What WomenTechMakers brought to Chennai this August?

It was a steamy hot day on the 10th of august, but just another normal day for us Chennaites, when us, the six core volunteers of WomenTechMakers(WTM) rendezvoused at the Ascendas IT Park for the August WTM meetup. The trouble we had gone through to reach where we were supposed to be a whole another story. You know the meme that goes something like “When you follow Google Maps blindly”, followed by a picture of a car in a pond or a man standing over a ledge. That was pretty much close to what happened with us, just that Namitha and I (Madhura) found ourselves at a dead-end facing a 7-foot wall, the IT park just on the other side of it.

Surprisingly, we were still ahead of schedule and got on to the most basic and mandatory responsibility of a volunteer i.e. making seating arrangements. Once that was done and all had settled down, we kick-started the August meet up themed Data Analytics and Image Processing.

Nivetha, with her delightful voice, began by giving a brief introduction about our community. She was saying how hesitant she had been to speak among a group of people, lacking confidence and support. She had attended her first GDG meet up a few years back and had come to know about WomenTechMakers. Being a part of WTM has given her a lot of support and introduced her to many new technologies. She showed a video of women in tech from around the world sharing their experiences of what it is to be a part of the community.

Soon after the video, came one of the most welcoming and active people in our community, Bhavani Ravi, who gave happy morning greetings to all. She talked about the aim of WTM, which is gaining visibility and building a community for women in tech. With an expanse of 30+ chapters across India but only a meager 17% of women-tech-makers, she was suggesting ways to improve those odds. The registration form for the participants had this question “How proud are you of what you do? Share your proud moments”.She discussed the answers she had gotten for that question and also lack thereof. I liked a statement of hers that goes like, “We don’t get paid for domestic work, but we get paid for professional, so why not share and boast about it, value it!”

Nivetha and Bhavani then together shared a story about their first Meetup. Here it goes… A year ago they had had their first Meetup, with 30 registrations, 3 attendings. The three included 2 organizers and 1 speaker. They never lost hope and had worked for the next ones. And here we are at a meet organized with 40+ women and 10 men excluding the volunteers.

Namitha, our first speaker, then entered with a smiling face and an aura of confidence to give an introduction about Image Processing. She told about how she got into Image Processing in her first year of college. She begins by telling the difference between Computer Vision and Image Processing with an example, followed by the platform, programming languages, and techniques used in Image processing. The best part was when she showed an artistic and colorful image which was an unintended and unexpected result of one of her coding runs. It’s like one of those failed scientific experiments that lead to an accidental discovery.

Following her talk was Sujata’s, from Altimetrik, our venue sponsor. She was happy to see so many women in the room and proud to host it at their company. She adds Altimetrik is happy to be a part of this because it supports diversity. With an introduction on the company, she says to the WTM team and each one of us gathered there, “Every woman should have a professional purpose, a true expression of what we are! ”.

The next was an inspiring talk by Soumya who works at Altimetrik. She is the first graduate in her family. In her confident and bold voice, she said that Altimetrik had given her a lot of support and motivated her to go beyond her boundaries. She loves the community and has been working on real-time projects. In the end, we all showed our appreciation by clapping and gave a shout out for what she has achieved.

After a quick break filled with coffee and sandwiches and some socializing, we began our next session. The next talk was on Data Analytics using python by Sakthivel and Harish. It started off with various visualization techniques and charts, where Sakthivel assured that, at the end of his session, every one of us in the audience will be knowing the various charts, the difference between them and where are they used. Harish then tells about how they were introduced to Matplotlib and reduced the use of excel. With some live coding and interpretation on graphs, the session ends.

Bhavani gives an introduction about her mentor, the one who inspires her, and a great manager, Mr.Dorai Thodla. This was a surprise talk and a Q/A session for the attendees. Mr.Dorai spoke about developing product skills answering the Whats and Hows. He believes in “Small is beautiful”. He expresses how amazed he is by the current generation and their fresh and crazy ideas for the world is a never-ending book of problems.

Some insights from his talk. The skills that needed to develop a product are, Software skills, Application skills, and Product skills. Software skills involve Programming, Testing, and Managing Iterations. He mentions, to do amazing work you do not need a large team, it can be done by a team of one or two people. He gives an example of how UNIX was developed by two people.

“Be fluent in coding like it’s your mother tongue,” says Dorai Thodla.

The application skills involve understanding requirements, creating the software design and implementing the design.

“Asking questions should be your core skills,” says Dorai Thodla

Product skills involve coming up with ideas, research ideas, selecting a few prototypes, validate the prototypes, and constantly improve and iterate.

“Look for concrete feedback for your prototypes,”–Dorai thodla.

Why should one build a product?

Mr. Dorai answers this perfectly by saying it makes you a better person. At first, you are a coder, then a one who tests and validates, you then become a software developer, then an application developer who implements all the ideas and finally a PRODUCT DEVELOPER.

Following are the points he mentions:

• Refines in multiple dimensions
• Helps you to understand the bigger picture
• Seeing your ideas come to real life makes you happy
• Makes you a CREATOR/BUILDER
• Gives you a path to a better career
• Paves your path to entrepreneurship

He also mentions that “a product generates repeated revenues”

How do you begin with product development?

• Get good at software skills
• Find a problem–solve
• Start SMALL

Adding to this list he says, going to hackathons, online competitions, blogging will be of additional help.

A question asked to him from the audience was ‘What would your next step be on a rejection or failure of a product, would you still go on making it work and convincing the customers or forget it?’ He answers by suggesting to figuring out customers and reminds that even Steve Jobs has failed. Using the concept of the Freemium model would help too, where giveaway the product for free and for some time find out the right customers using them and reach out to them. You learn either way but remember to start small.

Another question asked by a youngster, ‘your piece of advice to young entrepreneurs’

He replies honestly saying, have low expectations, look at the path the successful entrepreneurs took and the responsibilities and challenges they overcame.

In a room filled with fresh, positive vibes we take a group picture with all the inspired and cheerful faces in the house.

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