Amreeta Duttchoudhury is a Georgia Tech freshman majoring in Mechanical Engineering. She’s currently an intern at Flashpoint, “a rigorous management and education program that works closely with founders to create companies.” Flashpoint is an Atlanta startup institution, well known for its rigors customer discovery curriculum and for its fearless leader, Merrick Furst (recently interviewed in Forbes).
Read on below to get to know this instantly-likable young woman who has already won two hackathon prizes and landed the most interesting internship in Atlanta’s startup world.
What is you’re current position with Flashpoint?
I’ve been working on an ongoing project dealing with how Flashpoint interacts and communicates with the world. It sounds as broad as it is. I thoroughly enjoy it. Some of the questions I work towards answering are: Who do we interact with? What do those interactions mean in terms of our purpose? In terms of the greater startup community? Are our actions accessible to the groups we want to interact with us?
What past projects have you worked on?
Well, this past weekend, myself and a group of talented friends participated in VTHacks where we built a web app that ranked hotels on safety. Our team won a sponsor prize on on this project in the category of web-sourced data. Data is incredibly fascinating. We were able to ask many questions this weekend, but safety in different levels of proximity of an urban setting was something we were all sincerely curious about.
What are your best technical or creative skills?
Golden personality. That, with my handshake, makes me a people person. I’m kidding, of course, but I think my USP is that I have a deep understanding of the interactions I have and the people I interact with know that. I firmly follow the belief that individuals always have an intent behind an action. Finding this intent allows you to create more win-win situations.
What’s next on your list to learn?
Next up, clarity of thought. It may sound a little silly but I think majority of people think they have clear thoughts but truly don’t. Clarity of thought is about understanding why specifically you act the way you do. I like asking my fellow classmates why they chose the major they did. Often times they’ll say things like “I had a great teacher for (insert name of subject here)” or “I want to work for (insert name of company here).” I think there is something more to that answer as to why these students say they like the things they do. I really love the German language. Two things I love hearing people say auf Deustch are “Alles in Ordnung?” and “Alles Klar?” both asking literally, ‘Is all in order?’ and ‘Is all clear?’ for what we would ask “All good?” Those are two distinct questions; I appreciate that separation.
Why the interest in startups?
I’m not. Surprise. This goes hand in hand with my last answer. I’m a problem solver. Many groups solve problems, one of which are startups. Scaled companies also solve problems. I come with the belief, however, that problem solving becomes increasingly difficult to occur in larger organization because people become heavily locked in with ‘what is.’ Startups, by logic of being “fresh” and “new” (words taken from quora responses to “What is the proper definition of a startup”) won’t be locked in by a organization bias but simply a societal and personal one. I think it’s much easier to get this small group of individuals to get past this bias then an entire scaled organization to. I can’t express how amazing it is to watch someone experience that eureka moment of solving a problem.
[Photo Credit: Hypepotamus]