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Indian-American software engineer Vaniya Agrawal who 'shamed' Microsoft CEOs at company's 50th anniversary celebrations, disrupts Microsoft event again

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The Times Of Indiapublisher-detail-arrow
22nd May, 2025 02:00 IST
The Indian-American engineer Vaniya Agrawal who disrupted Microsoft's 50th anniversary celebrations in April this year again created disorder at another high-profile Microsoft event. In the latest incident, she disrupted Microsoft's ongoing developer event, Build 2025. Microsoft Build is the company’s annual developers conference. Vaniya Agrawal, along with another fired Microsoft employee Hossam Nasr, shouted at Microsoft’s head of security for AI, Neta Haiby.

Haiby was co-hosting a Build session on best security practices for AI, alongside Sarah Bird, Microsoft’s head of responsible AI, when these two former Microsoft employees disrupted the talk to protest against the company’s cloud contracts with the Israeli government. This is the third day in a row that the Microsoft Build 2025 conference has been disrupted by Pro-Palestine protests.

On Monday (May 19), shortly after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stage for his keynote address at the Build 2025 conference, an employee interrupted the speech. He started shouting “Free Palestine” and demanded accountability from the CEO for the company’s work with the Israeli government.



Next day, on May 20, a Palestinian tech worker interrupted Microsoft executive Jay Parikh's keynote presentation, marking the second consecutive day of pro-Palestine protests at the event. "Jay! My people are suffering!" the protester shouted at Parikh, Microsoft's Executive Vice President of CoreAI, during his presentation on Azure AI technology. "Cut ties! No Azure for apartheid! Free, free Palestine!" Security personnel quickly escorted the demonstrator from the venue as he continued calling for Microsoft to end its contracts with the Israeli government.


When Vaniya Agrawal ‘shamed’ Microsoft CEOs
Earlier this year, Vaniya Agrawal disrupted Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebrations. As Microsoft current CEO Satya Nadella; and former CEOs Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates sat on stage talking about the company, Vaniya Agrawal stood up and started shouting. “Shame on you all. You’re all hypocrites,” she said. “50,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been murdered with Microsoft technology. How dare you. Shame on all of you for celebrating in their blood. Cut ties with Israel.” Vaniya was escorted out by the security.


Microsoft blocks emails that contain ‘Palestine’ after employee protests
Microsoft has reportedly Blocked emails with certain words. According to a report in The Verge, "Microsoft employees have discovered that any emails they send with the terms “Palestine” or “Gaza” are getting temporarily blocked from being sent to recipients inside and outside the company."

Who is Vaniya Agrawal
A software engineer in the company’s artificial intelligence division, Vaniya Agrawal publicly shared her resignation email last month. She sent the email to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and thousands of Microsoft employees following her protest at the company's 50th anniversary celebration on April 4. In the company-wide email, she wrote that she has been working with the company for over one-and-a-half years.

Microsoft fired Vaniya Agrawal
Vaniya Agrawal was fired shortly after the event. She was asked to go with immediate effect, without completing her two-week notice. The other protester, Ibtihal Aboussad, too was terminated for "acts of misconduct" following similar disruptions at the Microsoft Anniversary event.

Vaniya Agrawal has been sharing photos of protests at Microsoft Build
Vaniya Agrawal has been constantly sharing photos of protests around Microsoft Build 2025 venues. She has shared a number of posts on the same on X.





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