PAST 38 BY 38 RECIPIENTS
Mayura Davda Shah
"Purdue Engineering gave me the fundamental technical aptitude which has allowed me to channelise my creative energies towards creating products. This culminated with my ME senior design project 'Chair Up!' wherein we designed and built a non-motorised wheelchair that could navigate across sidewalks without anyone's assistance. The idea and product made it to the US news channels and was patentable. The various opportunities abroad: Global Entrepreneurship program in China and a research internship in Germany gave me global exposure at an early age to be able to tackle a whole spectrum of responsibilities both within and across borders."
Mayura Davda Shah | Mechanical Engineering
Founder & CEO, MAYU / Hommage
When Mayura Davda-Shah left her hometown of Solapur, India, a tier-2 city, and matriculated to the United States, she
became the first in her family to not only travel to America, but also to attend college. After graduating from Purdue,
she was one of the few women engineers working on the G650 aircraft at Gulfstream Aerospace. From there, with
sustainability as the central theme and adhering to the triple bottom line of people, planet and profits, she created
the MAYU — a fashion brand based on the key principle of a circular economy in which humans symbiotically co-exist with
their environment. Within three years, she introduced three collections made out of upcycled fish skin converted to
leather as well as a vegan line of accessories made from upcycled pineapple leaves and other natural fiber-based
materials.
MAYU products are sold through the company's online store as well as in designer boutiques in cities like London, New
York and Berlin. Her pieces have been spotted at fashion weeks in Europe and the United States and earned adulation from
Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Entrepreneur and several other publications. At the only five-star hotel in her hometown, she
opened a lifestyle concept store, Hommage, to bring handcrafted arts and crafts from all over India under one roof to
preserve her country's rich cultural heritage and preventing many art forms from fading away.
As a trustee of the corporate social responsibility arm of her husband's business, she has worked on several high-impact
projects in the areas of Healthcare, Sustainability, Art & Culture, Education & Social Issues. Projects to digitize and
run digital classrooms on solar power at more than 150 government schools, promote female health among others. She also
actively manages her late father's businesses in hospitality, manufacturing and real estate currently involving actively
enabling projects to elevate the status of her hometown, which has been suffering from brain-drain due to lack of
opportunities and amenities desired to keep up a good quality of life.