IoTDay Womansplaining

On April 9th, 2021, I was fortunate enough to attend IoTDay — Womansplaining, an international event hosted by Sudha Jamthe (Technology Futurist at businessschoolofai.com) and Roxy Stimpson (Sr. Director of Engineering, Cloud Services and Office of the CTO at F5 Networks). Sudha and Roxy presented 28 female business leaders, celebrating their accomplishments while spotlighting the career-pivots they have made to get them where they are today. This program highlighted how these brilliant women use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve real business problems, while promoting diversity and inclusion in a wide variety of business settings. We learned about how these women have pivoted their careers to leverage AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to make their businesses and/or their customers’ businesses more effective and more efficient.

It was a fascinating and extremely worthwhile event that focused on both best practices and ethics. For me, as an avid fan of technology and keen observer of the 28 women who spoke, I was left with these indelible take-aways:

• These women do amazing things!!!
• AI is pervasive in so many ways, and with advancements like NoCode AI, it is rapidly becoming more and more accessible to people who do not already specialize in data science.

When all was said and done, 28 womxn pesented!!

While the concept of AI is spreading swiftly, many people still don’t understand how they can take advantage of this emerging technology, nor how it can impact their business. The guests that Sudha and Roxy present demonstrate a variety of paths to success using AI to solve a myriad of business problems while making the technology understandable and accessible.

The vast array of topics these accomplished women cover are too numerous to summarize adequately but some of the highlights include: robotics, health care, cyber security, equity and inclusion. Many rich discussions occur around both the opportunities and issues created by the advancement of IoT, chatbots and even the culture of work as Covid has changed the environment seemingly overnight. Much of the work the presenters discuss relates to how to use data to solve real business problems, what happens as different departments integrate and people from different disciplines collaborate to find new solutions to both old and new business concerns. Some presenters focus on how to utilize AI and other emerging technologies to level the playing field, and to provide opportunities to women in particular but also to youth and people from marginalized groups.

Lastly, before breaking down the specific sessions, in addition to all of the work that Sudha and Roxy put into planning and organizing this event, a huge shout-out goes to Sussana Raj, who led several very rich discussions. She was very nimble in bringing out information and getting her guests to tell their stories in meaningful and illustrative ways.

IoTDay — Live Sessions:

“Product Thinking Concept Within Telefonica”

Maria Virtudes Briz (Head of Product Management, Telefonica)

As Head of Product Management at Telefonica, Maria examines the methodology related to B2B and B2C solutions. She explains that “Product Thinking,” which was created by the Product Management team and Experience Design team at Telefonica, and based on Design Thinking, is a methodology devised to create strong products that answer the “Why?” She emphasizes the importance of asking questions about their users’ needs, and putting customers in the center, to solve business problems. She asserts that you will get a better response from customers when working together across disciplines. Maria addresses the use of data to develop user strategy and product strategy, and then projects forward to get a sense of the path they must follow.

Qualitative user research, which Maria describes as the, “deep understanding of human behavior,” is used to look at the “Why?” questions. And quantitative market research, she continues, is “empirical research guided by statistics and data,” which is all part of the product life cycle. She talks about the importance of detecting the need, getting insights, creating concepts that offer value to customers, developing and constructing features, all of which leads to going to market, which is in turn followed by checking success and iterating based on what she learns.

She lays out five key rules: (i) fall in love with the problem, not the solution, (ii) think about product, not features, (iii) work with rapid prototyping and MVPs, (iv) share common objectives, (v) become one team that incorporates UX and Product Managers.

As a result of their work, Telefonica’s Global Entertainment Platform now serves over six million active monthly users in seven countries, representing a 62% increase in product discovery since the implementation of the new user interface.

Maria closes by re-emphasizing: “Product Thinking → What? Why? How?”

“Creating a Culture of Innovation”

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (Author, Consultant, Advisor, Founder at Design Swarm, London)

Alexandra provides deep insights and critical analysis of the working environment, accounting for both physical space utilized for innovation and meeting, and virtual environments created in response to Covid.

Her presentation focuses on two elements (of four) from her book on innovation: “Space & Tools,” and “Showing Off.” She analyzes and comments on:

• The myth of serendipity, which questions what types of space are most conducive to creating productive encounters;
• Deep thinking and office neighbourhoods, discusses how a mathematician, not an architect or a designer, set up the Rand waffle building (1950’s) to give workers space for alone time and optimum opportunities for interaction with others in common space;
• R&D investment during the technology boom has impacted and changed the work space.

Books by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino

Alex has an extremely vast amount of experience in a variety of sectors, all related to technology and IoT in particular. Among her experiences, she found and ran Tinker London and The Good Night Lamp, curated and organized The London Internet of Things Meetup, initiated the Low Carbon Design Institute, and now works as a consultant under the name Design Swarm. She is also the author of three books, the most recent of which is titled, “The Little Book of Public Space and the Internet of Things”. One of her current projects, with the BBC, relates to ethics and human values in the technology space.

Robotics and Neuroscience

• Dr. Jasmin Berry “Body Representations Using Sensory Affirmation for Neurobotic Systems” (Los Angeles, PhD from USC with emphasis in AI and Brain Theory)
• Dr. Carlotta Berry, “Black in Robotics: Why Diversity Matters” (Professor of Computer and Electrical Engineering, Rose-Holman Institute of Technology, Indiana)

Using interdisciplinary research, Dr. Jasmine Berry has focused on the creation of systems of neuroscience, utilizing cognitive science, biology, computer science, electrical engineering, and biomedical engineering to build a robotic system that can predict its movements better, react better to changing components, and navigate better and faster, with minimal learning.

She is now focused on self-aware computing, from a physiological perspective, taking sensory motor information from models of robotic systems to form higher cognitive thinking, and to plan better and learn to interact with other agents, where communication is successful, toward a common goal. She is also working in the health-tech space, on issues related to precision health and wellness using AI and ML, to tackle diseases in ways that have not been possible before.

The most interesting use of this technology that Dr. Jasmin has seen is in the form of microscopic robotics that can enter the body and can traverse the intestines. First tested in rats, scientists are now looking at using this technology on humans, to track internal organs. She thinks that this could potentially be used to deliver drugs to specific parts of the body.

Dr. Carlotta also hosts robotics workshops every month (sponsored by Amazon), looking at both hardware and software. They are open to anyone, of any age.

Dr. Jasmine Berry

[Representing Dr. Carlotta Berry (no relation), who could not attend live, Dr. Jasmin Berry shared a video recording of Dr. Carlotta called, “Diversity and Robotics”.]

Dr. Carlotta Berry, an intersectional academic, “brings robotics and STEM to people,…and people to robotics and STEM, to educate and diversify the profession.” She is a professor who is also an engineer, and an academic who performs lots of service related to robotics, in an effort to change the face of engineering and to bring it to different populations. This includes teaching, service and research.

Dr. C. Berry explains that robotics is inherently multidisciplinary because it incorporates hardware and electronics, as well as software that gives it Artificial Intelligence and autonomy. At Rose-Hulman, Berry explains, they blend mechanical systems with electronics and software to create cutting-edge sensory projects.

“The CareerPivot Panel” (hosted by Susanna Raj):

• Nino Manizhashvili (CEE & Africa, Education Management Consultant, Germany)
• Kristine Kalnina (Conversational AI, UXR, AIX, MLUX, Barcelona)
• Sam Wiggs (Barcelona Technology School)
• Swathi Young (CTO, Integrity Management Services, Washington, D.C.)
• Aishatu Gwadabe (Peace Technology, Germany)

As a social science researcher at University of Bremen, Nino Manizhashvili is working on social and economic issues, including the election in Uganda, and also working in education. She created her own course on research design for social science and is now looking at applying AI ethics to education.

Susanna Raj started as a research assistant in psychology with an emphasis in cognitive science, and then pivoted to AI through an internship at Intel. There, she learned about data processing, data cleaning and training AI. Through that process, she began to shift from considering best practices toward AI ethics. She is highly focused on the collection of data; how much is being collected and how it is being used. Susanna has also created her own organization and is now focusing on how to use AI to address issues of poverty and digital illiteracy. Within the field of cyber security, her passion is looking for paths that produce beneficial applications of technology. She feels that technology should, “augment and support people, not harm them.”

Early in her career, Kristine Kalnina shifted from being a marketing analyst, to being a product owner but lacked a mentor to teach her this new trade. Through persistence, lots of research and the assistance of technical experts she worked beside, she learned how to be a product owner, which required learning to work with the technical side in conjunction with the business side. She didn’t know anything about UX but noticed gaps in the process, and began asking questions about how to decide what to build and how it would help users. Through a program at University of Michigan, Kristine learned that she could find work asking critical questions. In turn, she became a UX researcher, and focused more on the customer side than on the building side. Exploring the B2B side, she discovered more opportunity, focusing specifically on how designers think, and how to utilize data research to find ways AI can be accessible to people who lack a data science background. Now, her focus is on building an AI solution that can solve real problems.

Sam Wiggs is currently building a chatbot tool-box. Her talk focuses on how to visualize a dialogue tool that can help brainstorm ideas and innovation. She’s working with the Allen Group to take greater advantage of vast amounts of data that are being collected.

Swathi Young was coding for Oracle in 2000 and, while building successful products, did not understand all of the business terms being used in connection with what she was building. No one would take the time to explain these concepts to her. Her curiosity peaking, she pivoted to consulting, and began implementing software for GE. From a co-worker in procurement, she learned about how the code she had been writing was being used in business. She took jobs leading engineering teams, and her interest in data accumulation inspired her to find new domains, including chatbots and cancer research. She is extraordinarily curious about how technology can solve business problems. Currently, she is working on ethical AI projects for the government in D.C., especially in health care. Swathi also mentors high school girls, positioning them for roles in leadership, driving business decisions, influencing strategy, and providing input on budgeting and hiring.

Aishatu Gwadabe was determined to find ways she can participate in the emerging technology space, despite the fact that she is not a data scientist. She learned that she can add value to the discussion in a variety of ways. She learned to develop a chatbot without programming. In her discussion, she recounts how her experience with a hackathon led her to get involved in AI ethics. She relied on her experience in design thinking to grow in that direction. With each course she took with Sudha Jamthe, she went further down the pipeline and deeper into technology, navigating the AI system without knowing how to code. NoCode AI gives her power to do things she otherwise couldn’t do.

“Machine Learning vs Deep Learning” (hosted by Tejumade Afonja)

• Tejumade Afonja (Graduate student, Universitat des Saarlandes, Germany)
• Orevaoghene Ahia (Research Engineer, Nigeria)
• Adetola Adetunji (Data Scientist)

Tejumade Afonja co-found AI Saturdays Lagos, a community of researchers and other people interested in learning about ML and its many variants. She has hosted six 16-person cohorts, educating people about AI. Her background is in mechanical engineering.

Pivoting to technology after getting a degree in marine science, Orevaoghene Ahia was always curious about robotics and IoT. After attending some hackathons, she was inspired to find ways to apply the lessons she learned to marine science. A professor enlightened her to a project about invasive species in coastal Nigeria. She took an internship with Instadeep, and now works on different projects around NLP.

Adetola Adetunji experimented with numerous different fields of work, and became inspired to pivot her career after attending AI Saturday. She ultimately learned Python and now works in data science.

During their rich and engaging discussion, Tejumade discusses how computers can now learn from optimized data, unlike the “old days,” when it was all about writing programs to perform a specific function. She explains that “deep learning” means learning from data, and talks about the difference between structured and unstructured data. Orevaoghene discusses the work she has done translating one language to another, including accommodations for different accents within a single language. She talks about supervised versus unsupervised systems, bridging the gap between models, and the deployment of ML systems. One of the key issues she contends with is that not all users have access to advanced systems so they will often trim models for users who have less demanding projects. Adetola also discusses the deployment of ML tools, as well as the importance of moving data into the right storage, and training people in other sectors to understand and appreciate how they can take advantage of this technology.

Adding this critical piece near the end of their discussion, Tejumade emphasizes that privacy and security concerns related to ML and protecting the community, are a top priority. “Researchers and data scientists have responsibility,” she declares, “to use this tech appropriately.”

“Edge Intelligence and Security,” with Renuka Nadkarni and Vijji Suryadevara

• Renuka Nadkarni (Security CTO, Strategy and Product Leader, F5 Networks, Cupertino, CA)
• Vijji Suryadevara (CPO & Head of Engineering at Phizzle in Dublin, CA)

After getting a Masters degree in electrical engineering, Renuka has ridden the wave of cyber security for 20 years. There have continuously been new challenges, as businesses moved to the cloud, and working on the edge of IoT is just changing the game again. Vijji, who is from south India, is the first person in her family to attend college. She studied science, math, physics and computers, earning both a BA and an MA. She began working in network management software engineering with Siemens, specifically on switches. In 2000 however, as Vijji put it, “the world imploded,” with startups ominously shutting down everywhere. She then moved toward the application side, starting her own company in 2004. It was acquired in 2012, so she pivoted to Career Ways, AI-driven advising to help other people make transitions. Now, she works in defining how products look, edge computing, building stacks and individual solutions, on both the tech side and the product side.

During their very lively and engaging discussion, Renuka and Vijji discuss their experience and work with the Internet of Things. Their conversation is especially enriching because they come at it from such different directions, but empathize very strongly with one another. Among the topics they cover: the edge continuum provided by LF Edge, differences between the user edge and the service provider’s edge, constrained devices, smart devices, and on-premises data centers.

They discuss the use of mobile devices versus browsers and servers, as it relates to the functions IoT is performing. Their conversation covers how the needs and demands of IoT have evolved and how working on the edge, and where certain functions get performed, constantly changes the playing field. Renuka and Vijji get into different applications, including Pharma (which is inherently very risk averse), smart cities and IoT in the home.

They talk about the ramifications of security and the flow of information both upstream and downstream, and how critical it is to manage this properly, requiring that with every new protocol, they account for authentication, authorization, non-repudiation. They also have a deep discussion about the latency of IoT, and how there are now so many different ways to accomplish tasks, making the field very rich and ripe for growth.

Each of these women demonstrate an amazing amount of knowledge and watching them go back and forth is incredibly stimulating and highly illuminating.

“AI Ethics and Compliance” (a discussion with Susanna Raj)

Aishwarya Joshi (Editorial Co-lead at Women in AI Ethics; 15 years of experience in Compliance and Information Security. Technology Business Leader, Hulu, Los Angeles)

Susanna Raj begins the discussion by describing an AI ethicist as someone involved in, “Advocacy and awareness; the ability to speak out about things you observe, to educate yourself on others’ pain points, and how to build ethical technology and an ethical pipeline.”

Aishwarya’s background is in technology, risk and compliance, including an MIS degree. After working as an auditor and business advisor, she pivoted to become a product manager and data consultant. Compliance did not allow her to build or create anything and she was drawn to AI because of the potential value and opportunity to be on the cutting edge. It’s been five years of introspection, self-reflection and hard work to make this journey.

Aishwarya and Susanna have an in-depth discussion about AI ethics and security. Aishwarya offered the ironic anecdote that as a cyber security monitor, she has consciously chosen to keep her old television rather than transition to smart tv, because she knows exactly what she is signing up for when connecting a smart television in her home.

Going forward, Aishwarya hopes that technology moves toward improving the climate and advancing healthcare. She is a big proponent of education, which includes educating all people, especially users. She encourages everyone to spread the word and share knowledge by talking to friends and family, as we all continue to expand our connectivity. She closed by remarking that although AI is very new as a technology, it’s still a business. All businesses use data and it’s really still about answering the question, “What problem am I solving?”

Pre-recorded Sessions

These pre-recorded sessions streamed live on the eve of IoTDay, to accommodate the global audience, in different time zones.

“AI Ethics/AI Research”

Tahereh Sonia Saheb (AI Research Assistant Professor, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran)

Sonia’s research relates to digital transformation from both an enterprise and social perspective. This includes digital health, data analysis and marketing from an AI ethics perspective. She looks at trends in research papers (over 1,600 papers so far!), and uncovered nine key clusters within the field, which she describes during her session. Her research has determined that of 66 ethical concerns, privacy is the most significant. In her presentation, she details more of the specifics.

“Career Pivot” (a discussion with Susanna Raj)

Pragati Raj (AI Ethicists, US/India)

As a technologist, published author on mobile security and recognized thought leader, Pragati is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion. Her current roles cover women and cyber security, advocating for the children of migrant workers and supporting individuals with autism through building community-wide empathy. Over time, Pragati has transitioned from being a creator of technological solutions to spreading technology to individuals who otherwise may not have access. Using autism as her base, Pragati is highly dedicated to assuring that as AI models get designed, technologists account for people who are outside the mainstream.

A Discussion on Chatbots:

• Zoya Lakhani (Jr. Community Manager at Remotual, Digital Marketing Consultant at KBConnects, Writer for Techfastly Magazine, Pakistan),
• Ruth Millar (SingaporeAI Chatbots Marketing Leader from RovingApps and UIB)

As Director of Strategy at UIB, Ruth focuses on making human to machine communication simple. During this session, Zoya and Ruth (and their guest, Sandhya) discuss how Chatbots make interactions between machines and people more human. Among other things, Chatbots allow businesses to scale customer service, particularly as it relates to registering products and assuring that users have access to all of the proper products. Chatbots also play a significant role in banking, and with autonomous vehicles. Their discussion goes into great detail on all of these subjects.

“Data Science Myths and CareerPivot” (in discussion with Susanna Raj)

Manpreet Budhraja (Data Scientist and host of A.I.M. YouTube Channel, India)

As a data engineer, NLP practitioner, community builder, speaker, mentor and founder of A.I.M Learning (which is dedicated to AI and ML), Manpreet uses her background in mathematics to examine NLP and its impact on chatbots, converting text to speech, converting sign languages to text, public and government policies and how famous personalities’ Tweets can impact the stock market. She is highly focused on how technology can bring people around the world together and allow professionals to help other professionals.

“IoT and Equality”

Divya Dwivedi (Lawyer, The Supreme Court of India)

Divya discusses the ethical side of IoT and the potential for technology to help rectify gender equality issues. Women’s role in IoT, STEM and ICT, according to Divya, will give women greater opportunity to be independent. However, she’s also very concerned that female owned startups are far less likely to get funding. From a young age, she has been highly focused on the disparity between the treatment of and opportunities afforded boys as opposed to girls, and she now focuses on promoting more opportunities for girls and women.

“Natural Language Processing”

Sam Wigglesworth (Teacher, Founder of Girls & Boys in Tech & The Language School, CRM Manager, Analyst, ML and AI enthusiast, GCP, IBM, Oracle Cloud, UK)

Sam explains that NLP is a branch of AI that allows computers to understand text and spoken words, as humans do. She explains how NLP combines conversational linguistics tool-based modeling with statistical machine learning and deep learning models. These technologies enable machines to process human language in the form of text and voice in real-time, with full understanding. The most common forms of NLP that most people have encountered are voice operated GPS and speech to text dictation. Sam also explains how NLP plays a vital role in enterprise solutions, including speech recognition.

“NoCodeAI Lesson on Machine Learning using Microsoft Azure”

• Viola Miebach (UX Designer, UXR, UXD, CX, AIX, Barcelona)
• Kristine Kalnina (Barcelona — AIX Designers)

In this highly interactive and fascinating discussion, Viola Miebach (UX Designer) and Kristine Kalnina (a curious researcher, not a data scientist) demonstrate multitasking in real-time as they go back and forth between demonstrating a regression model (using Microsoft Azure) and discussing their career paths.

Viola studied business management, but was always curious about marketing. While doing a semester abroad in Barcelona, she became intrigued by the “circular economy” and sustainability. Her first job was in the decoration business, where she learned about B2B but was not completely fulfilled. She transferred to Switzerland to learn more about digital transformation, worked with two other UX designers and then pivoted to UX design after participating in a bootcamp. She was highly motivated by the prospect of combining psychology, research and business strategy with new technologies. Viola loves AI ethics, and strives to work with UX designers to optimize AIX. Her career pivot was inspired by her desire to get involved in shaping products, as opposed to just working in business. She is very enthusiastic about the network of people she works with, who are very supportive and encouraging.

Kristine started in marketing, moved into product design, as a product manager, quickly discovering how much she didn’t know, but she trusted her team and asked many questions to learn what she needed to know to be successful. Despite getting very involved in complex business matters, she discovered a broad lack of customer representation and moved into UX, where she learned the value of increased testing and research. She sought out experienced researchers to learn from and even volunteered to do the work for people, provided she could learn valuable lessons along the way. Reflecting on her journey, she passes along extremely encouraging words about going forward and not being intimidated by anything, including an apparent lack of knowledge. “Throw yourself in!” she declares while emphasizing the importance of curiosity, resilience and a healthy dose of ignorance (but not in a negative sense; rather in the sense that if you don’t know how difficult something is, there is no reason to fear it). She recommends maintaining a healthy attitude going forward fearlessly.

In the demonstration portion of their discussion, Kristine walks Viola through a regression example, examining the number of bike rentals over time and then predicting future rental numbers. Kristine describes how the website “AI Fundamentals’’ walked her through the process of using AI to predict expected customer flow, based on a variety of input factors, including the day of the week, the weather and a number of other things. While demonstrating the simplicity of training the model, she explains that Machine Learning (ML) is a branch of AI that teaches machines to make predictions based on data. Over time and with additional data, it can improve how it makes predictions. She clarifies the distinction between “supervised ML” and “unsupervised ML,” using a very practical example about assembling furniture. She also discusses various ML techniques, including regression, classification, clustering, and anomaly detection. Showing a variety of graphs and charts, Kristine declares that the day of the week is the most significant factor in predicting bike rentals and then uses the model to predict the number of rentals over the next five days.

They close by reemphasizing how open the tech community is to continuously learning and experimenting, specifically calling out Sudha as an inspiration to never stop exploring new ideas and the latest technology.

Room full of accomplished Womxn, talking technology

“Responsible AI/AI Ethics”

Ana Chubnidze (AI Governance International, the country of Georgia)

Ana utilizes her background in international relations, political science, international law and economics to influence policy, ethics and regulations for AI. She works to bring together interested parties from Asia and Europe, while connecting political science with emerging technologies. Balancing transparency, pragmatism, responsibility and true inclusiveness, Ana emphasizes the multidisciplinary aspects of AI and related issues around ethics. Ongoing projects include: connecting AI ethics-practitioners with data scientists, promoting AI’s potential for sustainable development, and working in industry specific domains.

“Facial Recognition in Automated Buildings”

Rebekah Tweed (Project Manager, AI Fairness and Data Privacy practice group at Eisenberg & Baum, LLP; Chair, IEEE Global AIS Ethics Initiative Editing Committee)

With great deftness, Rebekah delineates what it means to, “incorporate facial recognition into automated buildings,” provides several extremely practical use cases, and then discusses potential pitfalls. Automated buildings, she explains, could include public spaces, private venues, schools, casinos, airports, office buildings, homes, amusement parks, and many others. Specific use cases include using your face to unlock your front door, avoiding the line at a concert because the security system recognizes you as a V.I.P., or schools using facial recognition to secure their doors.

Fully acknowledging the convenience factor, Rebekah mentions customizing home appliances or restricting school entrance to stop a sex offender from entering, she also touches on potentially nefarious uses. She cites an example from China, where law enforcement used FRT to arrest people for very minor offenses. And in Brazil, authorities used FRT to arrest around 130 people at Carnival. Rebekah proclaims that records from your home doorbell could be subpoenaed in court, and that Amazon is looking into including FRT into its doorbells. She talks about how these tools could be weaponized or hacked, and how that could shift their usage from defensive to offensive.

While Rebekah is clearly impressed and intrigued by the possible uses of FRT, she simultaneously sends out a loud and unambiguous warning that there will be down sides as well. She closes by expressing hope that this emerging AI technology does not get used to hurt our most vulnerable people.

In Conclusion

On April 9, 2021, 28 womxn came together all day, as part of IoTDay Womansplaining, as a fantastic day of learning and inspiration, by sharing their stories of personal growth and advancement in the field of IoT. While there was some discussion of equity and opportunity for women, each and every presentation prioritized the sophisticated work they do to spread technology around the globe in an ethical way. It was an absolute celebration of IoT and what these women do every day.

From these presentations, it is abundantly clear that technology is only becoming more pervasive and more advanced. Nothing about this trend, the growth of Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing and other emerging technologies seems likely to slow down. The persistent message is that now is the time to learn what you can, think of new ways to apply and leverage emerging technologies, to make yourself and your enterprise even more successful in the future.

As a final note, this recounting would not be complete without acknowledging the incredible work of Sudha Jamthe and Roxy Stimpson, who planned, organized and hosted IoTDay Womansplaining. While Sudha most definitely does not plan this event annually to promote herself, listening to the presenters tell their “career-pivot” stories unequivocally demonstrates how her leadership, guidance and mostly her enthusiasm have inspired so many people around the world to do absolutely amazing things, and she deserves significant acknowledgment for that!

Please, feel free to share this post with others who may be interested in these topics. Use it to promote the amazing accomplishments, the perseverance and determination it has taken these 28 womxn to get where they are today — on the cutting edge of technology in some of today’s most rapidly growing fields.

Richard Meyers (Writer/Editor, UX Success Manager, Tech-Enthusiast)