Devshi Mehrotra: An Entrepreneur Using Technology to Revolutionize the Public Defense System
Devshi Mehrotra has always been interested in serving her community. The recent computer science graduate from the University of Chicago was featured by the Obama Foundation for advancing racial and gender equality in computer science education. Now, as the co-founder of JusticeText, an evidence management software that creates transcripts for audiovisual evidence, Devshi hopes to invest in and revolutionize the public defense system in America.
Devshi’s initial interest in machine learning and criminal justice reform began with her move to a new city for college. Growing up in Orange County, California, and then moving to Chicago to pursue her undergraduate degree in computer science, she wanted to use technology to serve others and more directly engage with those around her. “Growing up in suburban California, surrounded mainly by Asian immigrants for most of my life, I didn't have a fully nuanced understanding about the truth of race relations in this country,” she explains, “Being in the city of Chicago, I was really, really excited to get involved with a lot of campus activism around criminal justice reform. A lot of the activities that I self-selected into were just finding ways to engage with the community more broadly.”
Over time she noticed a disconnect between technology and social justice. At club meetings, Devshi would discuss police killings that happened a few days ago but the second she stepped into a computer science class, those conversations disappeared and it was as if the events never happened. “I reached a point where it was just really frustrating for me to see how insular a lot of the conversations in my computer science department were. It's so cool that there's so much excitement about new technology, but it just felt so, so detached from the communities that we were literally living in.”
“There are many people who are genuinely passionate about innovative technology and what it can do—that's just what makes them happy. But as someone who also cares deeply about social justice and public service, I didn't always find people who spoke that same language.”
Devshi believes that part of the solution to mending this disconnect is increasing POC representation within technology, having conversations about privilege, and using technology for social impact within CS departments. “A lot of women start those difficult conversations within the computer science communities. Oftentimes it's minority women. And that's why I'm super passionate about representation because sometimes when I would talk about my interest in doing more service-oriented work, some professors would literally say you're kind of wasting your time. You should be focusing a lot more on the research,” she says.
Though this situation seems a bit jarring, Devshi believes that there are many ways to remove the barriers of entry to technical fields that underrepresented minorities face, with the first step being to create a support system. In Devshi’s experience, the constant encouragement she received from her parents to stay involved in math and science from a very young age was what really motivated her to pursue computer science. But many people don’t have the luxury of this support system at home, which is why it is very important to incorporate technical education within a school curriculum and within free summer programs. “I think so many of the free summer programs, such as Black Girls Code and Girls Who Code, have made such a difference. It's really crazy for me to see how many women in tech now have gone through some sort of program,” she says. Along with this education, Devshi believes that it is really important to expand the narrative surrounding technology by showing how it can solve socially and culturally relevant issues. “Elevating causes that I think a lot of underrepresented groups care about, like education and racial justice, allows people to see themselves in [the technology] industry in a way that maybe if all you know is people talking about cryptocurrency or some technical buzzwords day in and day out doesn’t. So I think there's kind of a cultural piece and mandating it from a curriculum perspective.”
JusticeText was Devshi’s way of bridging together her technical skills and the poignant and relevant issue of criminal justice reform. By the end of her junior year, Devshi had completed multiple tech internships but realized that they did not fully align with her goals and values. Around this time, she also started reading a lot more about the American criminal justice system and learned about the work of public defenders, lawyers appointed to represent those who cannot afford private legal assistance. “I think the first book that really sparked that interest for me was The New Jim Crow, and the author [Michelle Alexander] had written a couple of pages on the public defender system. It was just mind-boggling to me that I knew so little about the system that was so critical to legal representation and actually making sure that low-income individuals receive justice.” As she started reading more and more, she found crazy stories about how overworked public defenders are, to the point where they can sometimes only spend seven minutes per case. Devshi started thinking about how she could help. “As much as I'd like to do something in the policy space I wouldn't even know where to start there. There's a part of me [that] started thinking you know what, there might be something I could build. I have no clue what that looks like but what I knew is that I had a community that I really, really cared about.”
The opportunity to put that care into practice came up through an entrepreneurship class that Devshi took. The class required students to come up with a project idea, so Devshi and her eventual co-founder, Leslie Jones-Dove, decided to contact their local public defenders and meet them to ask about the pain points they faced. Immediately, the public defenders told Devshi and Leslie that they were overwhelmed with digital evidence, which took forever to sort through. From there, the idea of JusticeText was born.
JusticeText’s software allows defenders to submit four hours worth of audiovisual content to process and generates a transcript for them. This transcript can then be easily read through, analyzed, and used within court. Devshi hopes that JusticeText will strengthen the ability of public defenders to analyze crucial digital evidence, such as body camera footage, interrogations videos, courtroom proceedings, and jail calls, in an efficient and effective manner.
The path to creating JusticeText was not exactly smooth; Leslie and Devshi faced numerous challenges along the way. As graduating college students, they had to decide whether or not to commit to running the startup post-graduation. Unlike in the tech industry, Devshi had no role models for individuals who pursued the path of entrepreneurship, “I didn't really have the first clue about how to hire a team. What does it mean to raise money? And it's also come with some sort of sacrifices like I haven't been taking a salary since I graduated.” But, unable to let go of the potential positive impact that JusticeText could provide, she gave herself three months after graduating to research funding and accelerator programs. After spending those months networking on LinkedIn, researching programs, and applying to accelerators, JusticeText was accepted into 500 Startups’ flagship San Francisco accelerator, which came with a $150K investment. Devshi recounts the moment she found out about JusticeText’s acceptance into the program, “Once we got that I was like, ‘Okay, someone else believes in us, that's all I need. We're going to take it from here.’”
Another challenge that Devshi faced was learning the business side of launching a startup. “Things like recruiting for engineers was so hard. I feel like I barely know how to apply for jobs,” she notes, “Now I had to figure all this other stuff out.” But reaching out to other co-founders who had gone through a similar process proved to be very helpful when overcoming this challenge. “One of the really cool things about the entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem is that the founders, who've made it to some degree, are generally very excited and willing to support younger people who are just trying to get something off the ground,” Devshi says of her experience reaching out to experienced entrepreneurs. In addition, the accelerator programs proved to be incredibly helpful. “The accelerators that we took part in made a world of a difference because in a lot of them it's basically bringing together a dozen other people who are going through the exact same process so that you are maybe a little behind, maybe a little ahead and allows you to rely on that network to ask for a lot of help.”
From her experiences creating JusticeText and building up the product’s customer base, Devshi has some unique advice for up and coming entrepreneurs. Rather than focusing on “building a business” or “being an entrepreneur,” she recommends spending time in college figuring out what your interests are. With JusticeText, she had no intention of actually building a company. She just felt incredibly upset and motivated to make a change about an issue that was so closely affecting her community. “College is such an incredible time to just learn and absorb and think about things. When I think back to who I was two years ago, where I would just strike up random conversations about something I saw on the news, that was so amazing. And it helped me in finding this one passion.” And sometimes that passion doesn’t even have to be in the classroom or the college campus. For Devshi, participating in startup competitions, creating slide decks and solutions in her room, and attending hackathons was important, but she realized she couldn't stop there. Instead, going out and listening to people in her community that are trying to make a change was. She continues, “Listening to those directly in the community that you care about, asking them questions, giving your services for free because people probably aren't going to pay for the first version of the prototype, is really what helps build experience. Get yourself out there and try to build.”
Finally, Devshi wants to touch upon the current energy surrounding criminal justice reform in the news and the important role that public defenders play in making tangible change to the American justice system, “The fact that there is this entire system of public defenders, whose main job is to represent low-income communities of color, predominantly, and they continue to be so divested from, I think that's one of the things that I feel like really needs a narrative shift. And so my hope is that technology in government isn't as much of an anomaly moving forward because people care about this stuff because we as a society, choose to invest in it.”
For those individuals who may realize that technology and computer science alone isn’t their passion, Devshi wants to emphasize that they aren’t alone. “There are many people who are genuinely passionate about innovative technology and what it can do—that's just what makes them happy. But as someone who also cares deeply about social justice and public service, I didn't always find people who spoke that same language.”
STORY MALLIKA CHENNUPATY