBased in the United States Rhea brings over 15 years of experience in healthcare operations and clinical research leadership working across multisite programmes and collaborating with senior leadership teams to scale research operations With advanced training in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning from MIT Professional Education she is now working at the intersection of healthcare AI and equity reimagining how technology can reflect real cultural and lived realitiesIn this conversation she shares insights on support identity and why redesigning systems around immigrant women is becoming central to the future of technology and workWhen you began running online support spaces for South Asian women how did that experience change your understanding of support and successWhen I started facilitating these spaces I believed support was about offering advice resources or motivation Very quickly I realised most women were not looking for answers They were looking for permission Permission to speak honestly to admit exhaustion and to say they were not sure they were okay What truly shifted my perspective was seeing how many capable and resilient women felt unsafe expressing vulnerability even in spaces designed for support Success for me became less about outward functioning and more about whether someone felt seen without having to perform strengthWhy do gaps continue to exist in online support spaces even those created with good intentionsMany support spaces are designed around conversations that are easy to host rather than those that are difficult to name In South Asian communities silence often surrounds emotional fatigue identity conflict financial and immigration stress resentment mixed with gratitude and the pressure to succeed without complaint Even in women only or safe spaces there is often an unspoken expectation to remain agreeable The most challenging issues are emotional cultural and systemic When spaces are not designed to hold that complexity people disengage quietly even when intentions are goodHow does culture shape what women feel they can ask for and how did that reflect your own journeyCulture plays a powerful role in shaping silence Many of us grow up fluent in the language of responsibility respect and duty but not in expressing emotional need or personal boundaries Family roles often teach women to adapt and carry emotional labour making asking for help feel like failure I saw this reflected in my own journey There were moments when ambition and intelligence were not missing but permission was Permission to slow down change paths or admit something was not working In these spaces women often spoke in coded language asking about careers when they were really questioning identity or talking about burnout when what they meant was lonelinessWhen did you realise these challenges were not personal failures but systemic onesThat realisation came when I began hearing the same stories repeatedly from women of different ages careers and immigration statuses Different lives but the same exhaustion self doubt and sense of personal failure That repetition made it clear this was not an individual problem It was a design problem Our systems of work healthcare mentorship and community assume cultural fluency and access to informal networks that many immigrant women do not have Once I understood that I stopped viewing these struggles as personal shortcomings and began seeing them as structural gapsHow did this understanding lead you to imagine a different kind of digital infrastructureHuman led spaces are powerful but they are also fragile They rely on emotional labour availability and constant energy often from a small group of women I began imagining something more sustainable A system that could hold context remember patterns and understand cultural nuance without flattening it The goal was not to replace human connection but to support it allowing women to show up as they are without having to re explain themselves each time It was never about building another app It was about building infrastructure that truly understands the userIf the American Dream were assessed through the lens of support for immigrant women what does your journey revealMy journey has shown me that opportunity exists but access to support does not The American Dream often assumes resilience alone is enough In reality resilience without support leads to exhaustion and ambition without guidance leads to isolation Immigrant women are highly capable yet they navigate systems that were not designed with them in mind They succeed despite these gaps not because of the structure If we measured the American Dream by how supported immigrant women feel emotionally professionally and culturally it would be clear that there is still a long way to go That understanding continues to drive my work not to fix women but to fix the spaces around them

Building Culturally Intelligent Futures: A Conversation with Rhea Sharma

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Building Culturally Intelligent Futures: A Conversation with Rhea Sharma

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