LAKSHYA: Hi friends.
I am Lakshya Siyaramakrishnan, and I'm here
to walk you through my journey with technology.
You can follow me here on my G+ and Twitter handle so that we
can get in touch.
Let me introduce myself to you.
Born in Mumbai, the city of dreams, a native of Kerala,
the place with the highest literacy rate, a Tamil speaking
girl brought up in Karnataka, the land
of sandlewood, scenic beauty, and splendid people.
I have been fortunate to see many flavors of India.
And you get to see our diversity here.
I am a woman tech maker, a design engineer by profession,
a unicorn and connector by passion.
I'll tell you why I call myself a unicorn,
but you'll have to wait for me to get there.
I call myself a connector.
You want to know why?
That's because I love connecting to people around me.
Connectors bring about change through people.
And that's exactly what I am here to do today.
I am here to bring about change through you.
I am here to bring about change through woman tech makers.
I want you and me to be instrumental in bringing
about this change.
So let's do this together.
Let's close our eyes for a moment.
Can we do that together please?
Imagine an engineer.
Have you done that?
How many of us visualized a man coding on his laptop?
Many of us would have done that, for sure.
Or did you think of a woman?
Or even better, is it you?
How many of us think of ourselves when we
have to visualize an engineer?
Hardly a few.
And this is exactly where the problem lies.
One of the biggest problems is that we
doubt our own capabilities.
Technology is touching our lives right from our cradles
to our graves, and having a woman's perspective
in prototyping, designing, and implementing
is equally important.
Statistics say that if a man and a woman
are given an unknown task, a man is 90%--
I repeat, 90% confident of committing
to do it, whereas a woman instantly
doubts her capabilities.
Why is there this mismatch?
Why are we losing out on seizing the opportunity?
Not many things that happen in your childhood stays
imprinted in your minds a few decades down the lane.
But I clearly remember the first time
I got associated with technology.
I had to prepare for my computer science lab best way back
in school when I was around six, seven years old,
and we did not have a computer at home.
My father accompanied me to a cyber cafe
quite some distance away for me to practice my lessons
for the exam.
And when I went there, I saw this lady typing
onto this machine at quite an amazing speed.
I was so amazed by the typing speed
that I told my father about it.
My father was happy at my awe and said, in a few years time,
you'll be able to do it much faster.
A few months later, he got me a computer at
home so that I'd get there soon enough.
Reaching out for what we don't have and getting it
is always a good start.
At that age, it was amazing for me
to see a machine being able to do so many things.
Once I got the computer at home, I
started exploring and experimenting new things on it.
Creating a PowerPoint presentation
gave me a lot of satisfaction.
I remember the time when my father took me to his office
one day and allowed me to use his system,
and I came up with this beautiful PowerPoint
presentation and handed it over to his boss.
And for a kid of that age, it was a real sense
of accomplishment to be patted on your back
by your dad's boss.
User interface was always dear to me, and it still is.
I love designing web pages at my leisure
on the themes of my choice.
So listen to me when I tell you, do what you love,
and you would love what you do.
It's very essential that we look to build of any strong support
system around ourselves to get to the top.
My teachers and my parents always supported me.
The teachers always pushed me to achieve more.
They used to tell me that I have to be better than the best
to shine in life, to make a mark in life.
And similar scenes were seen at home.
If I come back home with a 99 in math-- trust me,
this has happened two or three times at home--
my mother would first ask me where I lost that one mark,
and then give me credit for the 99 that I've got.
And that zeal to score a perfect 100 in as many places as
possible really helped me.
This even got me the best student award at school.
So that is why I tell you it's so essential
to build a strong support system for ourselves.
At no point in this journey did I visualize myself
as an engineer.
I did not know about a career called software engineering.
I knew only of two careers-- a doctor and a teacher,
and I always wanted to be a doctor.
So as I was getting out of school at crossroads
deciding career paths, a teacher of mine
suggested that I take up engineering.
She knew how much I loved math and science,
and life often throws us into situations
where we need to make a choice.
I made the choice.
I said, I want to be an engineer,
and I followed my heart.
I got into one of the premier engineering colleges
in Karnataka and learned my lessons well.
And over this journey of four years, the passion in the field
further strengthened.
I wanted to try out new things.
And as I completed my four years of engineering, I realized,
hey, four years have passed, and I've not
done anything hands on.
I know my theory well, but it's time to put this into practice.
At that time, I decided that pursuing a masters
would be the best thing to do.
Again, following your heart.
I applied to universities across India
and go into one, where life turned out
to be better than I thought it would.
I got the best hands-on experience
with some great faculty, some great people, good projects,
and above all, great learning.
We always say we hardly have women in technology.
But let me give you a contradiction.
We were one of the very few masters of technology batches,
probably in the country, to have more numbers
of girls than guys in a class.
Girls were at a 51 to 49 ratio.
But then, what goes wrong?
The girls are really good.
They attend all their classes, dutifully write down notes,
get great grades.
But when it comes to going above and beyond,
when it comes to exploring and experimenting,
we often take a backseat.
I remember a time when I had to attend
a hackathon outside college.
A few of my male friends agreed to accompany me,
but not a single girl put her hand up.
So when I told my mother about this, she was like,
what are you going to do with all the guys there?
Fortunately, this did not put me off,
and I continued attending these events.
So let me ask you that today, we have
to look to alter this phenomenon to get more women sitting
at the table.
Right from the very beginning, I was
someone who seized every opportunity,
and that's the way I had been brought up.
Remember I told you about the support system?
This was where I was getting to.
My parents always encouraged me to take up
any activity that came my way, and the concept
of participation was far more important than winning.
I was fortunate to be a part of the YMCA
Mumbai for a few weeks.
I had been the head girl and the valedictorian way
back in school.
I was part of the student's activity council
and the Google student club at my master's degree.
I've done a lot of computing and event management
in school, colleges, and even at my workplace.
They call me an energizer in my workplace.
Oh, that reminds me, I have to tell you
why I am called the unicorn.
Time to unravel that mystery now.
No, it's not the same animal that we know about.
I'm a part of the GDG BlrDroid community
and help them organize events there.
Again, I just love doing this, and I went on to do that.
So they call me a unicorn.
I don't know why, but I know what's
common between me and the unicorn.
We both follow what we love doing the most.
And just like how I got inspired by being a unicorn,
I want to take you all there, ensuring that we are all
following our passions.
So that was about me.
But I am here for a bigger purpose,
to help contribute to the community
and inspire you to do the same.
I know there are many classes like mine
with more numbers of girls than boys in a professional course.
But it's time we make an impact.
It's time that we look to bridge this confidence
gap by believing in ourselves, by taking risks,
by doing what we love the most.
I imagine a perfect world where there
are equal number of men and women sitting a table,
brainstorming together, innovating and inventing
together, and most importantly, leading a group of people
by inspiring them.
There will be many people throwing stones at you,
but let's learn to silence critics and say,
I can do much better than this, and look
to convert these stones into milestones.
I'm sure we'll be reaching places by doing this.
We'll figure out how to take this to a larger extent.
But for now, let's make a promise to ourselves.
Let's look to attend all developer events that
are happening across the city, learn from them, teach a few,
and contribute back to the community.
Today, if everyone watching this video
works towards keeping this promise,
I think we will get to hear more women voices out there.
We will get to see more women on the team, sitting at the table.
Remember the time when we were little
and we had no baggage on our shoulders?
When we did what we loved the most?
When we would connect to as many people as possible,
just to have a game together?
Let's get back to that mode again.
Let's stop being at the side lines.
Let's change the rules of the game.
Be heard.
Be seen.
Be at the table.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Thank you.