Indo-American Vaniya Agrawal, Ex-Microsoft Employee, Disrupts Company's Event Again
Vaniya Agrawal, an India-American techie, disrupted Microsoft's Build 2025 event, protesting the company's cloud contracts with Israel. This is her second protest since April.
An India-American techie, Vaniya Agrawal, played a key role in disrupting a Microsoft event for second time since April.
Notably, Microsoft's annual developer conference, Build 2025, has been hit by a series of back-to-back disruptions from pro-Palestine activists. Lately, former Microsoft engineer Vaniya Agrawal led the high-profile protest to disrupt the event.
Agrawal hit the headlines in April by interrupting Microsoft's 50th anniversary celebration. This week, she disrupted 'Build 2025' event which was a Build session on AI security.
Beside ex-Microsoft employee Hossam Nasr, she shouted down Neta Haiby, Microsoft's Head of Security for AI, and Sarah Bird, who heads Responsible AI, as a mark of protest against the company's cloud contracts with the Israeli government.
The protest marks the third straight day of unrest at Build 2025. Earlier on May 19, an employee interrupted CEO Satya Nadella's keynote by shouting 'Free Palestine" and demanding accountability for Microsoft's tech deals with Israel.
The following day, a Palestinian tech worker stormed executive Jay Parikh's Azure AI presentation, declaring, 'Cut ties! No Azure for apartheid!"
A former employee in the company's AI division, Agrawal had earlier accused Microsoft leadership—including Bill Gates and Satya Nadella—of complicity in civilian deaths in Gaza, saying '50,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been murdered with Microsoft technology." She was fired shortly after the April protest without serving her notice period.
Though, Microsoft has not publicly made any remarks on the protests or the employees' dismissals. However, the repeated disturbance reflect growing internal dissent over Microsoft's role in supplying cloud infrastructure to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, amid heightened scrutiny over the humanitarian toll of the Gaza conflict.
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May 22, 2025, 16:59 IST
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