Silver Linings and Sisterhood: My Journey of Embracing Tech
By Apoorva Singh
This essay received an Honourable Mention in the Global Changemakers Essay Competition 2020.
I distinctly remember the day in 10th grade when I was supposed to fill the application to opt for an elective in 11th and 12th standard out of Computer Science, Economics and Biology. I liked Biology and was pretty good at it, but was fascinated with Computer Science. As an unsure and anxious 16 year old, who had always excelled at academics, I weighed up the pros and cons.
I sat down to picture a coder. The image was that of a boy, with headphones on, coding for hours late at night. Due to the conditioning by social media and films, it was hard for me to break past this visual and picture myself pursuing CS, no matter how curious I was to explore it. However, with a little push provided by my parents, who believed that CS was going to be the future, I decided to go for it.
To my utter dismay, all my apprehensions and fears came back to haunt me on the first day of 11th grade, when I saw that in a class of 45 students, there were just 9 girls! The numbers spoke for themselves, and ingrained in me the belief that perhaps I’m not meant for CS, and that this is and will remain a male dominated field. This affected my confidence and as a result, I struggled to perform well in this subject.
After 2 years, having secured a decent rank in my entrance exams for engineering colleges, I secured seats in the Computer Science and Engineering branch of Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women(IGDTUW). I was again at a crossroads. My past demons came back to trouble me. Will I ever be resourceful in such a heavily male-dominated field? After introspection and long discussions with my parents, I decided to take a leap of faith, abandon the myriad of self-doubt I carried and chose to go for it, given its scope and growing popularity.
When college began, I was completely clueless about how to make the most of my college life. I had the zeal to work hard but my efforts lacked the right direction. There was no active forum that bridged the gap between seniors and juniors on campus. The coding culture that I was hoping to become a part of was almost non-existent. People were doing great things at their end, but there wasn’t an active exchange of ideas. During the end of the first year, I came across a book, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” by Sheryl Sandberg, which I believe has been the most influential piece of writing I’ve come across. It has, quite literally, changed my life! I discovered the power of communities, peer learning and women leaning on each other to rise and thrive together!
Through the insights gained from the book, I decided to rebuild my life. With a renewed perspective about diversity in tech after reading the book, I founded the Open Source Circle in the Lean In Chapter of my college. I was also a part of the Core Team. The year that followed changed me as a person! As a mentor, I got a chance to help my mentees learn version control and submit their first pull requests. As a Core Member, I helped overlook the operations of regular sessions of various circles and invited many accomplished guest speakers to share their experiences in their respective fields, exposing the students of my college to immense possibilities. I had gained a strong sense of self, found mentors I trusted and had given back to my college which was very fulfilling for me. I organised workshops, hackathons with 100+ participants, raised funds for events and undertook so many adventures which have completely transformed me. After being associated with Lean In IGDTUW for 2 years, I am now heading the chapter on campus as its President. With 300+ students as mentees in various circles and 23 mentors, the chapter is thriving and reaching new heights!
A number of things happened during my journey as a result of finding a community of women who I could trust and seek guidance from. In late 2017, I, along with my team, applied to The Smart India Hackathon, organised by the Government of India. Out of 8000 entries from across the country, our team was among the top 50 to qualify under the Ministry of Women and Child Development. We competed at the Nationals in March, 2018, and bagged the 3rd prize along with a cash prize of INR 50,000. I got an opportunity to witness how technology is empowering us in a multitude of ways. Many high ranking officials saw our project and praised our idea. We even received media coverage on our project. We had developed a web application “Rakshak Aarohan” for the police of the State of Assam, India, which aims at enhancing their capabilities by real time plotting of crimes on map, analysing crime trends, making future predictions and a number of other features. I was fortunate enough to receive the prestigious Western Digital Scholarship for STEM along with an award of $2000, based on my exemplary academic record, technical acumen and leadership activities towards the cause of promoting diversity in tech. Having worked relentlessly for my goals, I faced a major roadblock when I couldn’t secure an internship on-campus in any of my dream companies. Hitting rock bottom made me realise the power of having a community of women I had found through Lean In that helped me get past this rough phase and became my support system. I started my preparation from scratch, built my problem solving skills and practiced extensively throughout my 3rd year. One year later, when Microsoft again visited our campus, I was thoroughly prepared. However, destiny had other plans for me. One day before the interview, I was down with 102 degree fever. I barely slept for half an hour the entire night and went for the interviews early in the morning at 7AM, completely exhausted, sleep deprived and on the verge of breaking down. However, due to my fundamentals being crystal clear I was able to sail through my interviews easily. Everything came organically to me, and by the end of the day, I was offered the position of Software Engineer at Microsoft IDC! As I look back and connect the dots, every failure and success has led to the culmination of this one big milestone. I truly believe that earnest hard work coupled with the right mentorship can do wonders.
With the confidence gained from this achievement, I continue to work even harder and not take anything for granted, because it’s through multiple failures that this dream was realised. Recently, I was among the top 300 people selected from across India for the MIT India Initiative. The MIT India Initiative is a not-for-profit effort of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to delve into pressing problems in novel, challenging contexts, and tackle these with technology and design. Another exciting milestone that I have recently achieved has been my acceptance into the She++ Ambassadors Program by Stanford University and invitation to attend a fully funded trip to the She++ Summit in Silicon Valley from April 2nd-4th, 2020! Most of the things that I’ve achieved are a result of constant hard work, indispensable guidance provided by mentors and unbreakable conviction. Along the way, I’ve understood the importance of participating in initiatives that work towards creating spaces and support structures for minorities in any domain. I turned my setbacks into setups for comebacks and always tried to find the silver lining in any failure. Developing this mindset has been empowering. I hope that anyone who reads my story understands that things won’t always be easy, but if you’re fully invested in the process and are driven enough to steer past the hard times, you will emerge victorious. And when you do, don’t forget to help someone in need! You always learn so much more by giving back!
Global Changemakers has an unshakable mission of supporting youth to create positive change in their communities. A global pioneer in supporting youth-led development, they have trained youth from over 180 countries and provided grants to over 360 youth-led projects, which have had a combined impact on over 6,2 million people. www.global-changemakers.net
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article belong to the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or Global Changemakers.
