Merion West Interviews Shiva Ayyadurai

Shiva Ayyadurai has decided to challenge Elizabeth Warren for her Senate seat. He makes his case in this Merion West interview.

On July 20th, Shiva Ayyadurai joined Merion West’s Erich Prince for an interview to discuss his decision to challenge Elizabeth Warren in the 2018 Massachusetts race as a Republican. Born in India, Dr. Ayyadurai came to the United States in childhood. He is perhaps most famous for his claim, which became a source of controversy, that, at age fourteen, he invented email. In addition to his work in the computer field, Dr. Ayyadurai holds a PhD in biological engineering from MIT and is active in the healthcare industry. In this interview, he discusses his upbringing in India, his work in computer programming, the dearth of politicians with a background in science, and why he believes he is the best choice for Massachusetts voters.

Dr. Ayyadurai, thank you for joining us at Merion West this afternoon. Can you start by telling us about your journey? How did you go from being born in India to an accomplished 14-year-old computer programmer to deciding in 2017 to enter politics?

I’ve had no choice but to be a political person since I was a five year old kid. And that’s where my journey starts in India. India has, as some people may know, a deplorable caste system. My family was considered a lower caste, or “untouchables.” In the caste system your success was not based on what you did, but it was based on where you were born. It was frankly probably one in ten trillion that my parents even made it to America because they came from this lower caste background.