Pritesh Gandhi Named to Austin Under 40 List, Wins ‘2019 Austinite of the Year’

The Young Women’s Alliance and the Young Men’s Business League recently announced the winners of its 21st annual Austin Under 40 list, which included Indian American Dr. Pritesh Gandhi, who was doubly honored as the “2019 Austinite of the Year” winner.

Gandhi, a pediatrician focused on righting social ills and aiming for a congressional seat, took the top honor at the 21st annual Austin Under 40 Awards gala.

Gandhi was honored on the Under 40 list in the medicine and healthcare category. Fourteen other professionals under the age of 40 across a variety of industries — plus a mentor of the year — were honored.

Gandhi is the associate chief medical officer at People’s Community Clinic in East Austin, which is devoted to serving the uninsured and low-income residents. He also is a clinical assistant professor in population health and pediatrics at the University of Texas’ Dell Medical School.

In 2020, he hopes to unseat Republican Rep. Michael McCaul in the 10th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (see India-West story here: https://bit.ly/2Odk9Bq).

“When I was 5 years old, I had a severe stutter, and at the time our health insurance didn’t cover speech therapy, and I couldn’t speak — at all. And so my dad took two jobs to pay for me to go for speech therapy, and my mother commuted back and forth from Houston,” Gandhi told the crowd of more than 700 as he took the award, according to an Austin Business Journal report.

“Fifteen years later I overcame that, and I promised myself when I was young growing up — I promised, damnit — I would spend the rest of my life fighting for people who don’t have that voice,” he said.

The annual gala was hosted by the Young Women’s Alliance and the Young Men’s Business League. More than $300,000 was raised for Austin Sunshine Camps, which operates summer camps for low-income children, and the YWA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Young Women’s Alliance, which has given out more than $160,000 in academic scholarships since 1997, according to the report.

 

Read on: India West