Orli Trumbull

Purple Eagle Student President

Obama Academy Class of 2026

2025 Purple Eagle Scholarship Recipent

Orli Trumbull is a senior at the Barack Obama Academy of International Studies and the Student President of Purple Eagle. While working with Purple Eagle, she secured a $15,000 grant from Dicks Sporting Goods for the Obama wrestling, softball, and track teams. Orli also worked to secure nearly $10,000 in donations from IKEA to furnish an Obama middle school entrepreneurship room. Purple Eagle has taught Orli how to be proactive, include the community, and create change. 

Beyond Purple Eagle, Orli serves as a Student Member to the Pittsburgh Public School Board of Education, the program director of local organization NextGen:Pgh, and an ambassador for the Pittsburgh Promise. After high school, Orli plans to attend a four-year college.

Our Purple Eagle Alumni

Daevan Mangalmurti

Obama Academy Class of 2020

Co-founder

Purple Eagle Ventures

  • Purple Eagle provided a crash course in what I've come to think of as managing stakeholder expectations and creating organizational buy-in. Both have been persistently relevant to me—as a student getting organizations off the ground and as a policy researcher pushing for engagement with new projects.

  • Getting our first cohort of student entrepreneurs on their feet and learning what kinds of support they needed (and didn't need) to be successful.

  • I studied Ethics, Politics and Economics and South Asian Studies at Yale University.

  • I just finished a James C. Gaither Junior Fellowship at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where I was affiliated with the Sustainability, Climate and Geopolitics Program. I'm now a Research Coordinator at Georgetown University's Lab for Globalization and Shared Prosperity; I'm also applying to JD and PhD (Political Science) programs this fall.

  • For students who want to be entrepreneurs, in business—whatever it may be, I think the most important lessons I've learned from versions of that process are to do your market research (understand what your prospective clients want) and understand your value proposition (know what your product is and why it serves a purpose).

Anja Vogt

Obama Academy Class of 2020

Co-founder

Purple Eagle Ventures

  • Looking back, the most useful skills I gained were networking and grant writing. It was great to learn how to craft a narrative around your goals and how to convince other people that they are worth pursuing.

  • I was very proud of the social ventures and companies that our classmates created. It was also great to be a part of the grantwriting process, which resulted in funding from the Grable Foundation. There were also several smaller ongoing initiatives at the time (before the COVID-19 pandemic) which reached a wider population of Obama students, where students heard from and met with local industry professionals.

  • I received my BS in Mathematics from Case Western Reserve University in 2024, and my MS in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington in 2025.

  • I am currently working for Epic Systems (a healthcare software company) in Madison, Wisconsin as a Hosting Client Systems Administrator.

  • 1. Say yes to every opportunity and introduction you can! Don't be afraid to network and to talk to people who are older/more established than you - most people are extremely generous with their time and want to help you. The worst they can say is no!

Arhan Badjatia

Obama Academy Class of 2022

Founder

Purple Eagle Charitable Fund

(Former) Student President

Purple Eagle Ventures

  • With Purple Eagle, my core takeaways were experiences. Meeting business leaders in Pittsburgh and entrepreneurs at Carnegie Mellon University gave me real world exposure to business and how networking exposes you to people with different skillsets, which is critical for starting a business or non-profit. Working on projects with CMU for ZUZ, a lending and payment platform, helped me understand the intuition behind management, marketing, and fundraising decisions, and online tools that can help an idea become a product or business. Further, trialing a stock market game with real time stock trading helped me develop some stock analysis skills and get a sense of how markets operate. These experiences helped me build an effective intuitive foundation to build on in college. It was also fun to work on the (initial draft) of the website and learn some basics on web design.

  • Pre-pandemic, I worked with a vegan goods company that wanted to expand their business to local Pittsburgh companies. Leading Purple Eagle during the pandemic, I first worked on creating a stock trading competition using Personal Finance Lab that used educational modules and live (fake) stock trading to deepen students’ financial expertise. I worked with ZuZ, a money lending platform designed to help student businesses fundraise more effectively. Outside of that, I marketed Purple Eagle to students and aided in facilitating speaker and networking events between local leaders and students.

  • Bachelor of Science (BS) in Economics with intended concentrations in Behavioral Economics and Management, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2026

  • Currently in undergrad.

  • I would advise students to first explore the unexpected; be curious, see what interests you among Purple Eagle’s offerings, because you don’t know what will click the most with you. Second, don’t be afraid of crossing the Rubicon when creating a business or non-profit; feel free to try it out and if you fail, it’s simply an experience you will learn from in the future. More practically, I would advise that business and technological skills are critical for stepping into the real world. Obama Academy doesn’t offer courses or experiences for these, so take advantage of Purple Eagle or online tools to learn the basics of personal finance, economics, and the expanding field of AI.

Isaiah Trumbull

Obama Academy Class of 2024

(Former) Student President

Purple Eagle Ventures &

Purple Eagle Charitable Fund

  • I learned how to be proactive and engaged, and how to take initiative on things I wanted to see done. These skills have and will continue to serve me.

  • The accomplishment that I am most proud of is getting grants for the school's athletic programs.

  • Harvard College studying Social Studies and Economics

  • Student in Army ROTC

  • Have fun and do what excites you! You have so much freedom to operate with; the most important thing is finding something that you care about.

Ashish Badjatia - Chairman & Executive Director

Ashish Badjatia is the Chairman & Executive Director of Purple Eagle, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that equips middle and high school students in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with hands-on skills through makerspaces, entrepreneurship programs, and student-run ventures. He has worked with foundations, charities, and corporations to bring resources and opportunities directly into underserved schools, helping students develop the confidence to innovate, lead, and succeed.

Beyond Purple Eagle, Ashish serves on the Board of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) Alumni Association at Columbia University. He has also been actively involved in advocacy initiatives for education, co-authoring successful grants, advising on public funding strategies, and mentoring students in grant writing and entrepreneurship. Ashish participated in the University of Pennsylvania’s ImpactED programs, is a member of Penn GSE’s Catalyst program, a graduate of DiverseForce on Boards, Cohort 14, and an active member of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia — reflecting his deep commitment to leadership, governance, and equity in education.