Special Report | Generous Virginians
Reston-based Octo Consulting CEO Mehul Sanghani and his wife, Hema, gave $10 million to their alma mater, Virginia Tech, in 2020. The gift supports a center for artificial intelligence and data analytics as well as efforts to improve food access for students.
The Sanghanis Mehul Sanghani and his wife, Hema, grew up in nearby towns in Central Virginia and met when both attended Virginia Tech. Since the couple graduated in 1998 and 1999, he went on to found Reston-based Octo Consulting, which delivers informa- tion technology and artificial intelligence services to government and commercial clients. She became a manager at Fairfax- based CGI Federal Inc., which also provides IT services to federal clients. With their shared focus on technology, it’s not surprising that the two loyal Hokies might support their alma mater’s efforts involving artificial intelligence and data analytics. What is surprising is the size of the $10 million gift the couple made to the university last year. Announced this January, $7.4 million of their donation is earmarked to support the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, formerly called the Discovery Analytics Center. The remainder of their gift will support an initiative to improve food access for students; Virginia Tech Athletics; and the Global Business and Analytics Complex planned for the Blacksburg campus.
Some of the Sanghanis’ gift also will sup- port disadvantaged and minority students.
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The Sanghanis are the youngest alumni couple to ever have made a gift of such size to their alma mater. “Virginia Tech is where we both met and it opened the doors of opportunity to both Mehul and myself,” Hema Sanghani said in the university’s announcement. “We believe we have a responsibility to give back to the school that has afforded us so much.” Projected to be completed in 2024, the Sanghani Center will be housed in the first building slated to open on Virginia Tech’s new $1 billion Innovation Campus in Alexandria. “The gift will allow [Virginia Tech] to expand efforts to make strategic hires and bring on folks in AI,” says Mehul Sanghani. Naren Ramakrishnan, who heads the Sanghani Center, expects his current faculty of 20 to grow to 30 to 35. The center’s population of about 120 full-time graduate students will double in size. “I view this as an excellent opportunity to enlarge our ambitions,” he says. “It’s a huge step and an opportunity for us.” Ramakrishnan plans for the center to
leverage the proximity of
Amazon.com Inc., which is building its HQ2 East Coast headquarters in Arlington, and other heavy-hitting tech organizations in the area to create a “back-and-forth synergy.” The
emphasis, he says, will be on “use-inspired research with practical applications.” About $1.5 million of the Sanghanis’ gift will support The Market of Virginia Tech, a food-support program that initially will provide up to 75 students with ingredients for a full week of meals.
“There’s this cliché of college students and ramen noodles,” Sanghani says, but food security among students, especially graduate students who may have families, “is a major, major issue.” The scope of the need, he says, “was eye-opening for us.” In a January news release announcing the Sanghanis’ gift, Virginia Tech President Tim Sands said the alumni couple’s “decision to step forward in such a meaningful way exemplifies the Virginia Tech spirit of Ut Prosim (That I May Serve).”
Other major gifts Last year, MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of
Amazon.com Inc. founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and the world’s third-wealthiest woman, gave away nearly $6 billion to hundreds of nonprofits and organizations across the United States. She emphati- cally demonstrated her commitment to supporting historically Black universities and colleges with gifts of $40 million to
Photo courtesy The Cavalier Daily Photo by Will Schermerhorn
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