Understand more to fear less - SAP Women in Tech ,Edition 2 -Aug 2016

[geetika_shukla]

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood" said Marie Curie ,who needs no introduction .

What happens when about 600 odd women technologists gather under a roof ??

Bustle - checked!

Nervous energy -checked !

Zealous conversations - checked !

Subtle power  - checked !!

A whole new set of role models - checked !!!

SAP Women in Tech Summit ,Season 2 was all of this and much more .

Lakshmi Rebecca ,the anchor , a vlogger and filmmaker ,an entrepreneur herself ,set the perfect note for the day by making all the women believe more in themselves and feel all the more "pow-Her-ful".

Manjusha Nair ,the head of Diversity and Inclusion in SAP ,India ,welcomed everybody by laying emphasis on how technology and interconnectivity have transformed the way we live .

Anka Wittenberg ,Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion ,SAP, in her keynote ,made all of us realise how we need to keep on learning as well as teaching simultaneously .Success is no longer measured only in the units of money but very much in terms of engagement ,involvement ,sustainability and any positive impact that it has on the world.After all ,we need not toil hard to look outside and seek role models .Instead , why can't we ourselves be the role models we are looking for ?

Also ,I am sure ,all of us agree that each of us ,at some point or the other ,fall prey to "unconscious bias" and we have to make conscious efforts to overcome this .Only then can we fulfil the diversity voids and enable other varied members to be a part of our workforce.

Then came on the session ,which had all of us hooked as well as in splits ,as Ms. Pankajam Sridevi ,MD ,ANZ ,Bengaluru ,took over the stage to talk more about Robotics Process Automation.It takes a lady with such experience ,intellect, and grit to make a topic such as Robotics ,sound like child's play.All of us couldn't help but go gaga about this charming lady who told us about RPA,Machine learning and Design Thinking in ways we had not thought before .While we are at it ,why not find more about Wimlworkshop , Amelia ,Cloudera ,Arago -hiro.  

This was followed by a rendezvous with 3 key technology trends to watch out for.Bots ,Algorithmic personality detection and Blockchain were the three latest buzzwords ,handpicked by Sadaf Shakil ,APO ,GS Financials ,SAP ,Bangalore that all of us need to sit back and notice ,if not done already.

Ms Madhuri Ramesh ,Head- Platforms & Solutions, Wipro Digital , did a reality check on Digital interconnectedness and showed all of us that it is here ,there and everywhere.

Have you ever thought about starting up something on your own without feeling an iota of setback even after facing failures .A panel discussion  with 3 gritty women entrepreneurs ,Jeeta Bandopadhyay (Tookitaki),Preeti Jain (InLogg) and Shree Kulkarni (Mobisy) was just what the doctor ordered for all of us.They talked about all it takes in a nutshell to lay the foundation of your start up venture ,what difficulties one has to go through before tasting success and useful tips for budding entrepreneurs.

Later in the day ,there were other informative musings by Ms Gayathri Pal ,Data Scientist ,Walmart Labs on  Online Fraud Detection using Advanced Machine Learning ,by Ms Bhanu Shashi ,Security Architect ,SAP Labs ,Bangalore on Cyber Security and by Ms Surekha Shetty ,Director ,Impel CRM  on Cloud computing and Operations.

As we bade adieu to a fulfilling ,technilicious and enriching day ,the views ofthe speakers left each one of us with some food for thought -

Can you contribute to inclusion based on diversity ,not only Gender diversity but all its other forms ?

Can you ride the Digitalisation Bandwagon ,not as a pillion but as the chief driver ?

Can you empower yourself as well as the others without the need of pulling one another down ?

Can you redefine success ?

And finally ...Can you code like a girl?

Think about it as ""Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood"