Prachi Vakharia

Prachi J. Vakharia works in Washington DC, USA, on transportation innovation, standards and infrastructure advancing projects in autonomous vehicles, digital, electric and shared mobility.

Prachi recently joined Amazon where she works with public sector agencies to design and enable the adoption of new technologies and digital infrastructure. Previously she worked in clean transportation, and was brought in by AES Next, the venture arm of energy firm AES, to invest in electric mobility. Prior to that, she spent over three years at the World Bank, financing urban transport projects across Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Given her curiosity and love for science and innovation, Prachi mentors and invests in tech, transport and energy startups. She had 3 successful exits with acquisitions by Daimler AG in 2014. Currently, she is an Associate Partner at corporate finance boutique IMPROVED and venture capital fund Mobility Fund.  She also advises SafeAI, a Silicon Valley company that automates heavy equipment used in mines and construction sites in Australia, Japan, Canada etc. She also serves as a mentor to FedTech to enable commercialization of new advancements made within the US national research labs.

To advance women in STEM+E, Prachi co-founded WOMANIUM Foundation that has trained students in computational neuroscience, telescope and satellite development, atomic clocks, quantum computing etc. and given hundreds of scholarships to students from over 88 countries. Additionally, she serves on the Board of the Business Schools at George Mason University and George Washington University.