As entrepreneurs, academics, and researchers, these Champions of Change have made an impact across disciplines – from archeology to biomedical research, and from the humanities to astronomy. At the event, these Champions will highlight initiatives that are helping make “open” the default in scientific research.

Open sharing of research results is a proven strategy for driving positive change. For example, the rapid and open sharing of genomic data from the Human Genome Project revolutionized biomedical research, and spurred major growth in the biotechnology industry. Additionally, the Federal Government’s liberation of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite data for use by the private sector led to an explosion of geospatial information systems and the creation of many companies, smartphone apps, and car navigation systems.

The White House also honored eleven people as Immigrant Innovator “Champions of Change.” This Champions event highlighted immigrant innovators and entrepreneurs – the best and brightest from around the world who are helping create American jobs, grow our economy, and make our nation more competitive.

“Immigrants have long made America more prosperous and innovative, and the Champions we are celebrating today represent the very best in leadership, entrepreneurship, and public service,” said U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park.  “We are proud to recognize these leaders who work every day to grow our economy, advance science and technology, and support their home communities.”

The White House Champions of Change program was created as part of President Obama’s Winning the Future initiative. Through this program, the White House highlights individuals, businesses, and organizations whose extraordinary stories and accomplishments positively impact our communities.

Atul Butte, M.D., Ph.D. of Menlo Park, Calif., is a pediatrician, geneticist, computer scientist, and entrepreneur at Stanford University and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Dr. Butte’s lab at Stanford builds and uses computational tools that convert more than 400 trillion points of molecular, clinical, and epidemiological data – measured by researchers and clinicians over the past decade and now increasingly publicly available -- into diagnostics, therapeutics, and new insights into disease. In addition to creating new diagnostics and drugs for diabetes and cancers and stewarding the release of National Institutes of Health (NIH) immunology data to the public, Dr. Butte is a founder of Personalis, providing clinical interpretation of whole genome sequences, Carmenta, discovering diagnostics for life-threatening conditions in pregnancy from public data, and NuMedii, using public big data to find new uses for drugs.

Shradha Agarwal of Chicago, Ill., co-founder of ContextMedia, has always had a passion for communication and launched her first media enterprise at age nine in India. While building ContextMedia from the ground up, she branded the healthcare media company as “for-benefit”—a successful for-profit enterprise that exists for social benefit—and focused on organizational culture architecture. Having led ContextMedia’s product development strategies for media and technology, Shradha currently designs and oversees the expansion initiatives that have doubled the company’s growth year-after-year. Shradha, based in Chicago and New York City, is also an angel investor, conference speaker and startup advisor. She was also recognized by Crain’s Chicago Business as one of the Tech 50 individuals leading Chicago’s startup wave and inducted into the 40 Under 40 list of young achievers in 2012.

Riddhiman Das of Kansas City, Mo., came to the United States in 2008 to pursue an American college education and studied Computer Science, Mathematics and Entrepreneurship. As an undergraduate student, he co-founded three startup tech companies—Dr. Peet’s Software, TalentHelix, and Galleon Labs.  He is also heavily involved with EyeVerify, a Kansas City based technology startup that has commercialized the Eyeprint Verification System as a simple, safe replacement for entering passwords on smartphones.  After his graduation from college, he had to either join a bigger company who could sponsor his visa, or remain enrolled in school in order to stay in the country and be able to focus on his businesses, so he decided to pursue a graduate degree and remain engaged in his businesses.  His proudest moment was being able to hire two of his fellow graduates and one of his college professors full time to work at his consulting company about three months after he graduated from college.

Amar Sawhney of Bedford, Mass., is an inventor and serial entrepreneur in the field of medical devices.  He holds over 120 patents, which form the basis for several first of a kind medical devices that have helped millions of patients worldwide.  He has founded six companies, which account for over 1,600 jobs created and over $1.5 billion in revenue to date.  Amar helps foster entrepreneurship by mentoring young innovators and creating companies through Incept, a medical device incubator he helped co-found.

Dr. Sivalingam (Siva) Sivananthan of Chicago, Ill., is a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor and Director of the Microphysics Laboratory (MPL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).  He is also the founder of the high-tech, Bell Labs-styled incubator, Sivananthan Laboratories, based in Bolingbrook, Ill.  Born in Chavakacheri, Sri Lanka, Dr. Sivananthan is a world-renowned physicist as well as a successful entrepreneur in creating advanced military infrared night vision technology, which has also served as the platform for ground-breaking, next generation solar cells.  To that end, he helped found InSPIRE (the non-profit Institute for Solar Photovoltaic Innovation, Research, and Edu-training), whose mission is training Illinois’s workforce and exciting Illinois undergraduate and high school students to create a renewable energy and solar eco-system in Illinois.  His mission in life has been always to give his very best—to his family and friends, his students, his research, his business, his country, and the world at large.