Aaliya Khan grew up in a modest two-bedroom flat in Bhopal, surrounded by books, outdated tech magazines, and a quiet but unyielding sense of curiosity. In a family where traditional roles were the norm and technology was considered “a man’s world,” Aaliya was an anomaly.
She taught herself to code at the age of 13 using borrowed books and an old desktop. She wasn’t building games or playing with animations—she was creating simple tools for real-world problems: budgeting software for her mother, a school attendance tracker for her class, and later, a harassment reporting app for her friends.
While pursuing her engineering degree in Bengaluru, she noticed something that bothered her deeply: a visible absence of women in tech leadership, and an invisible barrier for those trying to break in. Most women she knew who joined tech either left due to workplace culture, lack of mentorship, or family pressures—or were pushed into support roles instead of leadership tracks.
Aaliya didn’t just want to fit in. She wanted to change the system.
That conviction led to HerTech, now India’s leading women-centric tech firm with over 2,500 employees, 80% of whom are women.
From Idea to Impact
The idea behind HerTech was not to build another IT services company. Aaliya’s vision was bolder: create a tech ecosystem by women, for women, and about women.
In 2016, with ₹3 lakh in savings, no investors, and just a handful of volunteers from her college network, she launched HerTech from a co-working space in Indiranagar. Their first product was a job matching platform specifically for women returning to the workforce after career breaks—HerPath.
Aaliya’s logic was simple: highly skilled women were dropping out not because of incompetence, but because the industry wasn’t built to support them.
HerPath offered:
- Flexible remote job listings
- Resume workshops with real-time feedback
- Returnship programs for women re-entering tech
- Employer ratings based on gender sensitivity
The platform gained 10,000 users in six months—without a single paid advertisement. That early traction led to a ₹1.2 crore seed investment from an angel network focused on diversity in startups.
The HerTech Ethos
HerTech didn’t stop at HerPath. Aaliya expanded the firm into a full-stack technology company offering:
- Product engineering
- AI & machine learning solutions
- Cybersecurity audits
- Enterprise tools tailored for diversity and inclusion
What made HerTech unique wasn’t just its services—it was its workplace culture.
Every HerTech office offered:
- On-site childcare support
- Mental health counselors
- Menstrual leave policy without stigma
- Gender-sensitivity training for all hires
- Anonymous reporting tools for harassment or bias
Aaliya also launched HerTech Labs, an internal incubator where women employees could pitch startup ideas and receive seed funding, mentorship, and paid time off to build prototypes.
She often said:
“The biggest untapped market in India isn’t rural, urban, or digital. It’s female potential.”
Crashing the Conferences
In 2018, when Aaliya applied to speak at a major tech conference in Delhi, she was told politely, “We’ve already filled our diversity quota.” The panel on women in technology featured four male executives.
Instead of complaining, she created her own: SheCodes India, a nationwide tech conference exclusively for women technologists, entrepreneurs, coders, and product managers.
The first edition in Bengaluru drew 1,500 attendees. By 2022, SheCodes was being hosted in six cities, with over 50,000 participants annually and sponsorship from global tech giants.
Unlike traditional tech events, SheCodes featured:
- Code-a-thons focused on solving gendered problems (like women’s health or rural access)
- Anonymous Q&A sessions with industry leaders
- Speed mentorship tables
- Resume-free pitch rounds for hiring women from non-traditional tech backgrounds
Facing Bias, Fighting Back
Aaliya’s rise wasn’t without resistance. Investors often questioned the scalability of a women-focused model. Competitors accused HerTech of practicing “reverse discrimination.” A few clients pushed back against the company’s internal maternity and caregiver leave policies.
The toughest period came in 2020, when a high-profile male client exited their contract citing “cultural mismatch.” It would have devastated most startups. But Aaliya responded not with PR, but policy.
She made HerTech contracts publicly available, detailing how the firm operated with dignity, flexibility, and accountability—and challenged other tech firms to match those standards.
The move earned her both critics and champions. But more importantly, it gained trust from a growing community of women who finally saw a tech company that looked like them, worked for them, and believed in them.
Tech With a Mission
Aaliya insisted that HerTech build technology not just with purpose, but as purpose.
Some flagship products included:
- SafeSteps: A public safety app used by women commuters that shared real-time location, alert patterns, and direct police integration in 6 Indian cities.
- SakhiPay: A digital wallet optimized for semi-literate users, designed for SHGs (Self Help Groups) and domestic workers.
- EduHer: An e-learning platform focused on coding, AI, and cybersecurity for girls in rural schools, with gamified modules and real-world projects.
Each of these platforms was not only built by women engineers but field-tested with the communities they were meant to serve.
Growth, Glory, and Ground Reality
By 2023, HerTech had:
- Crossed ₹300 crore in annual revenue
- Expanded to five countries
- Built products for 40 Fortune 500 clients
- Partnered with NITI Aayog and Ministry of Women and Child Development
- Trained over 120,000 women in digital skills through its academy
But Aaliya remained cautious. “We’re not done. Not even close,” she often said. “Until there’s no need to make a ‘women-focused’ company because every company works for women, our mission continues.”
Despite scale, she kept her office door open to any intern or janitor who had feedback. She led weekly town halls. She replied to employee emails personally.
And she banned panels at HerTech conferences unless they had at least 50% women representation—regardless of topic.
Personal Life, Public Legacy
Aaliya rarely talked about her personal life in interviews. But those close to her describe her as fiercely independent, deeply empathetic, and relentlessly curious.
She reads voraciously—from poetry to behavioral science. Her team says she once rewrote an entire user flow after reading about how color blindness impacts form submission rates.
She doesn’t own a luxury car. She takes the metro when she can. She mentors girls from low-income communities every weekend through HerTech’s foundation.
In 2024, when offered a Padma Shri, she almost declined—until her mother reminded her:
“It’s not just for you. It’s for every girl who watched you fight.”
The Bias Is Breaking
Today, HerTech is more than a company. It’s a symbol.
In engineering colleges, girls no longer whisper doubts about careers in tech—they point to Aaliya Khan. In rural Gujarat, a mother tells her daughter, “You can code, just like those women in HerTech.” In boardrooms, inclusion isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a benchmark HerTech has set.
The firm’s internal surveys show that women at HerTech are 3x more likely to stay in tech long-term compared to national averages.
Bias hasn’t disappeared. But it’s cracking—under the weight of one woman’s dream made real, and the thousands she’s lifted with her.