Moderator: Nanditha Iyer, DE Shaw

Panelists: Sumeet Moghe, ThoughtWorks; Anupama Nithyanand, Infosys; Rajalekshmy Ramaswamy, Yahoo

Abstract:

Are you ambitious? Do you have formidable dreams after graduation? You might wonder what it takes to succeed in the next stage of life- in business! Esteemed panelists of the “Induction to the Corporate World” workshop are going to tell you how. This program will address pertinent questions such as – Who owns the responsibility of grooming newbie’s entering the Industry? At what stage of their graduation should this start? Should corporates collaborate with campuses and co-own this responsibility? What should be the expectations from induction? What will be the impact on the next generation of leaders if this grooming is not taken seriously? Also, one can look forward to learning ways to enhance qualities that’ll enhance their profile even before a job offer. You will leave this workshop with tips to getting your career off on the right foot, and how to prepare while you are still in university.

Bios:

Nanditha Iyer

Nanditha Iyer is a software engineer with D.E.Shaw & Co. with 15 months of experience and is based in Hyderabad. She received her BE from PESIT, Bangalore, where she specialized in Computer Science. She is active in the community service on the “Planning Committee” of GHC India, which is responsible for driving the conference goals and objectives by defining and driving sub-committees who work on various aspects of the conference. She has also attended Grace Hopper Celebration which was held in 2010 at Atlanta. Nanditha has a passion for technology and research and wants to pursue her career in research field. Her other interests include reading, cooking and traveling.

Sumeet Moghe

Sumeet Moghe has 10 years of experience in Training and Development and has a passion for devising and talking about new training methods. Sumeet works with ThoughtWorks Technologies Pvt Ltd, India and heads Training and Education for ThoughtWorks Globally. In the last couple of years, Sumeet has been particularly interested in observing the synergy between Agile and Learner Centered Training methods, built around the values of Respect, Communication, Feedback, Courage and Simplicity. At ThoughtWorks, he has had the opportunity of seeing these in practice and actually inventing a few practices of his own. Sumeet is deeply passionate in bringing Agile principles to non-computer science arenas as well and has taken a step by applying these to the fields of Workplace Learning, Enterprise 2.0 and team collaboration. Sumeet also leads up ThoughtWorks University, a ground breaking graduate training program that’s constantly raising the bar when inducting new talent into the IT industry. Sumeet is a recognised blogger and blogs at http://learninggeneralist.com.

Anupama Nithyanand

Anupama Nithyanand is a Computer Science and Engineering graduate with more than 21 years of experience in education, research, consultancy and people development. She is passionate about teaching and technology research in the areas of Information Management and application development trends. She is currently a Lead Principal in Education and Research department of Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore.

Rajalekshmy Ramaswamy

Rajalekshmy goes as Rajy in the industry. After a brief initial tenure with Government of India, she moved to IT sector during late 90’s. Before she made this transition, she completed her Masters in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She chose to be in Quality Engineering as its breadth enticed her. She is with Yahoo! For the past 7+ years and she manages Quality Engineering for many complicated and distributed products.

Moderator: Urbi Mukherjee, Thomson Reuters

Panelists: Revathi Kasturi, LAQSH; Alka Manchanda, Cisco; Moitreyee Mukherjee-Roy, IBM; Nivruti Rai, Intel

Abstract:

While most IT companies are taking up initiatives to evangelize encouraging the women to take up jobs, most Indian women feel that they are less paid than men. They also feel that with the reduced gender diversity in mid and senior manager levels, they would stand a better chance at roles, lateral moves, choice of work-life balance and promotions if they learn to negotiate better. Our panel have come together to establish how gender gaps with respect to compensation and roles can be better managed by us.

Bios:

Urbi Mukherjee

Urbi is a Project Manager with Thomson Reuters and is based in Bangalore. An engineer by education, she has 11 years of work experience. Prior to this, she has worked with Dell and Cisco. Her need to moderate this session lies in the fact that she passionately feels that successful careers need to be built, albeit a little painstakingly.

Revathi Kasturi

Revathi Kasturi – She was the was Managing Director Novell – Asia West and prior to that the Chief Executive – Finance Solutions Division at Wipro. Revathi has over 27 years of experience in the IT Industry and has led businesses engaged in Enterprise Software Development, Systems Integration, Customer Support as well as IT hardware. She has intimate knowledge of the Finance Industry having built and implemented solutions for Securities, Banking and Insurance segments for well over 14 years.Revathi received her Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in 1980. Her 2 stints with entrepreneurship pertained to establishing Tarang Software Technologies; A SEI CMM Level 5 Global IT services company focused on ELearning and Payment Systems with 300 employees. Currently, she heads Laqsh, which is a job skills academy in the tier II cities to build capability for the services sector. She was awarded the Woman of the year by Business Today for the year 2001. She has been on the board of NASSCOM as an Executive Council Member for 6 years.

Alka Manchanda

Alka Manchanda is Director of Engineering, leading the Voice Technology Group product development in India. She is a 14 year Cisco veteran, most of which was with Cisco San Jose and Seattle. Alka has been with Cisco Bangalore for the last 3 years. Her current responsibilities include leading the software development, test, documentation and product marketing organizations for IP Communications BU and Contact Center BU in India. As the VTG lead in India, she is responsible for interfacing with customers, sales teams and partners to understand and deliver features and solutions for the local and global Unified Communications market. Prior to joining Cisco, Alka worked at Cabletron Systems, a switch manufacturer, for 3 plus years as a software developer developing network management solutions for their switches. Alka has Bachelor degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Smith College (Northampton, MA) and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire (Durham NH). She was born and raised in New Delhi, and attended Convent of Jesus and Mary school and Miranda House for 2 years, studying Computer Science.

Moitreyee Mukherjee-Roy

Dr. Moitreyee Mukherjee- Roy – Sr. Manager, Computational Lithography & Characterization Systems and Technology Group, IBM. She possesses 16 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. She has had the opportunity to live and work in five different countries and lead diverse teams across the globe. She has worked for Texas Instruments (TI), Dallas, Texas, Astar Institute of Microelectronics (IME), Singapore, Grace Semiconductor Corp. Shanghai, and IBM India. Her experience is primarily in the area of semiconductor technology development specific to Pattern Transfer and Yield Enhancement. She has been instrumental in multiple fab start ups, lead international consortia, and Joint development programs for development of cutting edge technology. She has served in the Technical Committees for international bodies such as SPIE advanced lithography and ECS. She has held an adjunct Prof. position at NTU (Nanyang Technological University) in Singapore and co-guided several graduate students. Moitreyee has 7 US patents and has authored/co-authored around 40 peer reviewed and conference papers.

Nivruti Rai

Nivruti Rai is a Principal Engineer and the Director of the System on Chip Enabling Group at Intel. She is actively involved in mentoring women at Intel and has over 16 years industry experience. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree from Lucknow University in India, Nivruti Rai earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering at Oregon State University, completing her graduate research under the direction of Sabah Randhawa. Now the senior most woman executive at Intel India in Bangalore, she serves as technical manager for research and development pertaining to mobile platform technologies. Rai’s work to improve the functionality and efficiency of high-performance computers is consistent with her commitment to technology development efforts that help the Indian economy. Rai has five U.S. and international patents and has authored more than ten technical papers on integrated circuit design methodologies and operation research. In January 2006, Rai became the first individual ever to be named an“Overseas Citizen of India,” an honor that grants Indians holding foreign passports many of the rights of full citizenship, including access to areas of the country typically off limits to foreigners.

Moderator: Shweta Shandilya, IBM

Panelists: Malar Karumalai, CA Technologies; Geeta Pai, HP; Hastagiri Prakash, Yahoo; Vishakha Vaidya, Adobe

Abstract:

The role of an Individual Contributor in a IT company is challenged by the fact that the person needs to be very much self-motivated and love the technology along with the leadership qualities. In an Indian context the society pressure for the management position also pushes an individual towards taking up a management role. This panel discusses the challenges around these roles and the motivation to continue in such roles.

Bios:

Shweta Shandilya

Shweta works as Project Manager in IBM India Software Labs, Bangalore. She has 12 years of software development and lead experience working with products in ISL and significant amount of experience with customers and support teams. In her current role, Shweta manages product development team for IBM Master Data Management. In her earlier role she was working as a Product Architech for the same product. She also leads a diversity group for one of the brands within IBM called “Shakti”. Shweta holds a BE degree from NIIT, Patna. As an Architect role some of her ideas have become a part of the product and converted into paper publications.

Malar Karumalai

Malar Karumalai has 18 years of experience in computing. Started as school teacher, then teaching at college, followed by 8 years as Scientist/Engineer at ISRO, Bangalore, Malar has contributed significantly to mission data processing software, and held positions as Project Manager and Deputy Operations Director of for ResourceSat satellite. Malar has been with CA Technologies for more than 6 years growing from Sr.Software Engineer to Development manager to Software Architect now. At CA, Malar has been contributing to various products in Storage, Records Management, Compliance, IT Client automation and playing significant role in successful knowledge transfers.

Geeta Pai

Geeta joined HP in 2003 and is currently in the Enterprise Software section of IPG R&D Hub that works on several enterprise software products for the Imaging and Printing business group. She has played roles in several technical positions during her career of 13 years. She has extensive experience in architecting and development of web-based systems, primarily on Java/J2EE, SOA, J2ME, and WAP. Her work has covered Web Services Wireless systems, e-Commerce, Document management system etc. In addition to her software engineering knowledge, she brings strong systems/product development experience in Document Management and Digital Media domains. Geeta has worked with the HP development team at Warner Bros. and Starbucks on Media based projects and has been a key participant in HP’s retail media efforts. Currently, Geeta is an architect for the Document Design and Delivery work being done by the section. Geeta obtained her Master of Computer Applications (MCA) degree from Kuvempu University, Shimoga Karnataka in 1997. In her spare time, Geeta likes listening to songs, traveling, and cooking. She keeps herself active by yoga, meditation and gym.

Hastagiri Prakash

Hastagiri is currently a tech lead in the Advertising Platforms Group of Yahoo! India. Prior to this, he worked for www.guruji.com, India’s indigenous search engine and also for Qualcomm India. He has a Masters research degree in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc) and B.E in Computer Science from the University of Madras. His interests include Technology, Entrepreneurship, Travelling, Wildlife and Sports.

Vishakha Vaidya

Vishakha works as a computer scientist at Adobe. She completed her post graduation in computer science from Pune University and has an overall experience of 11 years with companies like IBM and Adobe. She was a part of Lotus Wordpro and IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator teams, in IBM. Some of her work in the directory integrator project, has been selected for being part of the IP initiative and Redbook. In Adobe, she has been a part of the Fireworks and Dreamweaver engineering teams. Her role involves suggesting and implementing feature ideas to enhance the product or a new product. Her ideas have been accepted as patents, papers, sneak peeks to new technologies etc at various technical summits in Adobe. Other than being a coder, she is a nature and wildlife photographer.

Human Factors International

Abstract:

We all know that the emerging markets are everyones favourite destination , whether for business or tourism, at the moment. Everyone is betting big for the emerging markets to change the geography of power in the world, in the near future. However, how much more do we know about the emerging markets? Who exactly comprises the emerging markets? What are the needs and aspirations of the people in these countries? Are they similar culturally? Can we design ‘one size fits all emerging markets’ solutions? What makes the emerging markets so interesting?

Lets find out what the answers to these questions are and also what are the 4 key themes of working in/for the emerging markets.

Bio:

Apala Chavan

Apala Chavan

Apala Chavan is a world-renowned expert on Contextual Innovation. She has been with Human Factors International since 1999 and is currently Vice President of HFI Asia. An award-winning designer (International Audi Design Award), Apala has led teams spanning design, development, testing, and deployment of software products. She is currently on the advisory board of Interactions magazine. Apala has developed a vast array of data-gathering techniques, which help understand the user experience in a variety of cultural and economic environments. Her book on emerging markets ” Innovative Solutions: What Designers Need to Know for Today’s Emerging Markets” has just been published.

Moderator: Prabha Bhaktharam AMD

Panelists: Jayanth Lahari, ARM; Nivruti Rai, Intel: Subhathra Srinivasaraghavan, IBM

Abstract:

Working women in India experience multiple challenges as they have to accommodate demands from the family, society, the ever-competitive profession. Many women crack under these soaring demands especially in the initial phase of their career, where they go from becoming daughters and sisters, to wives and mothers. Mentoring comes in handy at this time at both technical and personal levels. Organizations can help women regain their focus without succumbing to pressures by having a meaningful, structured mentoring program, to address issues and guide them towards managing a work-life balance. Such programs must also be applicable to women returning to their profession after a break. Some insights in to working collaboratively, and building a professional network comes in handy for long-term career development.

This panel is aimed at addressing these issues and includes two competent women, along with a male director who have managed both men and women in their organizations. Let’s talk to them and see how these issues could be handled towards retaining women in technical roles.

Bios:

Prabha Bhaktharam

Prabha is a Senior Verification Engineer working at AMD, Bangalore . She has 4+ years of experience in the field of ASIC Design/ Verification. She has worked previously as a Verification Engineer at ARM India Pvt. Ltd and as a Design Engineer at Philips Semiconductors, Tempe, US. With a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University, Tempe, she has taken couple of breaks in her career to attend to family commitments and has always come back to the industry with fervor and determination of making a career. An enthusiastic singer and a mother of 2, enjoys carnatic classical music, reading novels, and loves teaching her kids music.

Jayanth Lahari

Jayanta Lahiri completed his Masters (M.Tech) in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology(IIT), Madras with specialization in Microelectronics in 1988. He worked as member design Development team at Semiconductor Complex Ltd mostly at 2 micron & 3 micron ASIC development for the defense labs in India. In 1992 he moved to Texas Instruments(TI) in their memory design group. Worked extensively in DRAM & FLASH memories. Has worked with TI’s new Product development group in Houston & Dallas (Texas, USA). During his work at TI he has got two US patents filed with US patent office, the USP# 5901081 (Circuit & method for preconditioning memory word lines across word lines boundaries) & USP# 6055184 (Semiconductor memory device having programmable parallel erase operation). He was elected as Member Group Technical Staff (MGTS) during his tenure at Texas Instruments.He joined Allliance Semiconductor a leading SRAM design company in 1998 & led their low power & high speed /high density SRAM, Flash & DRAM product design along with memory testing group. Currently he is the Director of Physical IP Division of ARM (world leader in VLSI IPs) at Bangalore. Taking care of complete engineering of the library development group at ARM, India which includes memories, standard cell & IOs at cutting edge technologies like 65micron & 45micron. His research interests are high speed embedded SRAM design, high-speed IOs along with silicon validation of the embedded memories.

Nivruti Rai

Nivruti is the director of SOC Enabling and Circuits Technologies Intel India, ASDG (Atom and SOC development Group) HIP India. She has been the director of ASDG for more than 5 years and with Intel since 17+ years. She is responsible for development and growth of a young team of 300 engineers who design, validate and integrate Analog IP (DDR, DP, LVDS, PLL/DAC, Compiled Memories, VR) for I/Os and SOC products. She has a Masters in Industrial Engineering with Minor in Electrical engineering and a Masters in Applied mathematics and Minor in Operations Research. On the hobbies side, she has a Masters in Hindustani Music and a Bachelors in Kathak. She loves shopping for clothes, shoes, bags and watches. As a community service, she has adopted a village in India and working to improve quality of life through education, awareness for cleanliness, supporting old homes and hospitals through donations.

Subhathra Srinivasaraghavan

Subhathra Srinivasaraghavan is a Senior Manager with AIX India, IBM India Systems & Technology Lab. She leads a group of 80 people working for the AIX Operating System and IBM Power Systems. With over 11 years of experience in IBM, she has held a variety of technical and management positions. She has technical competencies across different Unix operating system components. She has been in the leadership role for over 5 years and managed the support, functional testing, and information development teams. Her passion for developing people has led her to mentor quite a few senior engineers and new managers. Being an active contributor in the diversity initiatives of IBM, she has started multiple networking and mentoring initiatives that help developing technical and management leadership in women. Subhathra has a Masters (M.S) in Software Engineering from BITS, Pilani and holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Engineering.

Panelists:

• Moderator: Beryl Nelson, Google

• Engineering Director: Gemma Burman, HP

• Program Manager: Priyanka Lilaramani, Goldman Sachs

• Working with the open source community: Hema Seetharamaiah, Wipro

• A researcher: Jayanthi Sivaswami, IIIT Hyderabad

• An architect and test manager: Sasikala Tadepali, Microsoft

Abstract:

You are the only woman in the room, and you need a strategy to be heard. In the technology field, it is very common for us to be in the minority, even from college days. In this session, you will hear about studies on general perceptions of women, and from several panelists who have been successful in various technical roles, about their experiences and strategies

Bios:

Beryl Nelson

Beryl Nelson has been an Engineering Manager, Google, Hyderabad, since early 2009. She leads teams in the Engineering Productivity group, focusing on accelerating development at Google. Early in her career, she worked in functional languages and compilers. She has been in Asia since 1995 and in Hyderabad since 2004, working at a number of companies. Prior to India, she lived in Tokyo, where she took several years off to raise children and learn about the culture before joining Epos Japan. Beryl also has lived in Germany. She speaks English, Japanese and German. She is vice-chair of the Hyderabad ACM chapter, and a volunteer Educational Counselor for MIT.

Gemma Burman

Gemma Burman is a Director, at the Imaging and Printing R&D Hub, Hewlett Packard, Bangalore. Gemma is responsible for the creation of world class R&D teams in the areas of Enterprise Software and Workflows, Printer Drivers and Print Fleet Manageability. Prior to this, Gemma worked in Defence R&D (LRDE), in the area of Network Management and Tactical Communications and in Verifone developing Software for their Point of Sale terminals. Gemma holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science and a Bachelors Degree with Major in Mathematics from Pune University.

Priyanka Lilaramani

Priyanka Lilaramani is a Program Manager at Goldman Sachs with over 10 yrs of experience in managing technology solutions for the Financial Industry. She works closely with professionals from various backgrounds and supports a wide range of businesses including Banking, Fixed Income, and Derivatives. Priyanka has a broad international experience as well having worked in the US, UK, India, and China. In her role, Priyanka needs to employ a wide range of communication and influencing styles and makes a conscious effort to improve her own skills and coach her team in this area.

Hema Seetharamaiah

Hema Seetharamaiah has worked with Wipro for 12+ years beginning as a developer working mainly in the computing systems area. Her first professional exposure to open source was in 2001 in a Wipro-Sun engagement of porting GNOME to Sun’s platforms and executing it as an open source project in the GNOME community. An ardent open source enthusiast, Hema has authored papers presented in the GNOME European Conference (GUADEC) and spoken at the Bangalore Linux conference. Currently, Hema heads the open source technology theme initiatives in the CTO office.

Jayanthi Sivaswamy

Prof. Jayanthi Sivaswamy did her MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University. She is currently a professor at IIIT Hyderabad. Prior to joining IIIT-H in 2001, she was with the University of Auckland, New Zealand for 8 yrs. Her broad research interests are biological and computer vision. Bio-inspired algorithm development and CAD tool development based on automated medical image analysis form the thrust of her current work. Part of her work is also in augmentative and assistive systems for autistic and dyslexic children.

Sasi Tadepalli

Sasi Tadepalli is the Principal Test Manager for the Partner Velocity Program at Microsoft, Hyderabad. Her responsibilities at Microsoft include generating engineering test plans, improving on the current performance infrastructure and increasing the automation coverage. Prior to Microsoft, she worked for ESP Systems, NTN Software Solutions, Alcatel and NTC Communications. Sasi is very passionate about her work. She is often described as dedicated, enthusiastic, friendly and demanding. Sasi has a great and positive presence, and understands vividly some of the extra hurdles she has had to go through to develop the trust of her team.

Moderator: Karpagam Venkataraman, Yahoo

Panelists: Pradnya Karbhari, Google; V. Pallavi, Philips Research

Abstract:

This session will show off two case studies of difficult technical problems, and the rewards of solving them. The first focuses on methods for automatic detection of various anatomical structures of the fetus like head, spine, femur, etc., in ultrasound images. The second will cover the reasoning behind the focus on speed of loading webpages, the factors contributing to latency, the challenges in reducing it and some relevant tools and technologies.

Bios:

Karpagam Venkataraman

Karpagam Venkataraman is an architect in Yahoo! Advertising Products group. Till recently in Search Advertising and currently working in Ad Exchange Product Architecture & Development. Karpagam has experience in the industry for more than 16 years. Last 10 years have been working in the areas of database systems; replication; data consistency management; relational and non-relational data stores; object/relational mapping and query frameworks; data mining; user and data analytics; Mainly focused on engineering highly scalable, complex, large-data, parallel and distributed systems, that involve technical challenges in the areas of parallel and distributed computing, multi-terabyte storage systems, and high-performance computing.

Pradnya Karbhari

Pradnya Karbhari is a Staff Software Engineer at Google Bangalore. She is currently tech lead on a project for speeding up the loading of webpages, as part of the make-the-web-faster initiative in Google. In the past, she has worked on other exciting projects like designing the load balancing architecture of Google’s content distribution network and designing an advertising keyword suggestions tool that mines through terrabytes of data to suggest thousands of keywords to advertisers to bid on. Pradnya holds a PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology.

V. Pallavi

V. Pallavi is a Senior Scientist at Philips Research Asia – Bangalore and has been with Philips since August 2007. Her role at Philips involves innovating and developing new technology/ research for healthcare applications catering to mother and child care and women’s health especially for India. She holds a doctoral degree from Computer Science and Engineering Department, IIT, Kharagpur (2007). Her research experience is in signal processing (video, image, time series), medical informatics, telemedicine with a common theme of pattern recognition to develop maternal/ women and fetal health.

Moderator: Ben Walters, Microsoft

Panelists: Lavanya Raghuraman, IBM; Rukma Talwadkar, NetApp; Vani Vully, NetApp

Abstract:

Introduction and deep dive into enabling technologies

- Introduction on the problem space: Lavanya Raghuraman, IBM

- Storage Management in a Cloud: Rukma Talwadkar, NetApp

- Secure Multi-tenancy and Security on the Cloud: Vani Vully, NetApp

Bios:

Ben Walters

Ben has over 21 years of experience in the software industry with much of the past decade being spent in cloud computing and cloud enabling technologies. He started an India Developer Center for Runaware, a cloud hosting company, where he was CTO and VP of Engineering. In the past he has also been an Architect at Citrix and ViewSoft working on application servers for the Internet and enterprises, and a software developer on projects ranging from real time embedded systems and robotics control to LOB apps and was granted a patent for UI remoting algorithms. He is passionate about technology, development practices and music. Ben is currently the Director of Program Management for Visual Studio Test and Lab Management at Microsoft.

Lavanya Raghuraman

Lavanya Raghuraman is an IBM Accredited IT Architect with over 11 years of industry experience. She has been working on cloud incubation initiatives that enable business solutions on cloud leveraging cloud technologies and offerings. Some of the key areas she has been working in the past include Advanced Analytics and Service Oriented Modeling and Architecture. She has presented an elective session in the Technical Leadership Exchange (TLE) held in IBM India, and has delivered various technology sessions within IBM. She holds a Masters Degree in Computer Application and holds a patent in the SOA space.

Rukma Talwadker

Rukma works with the Advanced technology group in NetApp which looks at the technology curves in the storage industry 3-5 years down the line and focuses on innovations around them. During her Master’s study at IIT Bombay she particularly focused on self-tuned overload control for multi-tiered systems and performance evaluation systems using queuing theory approach. Rukma has delivered talks at several international conferences and technical forums which includes International conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2005, Shanghai) and High performance computing (HiPC 2007, Goa).

Vani Vully

Vani Vully is an experienced NetApp Engineer who has worked for many years on technologies related to scale-up and scale-out for file systems and clustered file systems in particular. She has designed much of the virtualization infrastructure around these to enable deployments in the cloud. Her work includes extensive analysis in the security space for shared infrastructure that is typical of cloud deployments.

Moderator: Netra Deshpande, Symantec

Panelists: Shanthanu Apte, Infosys; Vandana Malaiya, IBM; Krishna Paul, Intel; Sujatha Vishweswara, Wipro Technologies

Abstract:

As we leave college days behind and begin to find our groove at work, we are faced with challenges that are unique to the workplace. Most of them are common to both men and women but some can be special to women. Many among us have deftly dealt with these challenges and converted them into stepping stones to greater success! Through this panel discussion, we bring to you a collage of such successful approaches from men and women of different experience levels and varying perspectives. The panel will discuss various dimensions such as continuous learning, managing work relationships and communication, successfully dealing with change, handling career issues such as promotion and salary hikes.

Bios:

Netra Deshpande

Netra is a Senior Manager at Symantec leading Security Technology groups in Security Technology and Response BU in India. She has 15 years of experience in software Design, Development. She joined Symantec in November 2005. She has successfully setup and led very high performing engineering teams and has a great execution track record for enterprise security products with complete engineering ownership along with customer support. Currently she is handling development and QA teams for core technology groups which are part of major security offerings from Symantec along with responsibilities like program management. She is also the member of Symantec Women Action Network. Prior to Symantec she has extensively worked in PKI Security Domain. She has obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Pune University holding 8th rank in the merit list.

Shanthanu Apte

Shantanu has wide range of hands-on experience – from managing very large teams to program managing change initiatives across the entire business unit (100 MUSD+) for driving business excellence. He is known amongst his team members for developing and mentoring individuals / teams to deliver business excellence while focusing on their long term career development. He has played successful stints in Design, Development, System Integration, Project Management, Sales, Delivery and Operations. He has traveled extensively across globe and developed long lasting partnerships and friendships. He received his Bachelor and Master of Engineering from a well known technology institute in India.

Vandana Malaiya

Vandana Malaiya has been with IBM since 2006 and she is currently an Account Executive managing a delivery team of over 800 people. She is also the member of the India Women Leadership Council at IBM. Vandana is passionate about working with women on their advancement. Prior to joining IBM, Vandana was an entrepreneur. She was the Director of EximSoft Technologies, which she co-founded in 1997 She has traveled extensively and worked with clients across the globe, including US, UK, Europe and Japan. Vandana has a Bachelors degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani and Executive General Management from IIMB.

Krishna Paul

Krishna Paul is working with Ultra Mobile Group, Intel as software architect. Her focus area is Platform Power Management and Low Power Audio technologies for Ultra Mobile devices.. Prior to this she worked as Assistant Professor at IIT Bombay, and as senior research staff member in NEC C& C Lab, Heidelberg, Germany, Mobile Internet group. In past years her research was primarily focused in following areas: Low Power System Software, Novel HCI technologies for small mobile devices, Architectures and Services for Wireless Computing, Wireless Medium Access Control algorithm design & performance analysis, Quality of service Architectures and Security in Self-Configuring Networks. She also worked in smart phone platforms developing products in 2.5/3G cellular technologies. She has participated in sponsored government projects in developing rural wireless infrastructure and Technology and Sensor Networks. Krishna earned her Ph.D in the year 2000. She has around 23 publications with 6 Journal papers in peer reviewed international journal and conferences.

Sujatha Vishweswara

Sujatha Visweswara is General Manager in the Business Technology Services Division at Wipro Technologies responsible for Delivery, Operations and Competency building managing a team of 3500+ people. A gold medalist in M.Tech from JNTU College of Engineering, Sujatha has over 17 years of technical, Business leadership and consulting experience in the global IT industry. Sujatha is an expert on papers on Internet Technologies, Web 2.0, SAAS models and has presented papers in various conferences such as the SIG conference in Arizona, Telestragies conference and the W3C Summit. She is also a Member of W3C Chapter of India. Sujatha is deeply interested in Carnatic music and plays the Veena, a string instrument.

Moderator: Sugandha Srikanteswaran, IBM

Panelists: Mrinalini Ingram, Cisco; Lalitha Ravisankaran, Goldman Sachs

Abstract:

Help women interpret the language of business, understand the market strategy, the core of the business, its customers, financial health of the company, the market space in which the company operates etc.

This can serve as a basic primer on the math of business – interpreting balance sheets and earnings, business decisions, how healthy is your company?

Bios:

Sugandha Srikanteswaran

Sugandha Srikanteswaran, a Program Director with AIM India Software Lab (ISL), leads the WebSphere Adapter development for IBM World Wide. With over 15 years of software experience (7 of it in IBM US), she is known to deliver responsibilities with customer focus and high quality levels. Her enthusiasm to take on new challenges and explore untried terrains is evident in her significant contributions within the WebSphere brand. Sugandha leads the “Shakti” women network group in ISL. She strongly believes that women not only bring a positive and productive approach to the workplace but also provide variety in thoughts, emotions and operational styles.

Lalitha Ravisankaran

Lalitha Ravisankaran is vice president & chief of staff for the head of application development in GS India. She is responsible for divisional strategy, business unit management and “telling technology’s financial story better. She serves on the Tech Career Development Committee and chairs the India Women in Technology Forum. Lalitha was one of the founding members of the Investment Banking Division efforts in Bangalore. Prior to joining GS, Lalitha worked at OfficeTiger and at GE Power Controls. Lalitha has an MBA in Finance from JNTU and is a certified cost accountant. She resides in Bangalore along with her husband Ravi and daughter Kumud.

Mrinalini Ingram

Mrinalini Ingram is the Senior Director, S+CC Strategy, BD and Operations at Cisco Systems. Mrinalini came to India from the US four years ago to help form Cisco’s Globalization Center as its CFO. The Globalization Center was established to grow the company’s growth, innovation and talent objectives primarily in the developing economies. She is currently working with governments and developers to leverage technology to create sustainable and efficient cities around the globe. Mrinalini graduated from Gonzaga University in the US and has recently graduated from the AMP program at Harvard. She has 21 years of experience, is a CPA and has previously worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dole Food Company and Lucent Technologies.

Presenters: Ameeta Roy, IBM

Abstract:

Technology and Sales : Mutually Exclusive?

Ever considered a career that allows you to apply business and financial acumen, keep track of IT trends, direction and strategy, keep your technical expertise constantly honed , be the trusted technology advisor to clients and provide leadership and project direction towards a successful implementation. This session will attempt to demystify a career in technical sales and what one can expect on the job.

Bios:

Ameeta Roy

Ameeta Roy holds an M.S in Information Systems and Applications and leads a team of cross-brand Software IT Architects addressing the business needs of clients in the sectors and Computer Services Industry (CSI), for IBM Software Group, India/South Asia. Prior to this role she was the Technical Sales lead for the Rational brand in IBM Software Group in India for 4 years. Actively engaged in advising clients on their IT landscape and in conversations around smarter planet, cloud and business analytics, she is also the key presenter at public seminars of IBM Software Group and product launches.. Ameeta is part of the core committee of IBM’s Technical Expert Council, Hyderabad chapter and is a member of the IBM Asia pacific IT Specialist Certification board.

IIIT Hyderabad

Abstract:

Biological vision relies on interesting and efficient strategies for processing the visual input. Some attempts in computer vision take cues from this to derive an understanding of a scene via processing of digital images. The talk will focus on our efforts to find answers to a question of interest in both communities: How do we inspect a scene or a medical image and zero in on what is important?

Bio:

Jayanthi Sivaswamy

Professor Jayanthi Sivaswamy did her MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University. She is currently a professor at IIIT Hyderabad. Prior to joining IIIT-H in 2001, she was with the University of Auckland, New Zealand for 8 yrs. Her broad research interests are biological and computer vision. Bio-inspired algorithm development and CAD tool development based on automated medical image analysis form the thrust of her current work. Part of her work is also in augmentative and assistive systems for autistic and dyslexic children.

Moderator: Divya Rao, CA Technologies

Panelist: Nivedita Aggarwal, CA Technologies; Shailashree Natarajan, IBM

Abstract:

When the employee gains 2+ years experience, the person is still considered very junior in most of the organizations. It is important that there is adequate effort in terms of excelling in the assigned tasks. This will help in creating the visibility and recognition in spite of being a junior person. It is also necessary that the person understands the importance of taking the career planning seriously early in their career, so that they get the ‘early bird’ advantage. When it comes to women at this point of career with 2 to 5 years, most of them are just settling down in their jobs / just about married. By this time if they have a clear understanding on how they want to plan their career, it would really help even if it means taking a couple of breaks due to maternity etc. How this can be achieved is to regularly have 1-1 discussions with the manager and get feedback on an on-going basis. This would make the point clear that the person is serious about work and career in turn. It is also important that they get to an understanding of the larger business perspectives, and how their work is contributing to the business. This will bring in the focus and create the zeal in them to excel.

Bios:

Divya Rao

Divya Rao: She manages a Development team in the Network management domain at CA technologies. Her association with CA started right from the inception of CA at ITC Hyderabad, back in 2003. She has about 14 years of industry experience and has varied experience right from Open systems to database domain and now in the network management domain in companies like CMC Limited, Oracle corporation and CA technologies. She is passionate about music and is also trained in carnatic music. During her free time, she enjoys her life that revolves around her daughter, husband and her immediate family, as she lives in a joint family. Every year, they freak out to some travel destination along with many small weekend trips.

Nivedita Aggarwal

Nivedita Aggarwal is a director, technical writing at CA Technologies. She has over 10 years in the area of Technical Information including 5.5 years in management roles, Nivedita’s areas of responsibilities varied from training, database administration, content authoring (both user documentation and marketing material), people, projects, and operations management. Nivedita has been with CA for more than 6 years, starting as a Technical Writer and now operating as a Director, Technical Information. She now manages a team of close to 50 technical writers contributing to approximately 60 CA products. Nivedita is also an active participant in Women Leaders in CA ITC forum. She has also presented in the STC Conference (Society for Technical Communicators) in the year 2008 and 2009.

Shailashree Natarajan

Sailasree N Natarajan has 17 years of industry experience and has been with IBM, India for last 2 years. She is a Senior Manager of Processor Development team, in the India Systems & Technology Lab – TES. Her technical expertise lies is in the field of Circuit design primarily in the area of Memory Design & Processor Development. Prior to IBM she has worked for Montalvo Computer Systems, ARM India & Artisan Components, USA. She has held various management positions where she was responsible for building teams and enabling them to success.

Please note: This is a panel session during the Birds of a Feather Sessions.

Moderator: Uma Mididaddi, NetApp

Panelists: Alka Agrawal, PESIT; Jayashree Atre, Yahoo; Geeta Gurnani, IBM

Abstract:

Show case women who steered their career successfully from the verge of quitting. Discuss about the challenges these women faced and the importance of setting achievable goals as they manage their career remotely, or by working part time. Also, find out how some women took career breaks for various reasons and are now successful in their second innings.

Bios:

Uma Mididaddi

Uma Mididaddi is a Senior Manager in Release Operations at NetApp with 12+ yrs of experience. She is a recognized people leader with the right balance of technical expertise and exceptional leadership skills, inspiring teams to innovate, handle change, and consistently improve the customer experience. Communication and coordination are her key strengths. She is a proud mother of two kids, 11 and 8, and strives to achieve a good level of work life balance. Uma took a break from the high tech career for a year in 2007. She is back with full force in her second innings at NetApp.

Alka Agrawal

Alka Agrawal brings a rich & diverse near 20 years of global IT industry experience. In her career across 5 continents with TCS, HP & Novell, she was a part of the Indian IT industry in making. She holds MTech Computer Science degree from IIT, New Delhi & has patents in the area of TCP/IP communication. Her last role was VP Engineering, Novell Inc. & heading the Indian Development centre with 400 engineers. Currently Alka is teaching Computer Networking & Information security at master’s level as a guest faculty. Her passion also takes her to work with an NGO in the area of Active citizenship & Civic awareness.

Jayashree Atre

Jayashree Atre has more than twelve years of experience in a variety of leadership positions in software product development. Experience includes providing hands-on leadership, building high performance large global teams, managing development of large scale horizontal platforms as well as internet based consumer products. Results driven technologist and a thought leader adept at shipping products by striking a balance between product requirements, time to market and technical goals.

Geeta Gurnani

Geeta Gurnani is a Telecom Solution Architect with IBM WW Tivoli Industry group. Before going on break, Geeta was working as a Software IT Architect for IBM India SWG. When Geeta joined back, she moved into a highly visible Global role and today she is part of IBM WW team responsible for Growth Market. Geeta has a total of 13years of IT industry experience in various roles of IT Architect, Senior Solutions Manager, Business Development Manager, Pre-sales Solutions Specialist, etc. Last year she took a year long break with the key focus to start a Social Project for Senior Citizens.

Moderator: Vidya Sridharan, Intuit

Presenters: Krishna Paul, Intel; Saroj Rangnekar, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal; Caroline Simard, Anita Borg Institute

Abstract:

Global studies have shown that fewer women make it to the top of the technical ladder as compared to men. This session provides a platform to share global research findings on challenges women face in their careers and ways to overcome them, discuss these issues from an Indian perspective, and brainstorm on steps companies, individuals and communities can take to enable more women continue their climb up the technical ladder.

Bios:

Vidya Sridharan

Vidya Sridharan is the Head of Engineering for Platform group at Intuit. She has about 20 years experience in various challenging roles including leading engineering and product management teams in companies such as Intuit, Mcafee , Impelsys and Oracle Corp. Vidya has spent 10 years as a Motivational Trainer and lead Women Executives Forums. Being a passionate and hard core computer engineer she has also done her MBA from NTU Singapore and UC Berkeley with a specialization in APAC markets. Vidya is truly passionate about women leadership in technology and has changed many women’s careers and mindsets towards this.

Krishna Paul

Dr. Krishna Paul is a senior software architect at Intel India. She has over 17 years of experience in research and software product development. Currently her area of focus is Low Power Technologies for Ultra Mobile devices. Prior to this she was an assistant professor at IIT Bombay, and a senior research staff member at NEC C& C Lab, Heidelberg, Germany. Her past work experience includes System design and Performance analysis for Wireless Communication systems. Krishna completed her MS in 1993 and PhD in 2000 and has around 23 publications with 6 journal papers, in peer reviewed international journals and conferences.

Saroj Rangnekar

Saroj Rangnekar, PhD is a Professor, Department of Energy at the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal. Professor Rangnekar has 33 years of teaching and research. Her areas of interest are real time control of energy systems, energy conservations, microprocessor based controls and renewable energy systems.

Caroline Simard

Dr. Caroline Simard leads the Anita Borg Institute’s (ABI) research and executive program initiatives. Her research on the barriers facing women in technology has received national attention. She led the Institute’s first major research initiative: “Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Women in Technology.” She is also spearheading knowledge diffusion efforts and executive engagement programs directed at supporting organizational change for greater retention and advancement of technical women. Caroline holds a PhD in communication studies from Stanford University. Prior to ABI, Simard was a Researcher at the Center for Social Innovation of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Note: This is a panel session during the Birds of a Feather Sessions

Moderator: Vinodh Kumar, Google

Panelists: Janani Ravi, Google; Aditee Rele, Microsoft; Karpagam Venkataraman, Yahoo

Abstract:

Introduction and challenges faced while developing apps on the cloud

(1) Introduction: Cloud Computing Models

(2) Open source platforms: introduction to those available; with a deep dive in how to use one of them (Hadoop), and what sorts of problems it is good for.

(3) Enterprise Applications, focusing on what the design considerations are: issues to address in development, use, security, administration, access management.

Bios:

Vinod Kumar

Vinodh Kumar works as an engineering manager at Google leading the Google Apps Marketplace efforts in the enterprise space. Prior to this, Vinodh was the tech lead of Google News ranking for over 4 years and was also involved with the Google India Music effort. In his pre-Google life, Vinodh worked for close to 5 years in the networking industry in areas of broadband/edge networking as well as optical networks. He completed his Masters in Engineering from IISc Bangalore post his bachelors from College of Engineering Guindy.

Janani Ravi

Janani Ravi joined Google’s New York office (where she worked on developing the next generation collaborative document editor) in 2007, and moved to Hyderabad in April 2010, where she works on Enterprise Applications. Prior to joining Google, she was a Software Engineer at Microsoft’s Redmond office (on the ASP.NET team). After graduating from the University of Mumbai with a degree in Computer Engineering, she went on to grad school in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. She also took, and passed, the Stanford PhD Qualifying exams in Electrical Engineering before opting to join industry instead.

Aditee Rele

Aditee Rele works as an Architect Evangelist with Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) Group at Microsoft Corporation, India. As a technology strategists, she is responsible for driving adoption of Microsoft Platform Technologies in Mission Critical applications across Indian Enterprises and Microsoft Web/RIA technologies across the Internet. Aditee has worked with customers in Public Sector, Retail, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Energy & Utilities across India, US, Europe and APAC.Aditee holds an Engineering Bachelors from Mumbai University followed by a Management Diploma from Symbiosis.

Karpagam Venkataraman

Karpagam Venkataraman is an architect in Yahoo! Advertising Products group. Till recently in Search Advertising and currently working in Ad Exchange Product Architecture & Development. Karpagam has experience in the industry for more than 16 years. Last 10 years have been working in the areas of database systems; replication; data consistency management; relational and non-relational data stores; object/relational mapping and query frameworks; data mining; user and data analytics; Mainly focused on engineering highly scalable, complex, large-data, parallel and distributed systems, that involve technical challenges in the areas of parallel and distributed computing, multi-terabyte storage systems, and high-performance computing.