Kshitij Uday Kulkarni (KK) is a Master of Information Systems student who began his career at Cleveland State University in Fall of 2020 during the pandemic. When he came to the U.S., he applied to several companies for internships and participated in two different hackathons.

One of these events was during the 2021 Summer Semester and held on the CSU campus. The Community + Innovation + Technology Hackathon – Hacking for Good event organized participants into teams to solve real-world problems facing neighborhoods in Northeast Ohio.

The team that KK chose to join tackled the issue of play as a human right for all children and how most of our local neighborhoods do not offer safe and accessible options, especially for blind children. To address the frustration and mobility issues that these children encounter, KK and his team proposed several solutions including basic modifications to playgrounds and an innovative technology solution called InSpec to support visually impaired children at play.

KK and his team won first place in the competition which led to an on-campus job in CSU’s Office of Disability Services assisting students, faculty and staff with disabilities across campus. 

KK chose CSU because he wanted to add to his studies in technical, management and marketing skills. As an Ahuja Scholar, KK is very grateful to the Ahujas as well as the opportunity to give back to the community at large.

“Cleveland State has uplifted my career. I got an internship, I won a hackathon competition and was exposed to networking, technology and the culture,” he said. “Cleveland State has really helped me in my career.”

KK will begin a full-time position with EY in January of 2022.

Prior to attending CSU, KK worked as an associate project engineer at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Mumbai and earned his Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from Mumbai University