Welcome to Innovators of Tomorrow.
We're here today with another Intel software innovators
story to help you discover what is
possible with Intel technology.
Manisha Biswas has always fostered a keen interest
in technology even before she knew she
could make a career out of it.
Not only has she succeeded in a career as a data scientist,
she has also gone on to author three books
and empowers people across the globe
with her work in the women and technology movement.
Let's learn more about my Manisha's journey and passion
for teaching and empowering others.
Hi, I am Manisha Biswas, and I live in Kolkata, India,
where I'm currently working as a data scientist.
My involvement with technology dates
way back when I didn't even knew that I can make a career out
of it.
It started with development of my first c++ project.
I guess I was in school.
Then to develop an augmented reality Android
app for an online hackathon during my undergraduate course.
Winning the online hackathon was one
of the major motivations for me to learn and explore more
on technology.
This app was also special, because it marked my journey
to become an Intel Software Innovator.
The biggest challenges which I have faced and overcome I feel
is that I started my professional career working
as an software engineer working more on web technologies.
But I was always very interested to work
within the areas of machine learning
and the artificial intelligence.
But initially, it was challenging for me
to learn and adapt to new technologies on my own
and then getting a job which interests me the most.
But I believe that the sheer grit and the clarity of purpose
has always driven me towards making an impact
and be a part of this ever changing ecosystem
of this technology.
Women in Technology, Kolkata, started
while I was working in a product company here in Kolkata,
and I was the only woman developer in the development
team while most of the others were working and testing teams.
So this was when I identified this as a problem.
I also got major motivation when I
found that women are very under presented
in most of the conferences.
If you see there are very less female speakers as
compared to male speakers.
So to break this barrier of thought, we as a community
are working towards to provide the visibility and resources
by conducting regular meetups.
And there I work very closely with all the women
developers to train them on different areas of technology.
I feel so happy that I am able to empower
so many people around me.
The most rewarding aspect of growing this woman
in technology movement was firstly,
I feel that it has helped me to grow
immensely as an individual.
This was very challenging for me initially
as it was very difficult to get female participation,
especially in the meetups.
I still remember one of my event where
there was five female speakers, but there
was only two attendees even attending the event.
With that, there was no other challenges
as well like getting a venue to host a meetup.
Then to organize everything at all alone.
Because when I started, I was the only person who
was working with this motive.
But now I have a great team of volunteers
who are working together with me for this movement.
And now the community is emerging and growing
with good participation.
I always believe that to teach someone is to learn twice.
So I intend to teach new technology trend so where
the IoT, machine learning, and game development
and often take hands-on workshops too.
I feel that it helps me to learn more as a sometimes
there are questions which I don't know.
So it helps me re-assessing the situation
and learn more on the topic.
So with time, I feel so happy that I
am able to help other and see them grow together.
The Intel Ultimate Coder Challenge
was an excellent opportunity as I have learned a lot
as going through the challenge.
In the challenge, we had to work towards bringing
an organic chemistry to virtual reality.
And through the challenge, we had a constant learning curve.
As we were learning more and exploring more,
we found existing ideas such as to use blender
and then to shape up our project in Unity.
The mixed reality approach it was itself an exploration
of its own to learn new things.
Authoring a book was a really unplanned and surprising.
I was very nervous, and it was challenging for me
as it was difficult for me to balance my full time job
and then to continue writing on the books.
But I was very fortunate enough to get guidance
from one of our fellow innovators, Mr. Abhishek Nandy,
with whom I have co-authored two books.
So the first was Reinforcement Learning with Open AI, Keras,
and TensorFlow, and it was published in December 2017.
And then next year, we went on to write
Neural Networks with Unity, which
was published in July 2018.
And finally, I completed my individual book,
which is Beginning AI Bot Frameworks,
and which provides a comprehensive look of all
the Bot frameworks, and it was published in September 2018.
The biggest lessons that I have learned over the career
is that the resolute determination
to fulfill your dreams and constantly
work hard to achieve them is very important.
The human always strives for something better.
This is the way we grow.
We change ourselves and the things around us.
So adapting new technology trends
becomes very obvious as we explore more.
Thank you Manisha for truly inspiring us
with your amazing work and tenacity
and embracing new technologies.
If you'd like to learn more about Manisha,
her books, or any of her upcoming events,
follow the links.
Thanks for watching and make sure to check out our innovator
spotlights on IDZ Weekly.