ananda francis

Ananda Francis is an accomplished creative, technologist, and leader dedicated to interdisciplinary problem-solving. Based in New York, she seamlessly fuses her diverse talents to pursue projects that connect the dots and create the future.

Ananda's artistic journey began at age 3, where she began training her in classical piano performance. Nurtured by her teacher, Ananda developed an incomparable gift for evoking deep emotion through artistic storytelling. By second grade, she was an award-winning writer whose short-story "Danger in the Forest" was adapted into a national children's play. Her creative scope has since expanded across music composition, graphic design, string instruments, poetry, fashion, and screenwriting.

In middle school Ananda began freelancing as a K-8 tutor and is now a K-12 Teacher in the NYC Public School system. She excels at explaining complex topics to broad audiences. Ananda was also the founder of the Black Excellence Pipeline 501(c)3 Nonprofit, the Minority Student Union at her high school and the Rockland Teen Complete Count Committee under NYS Senator Carlucci. Whether managing several teams in product development or advocating for education equity as a Miss America titleholder, Ananda's visionary and collectivist mindset has made her successful in bringing diverse people together to execute a shared goal.

The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed her shift toward technology and AI research, leading her to pursue Data Science at Northeastern University, despite never coding at that point. Ananda intuitively forecasted the growth potential of AI in 2020 and wanted to be ahead of the game. She has since distinguished herself by winning several hackathons, deploying applications for clients, and conducting research for institutions including Genentech, Northeastern and NYU. She is in her final semester of undergrad, completing her thesis in Evolutionary Deep Learning and spearheading a research and development collaboration with the Jamaica Artificial Intelligence Association and Northeastern University.

Ananda's unique blend of creativity, technical expertise, and leadership skills position her as a dynamic force in any endeavor she undertakes. Her philosophy is that breakthrough lies at the intersection of disciplines. Some confuse Ananda as a "unfocused generalist", but in reality, she strategically cultivates skills across multiple domains to facilitate seamless, collaborative environments where she serves as a professional "Rosetta Stone", who can speak the languages of all the specialists she works with and leads.