Earlier this week, Amiti Uttarwar ‘10 was named to the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Finance category. Uttarwar was recognized for being the first known woman to become a Bitcoin Core contributor and becoming one of the few paid developers of bitcoin’s code when she was awarded a joint grant of $150,000 from OKCoin and HDR Global in June. A profile of Uttarwar published by Forbes in July chronicled her life as the child of Indian immigrants who found a passion for community service at a young age, eventually becoming a board member of Girls For A Change, a San Jose-based organization that encourages girls to develop local projects that benefit their communities. 

After graduating from Harker, she attended Carnegie Mellon University, majoring in information systems. She eventually landed at Simbi, where she discovered her love of cryptocurrency. After a stint at a company called Coinbase, Uttarwar took a residency at Chaincode Labs in 2019 to become a Bitcoin Core developer, working directly with bitcoin’s underlying code. Her work at Chaincode resulted in a sponsorship by the Hong Kong-based crypto company Xapo and the landmark OKCoin/HDR Global joint grant.