The Society of Women
Engineers had arranged for a 2-day Conference event in Pune.
The event was an
absolute delight where female engineers from
various companies, of
various streams met together, exchanged ideas,
encouraged each other
and in short had a blast.
The cherry on the cake
was the SWE Local app on mobile phones
which got updates from
engineers sitting in different sessions
so, that they could gain
double the knowledge even without
being at multiple
sessions at a time.
Day 1
Opening Ceremony
chief facilitator of
Priya Kumar Training Systems.
Her energy was
infectious and as soon as she climbed on stage when she remarked
that as Women we would
be scanning her from top to bottom, she wasn't wrong.
But listening to her
while looking at the fact that she seemed younger and smaller than most of us,
we remembered the quote that "Big things come in small packages".
She talked about how she
would keep moving throughout the stage to make sure- each of us was awake and
listening. She also made us do an exercise from time to time of
responding with a
"Hi" when she said "Hello" and a "Hello" when she
said "Hi".
Sometimes in between
sentences she would call out a "Hello" and we needed
to be alert to reply it
with a "Hi".
Her timing was superb
with tidbits like,” If a woman is good at office and at home,
only God and she knows
how she did it. But if She is Super at office and at home,
only she knows how she
did it. Then God also doesn't know how she did it."
She emphasized that we must
satisfy our "Need" and sometimes that does
require "Personal
Sacrifice". We should believe in "Hope" but that
"Hope"
should have a deadline
as well as proactive actions from our side in
order to keep moving in
"achievement" of our "Need".
She motivated us to
"Do things for Fun before it
becomes a Need."
Then as a physical
activity, she made almost 20 women,
balance a thin iron rod
(sariya in hindi) on their collar bones.
As two women balanced
one rod between themselves putting it on their collar bones,
they had to look into each
other’s eyes, move towards each other, thus pushing the
rod down to bend it in a
"U" shape.
Moral of the exercise
for me was when "Women Move forward together with their Trust in each other, they can bend the biggest Problems,
out of their way".
By the time the keynote
ended, we all were screaming "once more" in our heads
but had to move on to
the next Agenda of the event.
Men as Diversity Partners: Being a Champion of Women in
Engineering
This was a panel
discussion with participants’ like
Anant Talalulicar
(Cummins)
Sharad Lodhi (Eaton)
Rahul Khare (Honeywell)
Gautam Gulati
(Schlumberger)
Liju Augustine (Northern
Trust)
Jessica Rannow (SWE)
The session achieved a
tremendous applause from the audience with jewels like:
- Men as diversity partners should change the narrative
from 'women need to be empowered' to 'let’s get out of their way'.
- Flexibility for men as much as for women!
- Reinvent the leadership lens.
- Walk the talk, don't limit to only tokenism.
- Number of women are less at the top of the career
pyramid due to unconscious bias. Woman are thought as sensitive and
not provided feedback which actually helps to grow. Treat women equal and
give the right feedback- which is the stepping stone in building more
women leaders.'
Networking Exhibition
Around the same time,
the networking exhibition opened and
companies like Cummins,
Eaton, Emerson, Honeywell,
John Deere, Microsoft, Schlumberger
and many others opened up their
doors and hearts
(literally) to the immense talent around them.
Most stalls had Standees
and flexes displaying the happy faces
of their employees and
videos on Monitors about their work culture.
Some of them had
something special for the visitors too,
like at Emerson we were
collecting visitor info on a card, and giving
a part of the card as a
"Bookmark" to the visitor.
Why Strategic Leadership Matters
A well-informed session
by Nancy Goel(Emerson) regarding the importance of Strategic leaders in
recent times.
Key takeaways:
1) A leader is made not
born.
2) Strategic Leadership
has statically provided better growth patterns
compared to Managerial
and Visionary leadership.
3)Managerial and
Visionary Leaders can be Strategic if they imbibe
those qualities and are
ready to change.
Three surprises about Change : How to change when change is
Hard
A motivating session by
Jayshree Kirtane(Alchemy Management) to embrace change and let go of our
inhibitions.
Key takeaways:
1) What looks like
laziness is often exhaustion.
2) What looks like
resistance is often lack of clarity.
3) What looks like a
people problem is often a situation problem.
4) Always have
affirmative goals.
5) Emotions and feelings
have tremendous power.
Women Rising : Make Men our Allies
A combined session by
Sindhu Bala and Kaushika Kumar(Dow Chemical)
about how we need to
have men as allies in order work towards women Equality.
Key takeaways:
1) The first woman pilot
of India Sarla Thakral on 1930, whose
father-in-law was responsible
for admitting her to the flying school
and she flew a plane in
a saree(surprised!!!)
2) He for she is a
solidarity campaign for the advancement of women initiated by UN Women.
3) Take men as your
allies and support pillar for our growth.
4) When men are not
involved, gender equality is not possible.
Lunch Break
A quick lunch break with
delicious dishes like pasta, shahi paneer,
daal makhni, peas pulao
and an awesome dessert comprising of
ice creams as well as
cakes, was a welcoming delight.
Confessions of a First-Time Manager
A witty and cheerful
session by Gauri Joshi(Schlumberger)
Key takeaways:
1) Being a manager is
immensely fulfilling...makes you confident to deal with uncertainty and insurmountable
challenges that come your way and most importantly you are maximizing people's
potential.
2)People are not an
engineering problem - appreciate working styles of different people.
3)It's easy to forget
your own development.
4) You get 86,400
seconds in a day, use them well.
Dare to Dream
An inspirational session
by Vinaya Ket (Pune University), the first female solo car driver of 3911
kms(Kashmir to Kanyakumari) in 4 days.
Key takeaways:
1) Passion gives you
sleepless nights. It makes you want to remain "awake" and achieve.
2) Do your home work and
arm yourself before setting out to achieve.
3) Document your
achievement so you can prove it to the world.
4) Never be afraid to
ask for help.
3 Myths of Work Life
Balance
A light session by Mitali
Monalisa(Intel India)
Key takeaways:
1) Myth #1: You can do
it all. [Support is always needed]
2) Myth #2: Balance is
constant. [It keeps changing, need to understand priority of actions]
3) Myth #3: Work Life Balance
is your problem to solve. [It’s just a condition which can be prevented or
cured]
We Achieve Celebration
A recognition of
achievements was done in this time and a felicitation of
all the sponsors of the
event, including Emerson.
Hence Day1 ended with a note
of achievement and we all waited with bated breath for day 2 to start.
Day 2
Management in the age
of globalization
Amazing panel discussion
between 4 powerful women:
Neelu Khatri (Honeywell)
Shobha Pandey (John Deere)
Jennifer Rumsey
(Cummins)
Anuradha Srinivasan
(Intel)
Key takeaways:
1) As you dream of the
things you want in your life, you would find the passion and the technology to
achieve it.
2)Always keep the
steering wheel of your career journey in your hand and don't let
anyone else take charge
of it.
3) Reach out for
mentors...Don't wait for the mentors to approach you.
4) Enable your
environment to enable yourself.
5) Always Feel good
about yourself; never stop feeling good about yourself
and you will keep moving
forward.
6) Have zero tolerance
to harassment, even as observer! Make it a personal responsibility.
The important thing was-
we keep searching for role models in celebrities while these
women should be
advertised and bought into the mainstream India since they are working towards
a common goal of upholding Gender presence on a global scale.
Influentially yours,
choosing the right influencing strategy:
This session was
energetic and fascinating with the kind of research work done on it by Gita
Jaisinghani(Aligne Consulting).
Key takeaways:
1) Influencing requires
clarity of thoughts and purpose and the correct target.
2) Influencing needs
Tailored communication and evaluation of communication style
3) Gender of influencer
does not matter but that of influence does.
4) 4 major types of
bosses-
a)The
Cerebrals (logical, rational and number oriented)
b)The
Prudents (Conventional, Conformists and not risk takers)
c)The
Dominants (Enthusiastic, charismatic and risk takers)
d)The
Aggressives(Credibility checkers, history oriented and egoistic)
Beyond Robots and
Jetpacks: The next decade of Engineering
A knowledgeable panel discussion
facilitated by Ria Ghosh (John Deere) comprised of
Yamini Kaur (Cadence)
Sreekumar Panikar(Eaton)
Padma Priya Gaggara(Microsoft)
Udaya
Srivastava(Honeywell)
Key takeaways:
1) Whatever you enjoy,
you will be good at.
2) Stay informed, stay
relevant.
3) Learn adjacencies.
4) Recognize the
opportunities and grab them.
5) Be innovative.
Break: A light lunch comprising of sandwhich , patties,
samosa, paneer roll, juice, pear and brownie so that we remain alert on the
final afternoon of the event.
Inclusive Leadership
A knowledgeable session
taken by Parneet Kaur(Emerson).
Key takeaways:
1) When people have a
voice in decision making, they consider being included.
2) Different people tend
to have conflicts when they come together but Brainstorming embraces the
diffeences of opinions.
3) Our unconscious biases
make people feel excluded.
4) Equal pay should be
asked for.
AI, Machine Learning
and Automation
A technical but
interesting session by Rakhi Rajalekshmi(Eaton) regarding Artificial
intelligence.
Key takeaways:
1) This field is
interesting because its highly interdisciplinary.
2) Industry is moving
towards autonomous vehicles.
3) In terms of a scale,
we are still at level 1 of automation and have many more levels to go.
Parivartan hi sansaar
ka niyam hai
A sessions asking us to
embrace change, conducted by Neeta D'Souza(John Deere) was enlightening.
Key takeaways:
1)Individual change must
be done by me so keep adding new skills.
2)There are something's
life chooses for you, but there are some you choose for yourself.
3)Take the oath- I will
"Embrace" change.
Closing Keynote:
It started with a vote
of thanks from Neelu Khatri and a piece of advice that take one step at a time,
diligence and stead
fastness take you far.
This finally brought us
all to the best session of the whole event.
Dr.
Renee Moore, a qualified
neurosurgeon and motivational speaker, stepped on stage while listening to our
claps and applause and spoke her first sentence:
"I am just a girl
who thought she could- so she did"
She presented us all
with "Be unstoppable" badges with mirrors so that we could tell
that to ourselves
whenever we felt low. She talked about her childhood in poverty, the lessons
she learnt and how it brought her to finally starting her business.
So many Takeaways:
1) We could either be a
Creator or Reactor. Create our situations or just react to situations.
2) What you focus on,
becomes your destiny.
3) Whenever presenting
your idea to someone, practice a success mantra like-"This is going to be
great, they are going to love it."
4) Math formula for to
achieve zone of genius: Talent +Passion +Life purpose
5) Keep reminding
yourself about your expertise
6) Keep moving forward
for your dream.
7) clarity of what you
can achieve, break it down into steps.
8) In a bowl of orange fishes, be
the one that's blue. Be the one... that is different.
Though she performed several
illusions for us, the one which I liked the most was the "Frame of
Life".
A wooden puzzle to
signify that life is made up of different pieces, my family, my dreams, my
ability to choose, my leadership, my private piece and so on.
She could fit all the pieces
together to form a perfect rectangle.
She picked up the wooden
frame and showed us that the whole puzzle fitted perfectly inside the frame.
Then she removed the frame and got a black colored wooden
piece - which could signify something "bad" in our life but it had to
be in the puzzle. She moved all the pieces around- fixed the black piece
between them and again formed a perfect rectangle. She picked up the frame and
it still fit perfectly.
Lastly she got a big red piece saying it signified our achievements
and even they had to fit in our life somehow. She moved all the pieces again,
put the red piece in between and yes-she again formed a perfect rectangle. She
picked up the frame of life and told us:
"And after moving
all the pieces around-You will find the frame of life still fits."
Thus, ended the most
Fantastic session of the whole conference which rung with
thunderous applause across
the ballroom.
No doubt the two days
were special, but the closing key note was Spectacular.
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