what would you see if I told you that
collectively as a nation we’re losing 20
lakh rupees every minute 20 lakhs that
could be used to create a model to rent
out agricultural equipment for the
Indian farmers Kamal Hassan or 20 lakhs
that could help you make your travel
plans at the click of a button yatra or
20 lakhs that could transform the way
that the Indian woman buys lingerie
thank God Almighty
Zev ami is that number large enough to
have caught your attention because that
is the loss that we face every day a
woman engineer drops out of the race
that is the opportunity cost that we
have to bear when we don’t support the
woman entrepreneur who’s bringing her
ideas to the fore and that is the price
of the vanishing Indian technical woman
you know I volunteered a lot I go out to
a lot of schools I talk to a lot of
students and most of the girls there
have stellar academic records they’re
doing very well what they really create
is the ability to get hands-on more
experience learning you know to be able
to participate in a group one of the
things that when I was talking to them
about I was trying to find out what is
it that you really really want you know
do you really want to collaborate so I
backed up a little bit and try to think
about this a little bit more right
across the world the stem numbers which
we talked about with a science
technology engineering and math the
problem is really of pipeline right not
enough girls getting into it and really
causing a lack of diversity in the work
place well here in India we do not have
that problem right more than 30 percent
of our engineering college graduates are
women we really want our girls to be
women engineers we really are pushing
them towards it I’ll give you an example
I have this running joke in my family my
cousin his young daughter was lagging
behind in her dance class so his wife
sort of very good-naturedly complaining
to him about it and he just shrugged his
shoulders and said you know Kanaka Vonda
sorry right which is as long as she’s
good at math which is great right that
bucket that we talked about that
pipeline it’s filling our bucket we have
no problems with that the problem we
have is with the leak in the bucket so
interestingly when you look at senior
leadership numbers our number is at 14%
suddenly the 30 40 percent is missing
and if you go to board level seats that
drops even more to 7% so why are we
investing all this time and energy and
effort into making our girls engineers
only to watch them disappear I have a
few theories around this which I’d like
to share with you today the first one
being the collaboration crisis now
selling you earlier I go to a lot of
these colleges and talk to these women
all doing really well but the challenge
of collaboration they face is because we
live in a world where we have these
24-hour hackathons which are
all-nighters but the safety and security
of women students is paramount in the
minds of the organizers so the women are
simply left behind our friend who
organizes these hackathons right these
are basically all night coding parties
and he was telling me the very few women
that actually show up to these events
end up feeling very frustrated so ask me
what’s going on why is that so the deal
is that the boys are guzzling redbull
through the night and working on these
really really challenging problems in
what we call the graveyard shift which
is really late night shift but the girls
have to go home so when they come back
the next morning you know eager to
really contribute there’s nothing left
to do all the big problems are solved
already so the end up feeling that
they’ve participated very little added
very little to the whole you know
solving of the problem and it’s more
disappointing than encouraging or
empowering so these events they’re just
not designed for women whether it is a
7:00 p.m. curfew at our hostels
or the fact that we’re unable to
participate in that 10:00 p.m. you know
cutting chai break everybody knows that
that’s where the best ideas are formed
there is no way
for the women to collaborate with their
peers with their colleague and really
improve their learning so that drip drop
from that leaky bucket that happens just
about now I’d like to talk a little bit
about the long road to learning
maternity break just two words right
I’ve had two kids in a fantastic time
you know six months with a newborn it’s
a really really magical experience but I
will say that along with handling that
bliss of motherhood you’re also dealing
with the angst of missing out especially
when women come back to the workplace
you feel a bit lost and that’s I would
say is is exacerbated in technology
which is a field that really waits for
nobody right moving at a very very rapid
pace so I come back from maternity break
and then I find that my entire workplace
is shifted right the project that I was
working on has moved three times in
terms of direction the number of lines
of code that’s been added to the code
base has gone up by thousands most of
which I don’t understand anymore
multiple patents have been filed and my
team has become so much more
knowledgeable and so far ahead of me
that it’s almost overwhelming you know I
wonder when will I have the time to
learn to catch up and feel productive
and useful again in that environment so
I know what it takes you know to manage
your home manage your work manage your
family etc but I struggle with the
challenge of learning a new framework at
work and managing seventh grade
chemistry at home it’s it’s amazing
right because the feeling of inadequacy
comes from being in a place where
everybody is running this 10-minute mile
marathon for the runners in the group
whereas I barely have time to catch a
breath that second gush from that leaky
bucket that happens at this stage and
let’s talk a little bit about decisions
you know it’s Indian girls we don’t get
a whole lot of opportunities to make
decisions growing up a pair
decide what you’re gonna wear where
you’re going to study you know what job
offer you’re going to pick and of course
who you’re going to marry right someone
else is always making these decisions
for you so when you’re presented with a
choice we really struggle I see this
more now when I’m trying you know
aspiring to be an entrepreneur the whole
decision of moving from corporate to to
trying to do something on my own game
with a lot of deliberations you know
checking with my friends my family my
colleagues my house help everybody and
then I was thinking okay how do i you
know evaluate the impact of this
decision on every facet of my life you
know what does this mean for my spouse’s
travel and his work what does this mean
to my parents health what does this mean
to my kids exam schedules it’s endless
supposing you do take that plunge you
say okay you know I’m going to sort all
this out but I’m actually going to jump
in the next set of questions begin which
is really about you know do I have a
product that is perfect enough can I go
out to a VC to ask for money what if
they think I’m overreaching what if you
know what if I should add like two more
customer endorsements before I actually
go out and of course that ever hanging
sword what is I feel why is it that as
women we have this analysis paralysis
when it comes to making a choice it’s
because we haven’t done enough of it why
is it that we are so terrified of
failure it’s because we have always been
taught to aspire for perfection
rather than ambition never never
ambition you know it’s interesting lot
of people ask me you know actually why
are you so passionate about this why do
you work on this so much and you know I
have a single reason I mean besides the
fact that I am a technologist and I have
two girls at home it is another reason
and that reason is
um you know it’s sort of it’s sort of
interesting I growing up did not face
these hardships right gender parity was
a non-issue for me many years ago when I
was twenty I decided to get married
so I’d like to say that I was coerced
into it and my parents forced me into
getting married however my husband’s in
the audience and I don’t think this is
going going to go down very well with
him so I’ll stick to the truth so I told
my parents I want to get married when I
was 20 so my father after he got over
the initial shock of that decision
he sat me down and he said you know your
brother chose to get married to the
person of his choice and he chose to do
it whenever he want to do you seem like
you fairly mature at about 19 so I’m
going to give you that same choice while
the you know the impact of that decision
did not hit me then it does now because
not every girl’s story begins that way
if our girls are vanishing because of
the lack of choice it’s really our
responsibility as parents and teachers
to be able to help them make those
really tough decisions help them work on
the hardest and most difficult problems
and dream big like dream huge right I’ll
talk about this picture in a minute I
have a daughter and you know she’s a
huge bolt fan so we were watching the
Olympics together a little while ago and
she turned to me and said mom if I want
to be a runner or an athlete you know
how am I going to make money
how does busine both make money and I’m
like thinking to myself and I’m saying
well he’s excellent at math let’s start
with that whether they I bit my tongue
and I said you know you can be whatever
you want without any fear we have to
give our girls the opportunity to make
real choices with real consequences
right and to be able to support them
when those choices don’t go as well as
they expect it to if our girls are
disappearing because of the lack of
collaboration we really need to figure
out a way to level the playing field you
have a woman in the meeting and she’s
not saying anything ask her for opinion
you know when we talk about women coming
back for the maternity leave give them
tough problems to solve
please don’t soften the deal for us but
give them the time to be able to learn
the skills to be able to solve that and
be
successful if you want to have coding
contests sure go ahead make it 6:00 a.m.
to 6:00 p.m. that way everybody gets a
fair chance nobody is asking for
preferential treatment that would be a
disservice both to the men and the
deserving women out there what I am
asking for however is just a little bit
of awareness awareness of the roadblocks
and challenges that your women
colleagues face in the workplace
awareness of the fact that the girls
students in your class if they’re
working on their robotics experiments
they’re also probably trying to learn
how to make the perfect a party and
awareness of the fact that just a little
bit of intervention from any of us can
bring that vanishing figure back into
the fray and to the girl engineers in
the room I’d really like to introduce
you you know to the power of yes because
there’s a 50% chance of success as there
is a failure so don’t be afraid of
making those choices the power of yes is
something that I hit upon just a few
years ago the idea is really very simple
for one year just use the opportunity to
say yes to everything that comes your
way
every single thing whether it’s a big
opportunity or a small one whether it’s
an important one or an insignificant one
if it interests you say yes say yes to
have your code reviewed by the toughest
colleague that you know you know say yes
to steer the next architects committee
say X to submit a poster to the next
tier one conference because when you say
yes when you make that commitment you
will find a way to make it happen I can
assure you of that
and the opportunities of learning that
come your way through that is incredible
don’t be a part of the 20 lakh write off
and maybe someday you’ll get an
opportunity to share your story at a big
event or an important stage you may
wonder what did they see in you to ask
you you may wonder if you’re important
enough accomplished enough or articulate
enough should you ask
for a little bit more time to prepare
should you check off those five other
things that you want to do before you
get out there to speak should you can
you will you oh maybe just maybe you’ll
say yes thank you
[Applause]
collectively as a nation we’re losing 20
lakh rupees every minute 20 lakhs that
could be used to create a model to rent
out agricultural equipment for the
Indian farmers Kamal Hassan or 20 lakhs
that could help you make your travel
plans at the click of a button yatra or
20 lakhs that could transform the way
that the Indian woman buys lingerie
thank God Almighty
Zev ami is that number large enough to
have caught your attention because that
is the loss that we face every day a
woman engineer drops out of the race
that is the opportunity cost that we
have to bear when we don’t support the
woman entrepreneur who’s bringing her
ideas to the fore and that is the price
of the vanishing Indian technical woman
you know I volunteered a lot I go out to
a lot of schools I talk to a lot of
students and most of the girls there
have stellar academic records they’re
doing very well what they really create
is the ability to get hands-on more
experience learning you know to be able
to participate in a group one of the
things that when I was talking to them
about I was trying to find out what is
it that you really really want you know
do you really want to collaborate so I
backed up a little bit and try to think
about this a little bit more right
across the world the stem numbers which
we talked about with a science
technology engineering and math the
problem is really of pipeline right not
enough girls getting into it and really
causing a lack of diversity in the work
place well here in India we do not have
that problem right more than 30 percent
of our engineering college graduates are
women we really want our girls to be
women engineers we really are pushing
them towards it I’ll give you an example
I have this running joke in my family my
cousin his young daughter was lagging
behind in her dance class so his wife
sort of very good-naturedly complaining
to him about it and he just shrugged his
shoulders and said you know Kanaka Vonda
sorry right which is as long as she’s
good at math which is great right that
bucket that we talked about that
pipeline it’s filling our bucket we have
no problems with that the problem we
have is with the leak in the bucket so
interestingly when you look at senior
leadership numbers our number is at 14%
suddenly the 30 40 percent is missing
and if you go to board level seats that
drops even more to 7% so why are we
investing all this time and energy and
effort into making our girls engineers
only to watch them disappear I have a
few theories around this which I’d like
to share with you today the first one
being the collaboration crisis now
selling you earlier I go to a lot of
these colleges and talk to these women
all doing really well but the challenge
of collaboration they face is because we
live in a world where we have these
24-hour hackathons which are
all-nighters but the safety and security
of women students is paramount in the
minds of the organizers so the women are
simply left behind our friend who
organizes these hackathons right these
are basically all night coding parties
and he was telling me the very few women
that actually show up to these events
end up feeling very frustrated so ask me
what’s going on why is that so the deal
is that the boys are guzzling redbull
through the night and working on these
really really challenging problems in
what we call the graveyard shift which
is really late night shift but the girls
have to go home so when they come back
the next morning you know eager to
really contribute there’s nothing left
to do all the big problems are solved
already so the end up feeling that
they’ve participated very little added
very little to the whole you know
solving of the problem and it’s more
disappointing than encouraging or
empowering so these events they’re just
not designed for women whether it is a
7:00 p.m. curfew at our hostels
or the fact that we’re unable to
participate in that 10:00 p.m. you know
cutting chai break everybody knows that
that’s where the best ideas are formed
there is no way
for the women to collaborate with their
peers with their colleague and really
improve their learning so that drip drop
from that leaky bucket that happens just
about now I’d like to talk a little bit
about the long road to learning
maternity break just two words right
I’ve had two kids in a fantastic time
you know six months with a newborn it’s
a really really magical experience but I
will say that along with handling that
bliss of motherhood you’re also dealing
with the angst of missing out especially
when women come back to the workplace
you feel a bit lost and that’s I would
say is is exacerbated in technology
which is a field that really waits for
nobody right moving at a very very rapid
pace so I come back from maternity break
and then I find that my entire workplace
is shifted right the project that I was
working on has moved three times in
terms of direction the number of lines
of code that’s been added to the code
base has gone up by thousands most of
which I don’t understand anymore
multiple patents have been filed and my
team has become so much more
knowledgeable and so far ahead of me
that it’s almost overwhelming you know I
wonder when will I have the time to
learn to catch up and feel productive
and useful again in that environment so
I know what it takes you know to manage
your home manage your work manage your
family etc but I struggle with the
challenge of learning a new framework at
work and managing seventh grade
chemistry at home it’s it’s amazing
right because the feeling of inadequacy
comes from being in a place where
everybody is running this 10-minute mile
marathon for the runners in the group
whereas I barely have time to catch a
breath that second gush from that leaky
bucket that happens at this stage and
let’s talk a little bit about decisions
you know it’s Indian girls we don’t get
a whole lot of opportunities to make
decisions growing up a pair
decide what you’re gonna wear where
you’re going to study you know what job
offer you’re going to pick and of course
who you’re going to marry right someone
else is always making these decisions
for you so when you’re presented with a
choice we really struggle I see this
more now when I’m trying you know
aspiring to be an entrepreneur the whole
decision of moving from corporate to to
trying to do something on my own game
with a lot of deliberations you know
checking with my friends my family my
colleagues my house help everybody and
then I was thinking okay how do i you
know evaluate the impact of this
decision on every facet of my life you
know what does this mean for my spouse’s
travel and his work what does this mean
to my parents health what does this mean
to my kids exam schedules it’s endless
supposing you do take that plunge you
say okay you know I’m going to sort all
this out but I’m actually going to jump
in the next set of questions begin which
is really about you know do I have a
product that is perfect enough can I go
out to a VC to ask for money what if
they think I’m overreaching what if you
know what if I should add like two more
customer endorsements before I actually
go out and of course that ever hanging
sword what is I feel why is it that as
women we have this analysis paralysis
when it comes to making a choice it’s
because we haven’t done enough of it why
is it that we are so terrified of
failure it’s because we have always been
taught to aspire for perfection
rather than ambition never never
ambition you know it’s interesting lot
of people ask me you know actually why
are you so passionate about this why do
you work on this so much and you know I
have a single reason I mean besides the
fact that I am a technologist and I have
two girls at home it is another reason
and that reason is
um you know it’s sort of it’s sort of
interesting I growing up did not face
these hardships right gender parity was
a non-issue for me many years ago when I
was twenty I decided to get married
so I’d like to say that I was coerced
into it and my parents forced me into
getting married however my husband’s in
the audience and I don’t think this is
going going to go down very well with
him so I’ll stick to the truth so I told
my parents I want to get married when I
was 20 so my father after he got over
the initial shock of that decision
he sat me down and he said you know your
brother chose to get married to the
person of his choice and he chose to do
it whenever he want to do you seem like
you fairly mature at about 19 so I’m
going to give you that same choice while
the you know the impact of that decision
did not hit me then it does now because
not every girl’s story begins that way
if our girls are vanishing because of
the lack of choice it’s really our
responsibility as parents and teachers
to be able to help them make those
really tough decisions help them work on
the hardest and most difficult problems
and dream big like dream huge right I’ll
talk about this picture in a minute I
have a daughter and you know she’s a
huge bolt fan so we were watching the
Olympics together a little while ago and
she turned to me and said mom if I want
to be a runner or an athlete you know
how am I going to make money
how does busine both make money and I’m
like thinking to myself and I’m saying
well he’s excellent at math let’s start
with that whether they I bit my tongue
and I said you know you can be whatever
you want without any fear we have to
give our girls the opportunity to make
real choices with real consequences
right and to be able to support them
when those choices don’t go as well as
they expect it to if our girls are
disappearing because of the lack of
collaboration we really need to figure
out a way to level the playing field you
have a woman in the meeting and she’s
not saying anything ask her for opinion
you know when we talk about women coming
back for the maternity leave give them
tough problems to solve
please don’t soften the deal for us but
give them the time to be able to learn
the skills to be able to solve that and
be
successful if you want to have coding
contests sure go ahead make it 6:00 a.m.
to 6:00 p.m. that way everybody gets a
fair chance nobody is asking for
preferential treatment that would be a
disservice both to the men and the
deserving women out there what I am
asking for however is just a little bit
of awareness awareness of the roadblocks
and challenges that your women
colleagues face in the workplace
awareness of the fact that the girls
students in your class if they’re
working on their robotics experiments
they’re also probably trying to learn
how to make the perfect a party and
awareness of the fact that just a little
bit of intervention from any of us can
bring that vanishing figure back into
the fray and to the girl engineers in
the room I’d really like to introduce
you you know to the power of yes because
there’s a 50% chance of success as there
is a failure so don’t be afraid of
making those choices the power of yes is
something that I hit upon just a few
years ago the idea is really very simple
for one year just use the opportunity to
say yes to everything that comes your
way
every single thing whether it’s a big
opportunity or a small one whether it’s
an important one or an insignificant one
if it interests you say yes say yes to
have your code reviewed by the toughest
colleague that you know you know say yes
to steer the next architects committee
say X to submit a poster to the next
tier one conference because when you say
yes when you make that commitment you
will find a way to make it happen I can
assure you of that
and the opportunities of learning that
come your way through that is incredible
don’t be a part of the 20 lakh write off
and maybe someday you’ll get an
opportunity to share your story at a big
event or an important stage you may
wonder what did they see in you to ask
you you may wonder if you’re important
enough accomplished enough or articulate
enough should you ask
for a little bit more time to prepare
should you check off those five other
things that you want to do before you
get out there to speak should you can
you will you oh maybe just maybe you’ll
say yes thank you
[Applause]
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