Zubaida Bai attended Dalarna University, Borlange, Sweden where she got her degree in mechanical engineering. She believes that the pursuit of academic research and applied field work are important in understanding the issues being faced in the developing countries. Zubaida has been on the evaluation panel for various conferences and business plan competitions, the latest being, an assessor for the Development Marketplace competition administered by the World Bank, to identify and grant fund innovative and early stage projects. Zubaida was a finalist at the International Young Design Entrepreneur of the Year (IYDEY) in 2007. As a Project Officer for LRAMP (a project of Chennai based not-for-profit Rural Innovations Network (RIN) in partnership with IIT Madras and The Lemelson Foundation), Zubaida offered technological and business advice on product development and design to rural innovators. She also organized training programs on different aspects of product innovation.