Software People Stories

In this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Bindu Sunil, Sector Head and Engineering Director - Cloud Data Platforms and AI in Wipro. 

• Bindu started her carrier in Kirloskar as a design engineer for alternators.
• She then moved to Tata Elxsi as an embedded developer
• Bindu shares her experience of building the teams being a techie at heart
• Learnt the basics of cloud right at the beginning of 2012
• Shares her growth story within Wipro cloud 
• Talks about being Cloud advisory, program director, cloud center of excellence within Wipro
• She then moved to become a practice leader in the cloud platform
• Bindu shares how she has rediscovered herself from embedded engineer to Cloud Practice head
• Bindu shares how her perspective changed from a constraint based environment on embedded to cloud

Bindu Sunil is the Director of Engineering with 21 years of experience, developing and applying new technologies to manage and deliver complex projects spanning Internet Scale Computing, Cloud platforms, AI/ML in Medical Devices and Healthcare, Consumer Electronics, Electrical manufacturing domains on Data platforms, AI, Cloud (AWS), Embedded Systems, and Firmware technologies. R&D leadership in various roles - engineering manager, program manager, delivery manager, cloud consultant, and practice lead.

Bindu can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bindusunil/

In this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Pramitha Ramaprakash, CEO of Transcend Satellite Technology 

• Pramitha talks about her passion in aerospace and how that shaped her early experiences while working in Wipro
• She talks about Satellite launching as an extremely cool team sport as there are several field that come together 
• Further she shares what it has taken to launch herself (literally) in the field 
• She talks about her dream to launch 75 Indian student satellites in the next decade
• Shares her experiences of bridging the students learning with the deeper corporate needs in the satellite industry
• She shares about sustainability in the space and how her firm is bringing visibility and transparency towards this goal
• Pramitha believes that today’s students are highly motivated towards this field and only need guidance and support. That way she is extremely grateful towards the kind of interactions that she’s been bestowed 
• She shares how the building blocks approach is the way ahead
• Pramitha shares several decisions that she’s taken and how the positive outlook energizes her day
• She covers the kind of cross functional skills and anyone can join the space industry
• She shares her mantra “Do Not Limit Yourself”

Pramitha Ramaprakash is an industry leader in the field of Satellite education, She’s the CEO of  Transcend Satellite Technology. She’s a co-author of Payload design and System design for CubeSats (1U to 27U) and Microsatellites. She’s also designed Payload Design for EO, Remote sensing, communication and IoT Payloads as well as Designed the Payload Interface Computer using Raspberry Pi for MirrorSat of AAReST Satellite Mission as part of MSc Space Engineering dissertation. 

She had held several hardware engineer roles in Wipro, BAE systems, Concurrent Technologies, Cadac holding, Intel and Dell prior to starting her own firm in the field of Space education

Pramitha can be reached at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pramitharamaprakash/

In the this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Puja Issar, Managing Director of AnitaB.org India

• Puja started her career in the investment banking world in United Kingdom dealing with multiple banks and large corporates. She talks about the stresses of the job and the highs that came with it
• Puja talks about her career in 3 different decades with the first decade in advising large corporates on M&A deals
• Her second decade she talks about her foray into the world of Not for profit segment
• She shares her experiences of enabling school girls in the india’s rural sector with their first computer and how it has transformed her as a person
• She talks about bringing her experience of working in corporate in the not for profit and creating a rewarding experience for herself and the volunteers as well
• Her third decade of work experience she has started as Managing Director for AnitaB.org where she mixes both corporate and her philanthropic angles as well
• She covers her excitement of launching GHCI in November 2023 that will have more than 6000+ women technologists across the globe
• Listen to Puja to share about more excitement around the Grace Hopper India conference
• Puja talks about having macro goals for oneself that acts as a guiding beacon and ensuing that one has micro goals that can be ticked off on a regular basis

Puja Issar is a Result driven senior executive with proven ability to evaluate ,identify and execute meaningful business across national and international boundaries. Skilled imaginative analytical strategist with excellent track record in creating strategic objectives and developing value creating business models.Wealth of experience and knowledge and awareness of alternate management approaches has been a key to success. Extensive experience in planning ,implementing and managing strategic initiatives and building and scaling of business lines across Financial services,hospitality ,real estate and not for profit sectors. 

Puja is a chartered accountant with CFA and MBA from Henley business school

Puja Issar can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/puja-issar-a2264a48

In this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Vaishali James, ex-CMO of OpenTap, Community Director for AnitaB.org and mentor at HopeWorks Foundation

• Vaishali starts the episode with a very funny interaction of giving a technology solution ahead of its time
• She shares her tryst with doing an engagement on brand alignment and how simple steps could be taken at different levels to create that viable and clear brand promise to the end customer
• Vaishali talks about the cross section of people who have to come together to understand each other's vantage point before creating a coherent marketing story.
• She shares about why she took the plunge towards the startup - OpenTap that worked in the financial inclusion space
• She also shares experiences as the co-Founder and what it takes to be in the financial space
• Impact of Covid and what it took for the company and needing to shutdown the firm
• Vaishali shares how her own modest upbringing has influenced her to create an ecosystem where women can depend on one another for a sense of sisterhood
• Vaishali shares her experiences of being a mentor and community director for the AnitaB.org and Hopeworks foundation and how its deeply ful filling
• What it took to unlearn from hi-tea in corporate world to having coffee with the customers in their humble houses

Vaishali is the brand aficionado and a deep understanding of developing products. She has worked for 19 years in different roles as a marketeer for Servion Software. Later she became the co-founder and CMO for OpenTap for 5 years. 

Vaishali has the additional benefit of understanding / working on designing and aligning organizational strategy across all functions with the brand strategy to ensure that brand conversations externally and internally talk the same language. So that, the entire organization works towards living and breathing a single ideology to ensure that the promise and the experience is consistent – both internally and externally.

Vaishali can be reached in https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaishali-james-25066815/ 

In this episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Palashi V, research scholar with Cornell University

• Palashi started her career as a software engineer where she played the role of business analysts
• Her interests in social impact stemmed from Dhirubhai Ambani College where she did her thesis in web tools that empowered women
• Palashi decided to pivot from software towards the intersection of social impact and technology
• She shares her learnings in training technology tools for underprivileged kids
• Palashi shares her vision of creating an equitable environment for marginalised social segments. 
• She shares how she’s working in information science and data but powering change 
• She also covered how corporate social responsibility can be extended towards more deeper change and that forms like a continuum 
• Palashi shares how her research is shaping up and how this education has transformed her thinking 
• 
  

Palashi’s research interests lie at the intersection of Information Science, Science and Technology Studies and South Asian Studies. For her dissertation research, she focused on the relationship between computing, gender and caste in India. 

She’s a trained Information and Communications Technology engineer with experience in SAP and core java development. Her work focuses on the social impact with the background of gender and technology, specifically with feminist organizations and initiatives in India closely engaged with issues of women's rights and technology. 

Palashi has worked in technology consulting, marketing and non-profit sector before starting her PhD. 

She was also the founder and editor-in-chief at Fangirl.in, an collaborative e-zine that promotes independent art/music and artists in India.

More information about me on her website -  https://palashi.xyz/ 

For more details and contact Palashi here https://www.linkedin.com/in/palashiv/

In this episode, I continue my conversation with Jeremy Kriegel. He talks about

• How UX can help users stay focused and also providing opportunities to take a break or breather to stay productive
• Micro level thinking and system level thinking
• May need local inefficiencies for overall system wide efficiency
• Analogy of a relay race team member, who needs to wait for the moment to take the baton and run
• The zappos example of helping customers
• On the balance between personalization and privacy
• The skills needed for an effective UX professional
• Curiosity, humility and influencing skills
• UX professionals as change agents, or as sales people
• Clever v/s usable design
• The benefit of spending time to understand the problem and analyze solutions and approaches before jumping in to create wireframes etc
• The limitations of canvas based design tools
• The reason for starting his podcast, saving UX
• Significance of lean approaches and fast learning loops in UX
• The role of design in customer loyalty
• Impact of AI based approaches on UX professionals
• His career tips for new entrants as well as persons considering a career switch to UX domain

Jeremy Kriegel is a UX leader, very active on various professional forums.He is also the host of the podcast ‘Saving UX’

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremykriegel/

In this episode, I am in conversation with Jeremy Kriegel, a UX leader and the host of the Saving UX podcast.

Jeremy shares

• Getting into UX accidentally
• Started in the mid 90s, Undergrad in CMU, Art and English
• Studying electronic and time based media and working with robotic sculpture
• A friend asking for help with creating a website
• Hiring friends and colleagues to start an agency
• Getting introduced to HCI and taking a more formal approach to learning UX
• How his stint with Xerox was a great learning experience
• Moving on to various companies across industries
• One common theme has been agile ways of working
• Working with xerox printers that were complex -- from tree to book - and managing the various steps and interactions
• The relevance of user research and how or why many organizations do not do that
• About creating processes that meets a team’s needs
• How creativity is part of everyone’s work
• Jeff Patton’s guidance on creating a holistic vision in  lightweight way and a tree analogy
• Shares a story about an experience with working on a poker platform that needed to comply with new taxability regulations in France
• His thumb rule of gathering inputs from 8 people, for a more comprehensive understanding
• Quantitative gives a lot of what, but not why..
• Letting go of internal bias [not asking leading questions etc]
• Why role based personas approach need to be re-looked at, to identify inflexion points to understand how their needs change over time
• Learning from the model used by many games
• The benefit of not optimizing for first use experience
• Helping the user stay focused and accomplish their goals; with post-pandemic, how can UX discipline help not only stay focused, but also provide breaks to refresh themselves

Jeremy Kriegel is a UX leader, very active on various professional forums.He is also the host of the podcast ‘Saving UX’

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremykriegel/

In the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Rohit Salecha, Security Engineering Manager in Disney+Hotstar and book author of GitOps

• Rohit continues to share the areas that he’s planning to learn in terms of Web3 
• He shares how he ties complex technologies and the necessity that has driven him to learn it as he’s responsible for security 
• He shares some of the key areas he wants to improve in being a manager for other team members as well as give back to the community that has helped him
• Rohit gives a nugget of wisdom to keep coding and continue to learn

Rohit Salecha is a technology geek who loves to explore anything that runs and understands binary. As a security engineer he is passionate about learning the length,breadth and depth of technology.

Being more on the defensive side he has evangelised secure software development at various organizations for more than a decade.

Rohit is driven by “everything as code” mantra and strongly believes that the security team must strive towards making themselves irrelevant. In his free time he is either reading books or watching movies. He is a fitness freak who loves to jog,swim and cycle on different terrains.

More details checkout his linked in page - 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohitsalecha/

https://rohitsalecha.com

In the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Rohit Salecha, Security Engineering Manager in Disney+Hotstar and book author of GitOps

• Rohit talks about his passion towards electronics and how he was experimenting in many of the areas. He also shares how he joined the software journey by accident
• Rohit believes that every engineer out there needs to be exceptional in what they do, but also know how to do basic coding. When he talks about coding he’s not only discussing about software as Java, C++ but also no code, system design level understanding as well
• Rohit started as a software engineer in Mastek and realised that he was passionate about how the embedding security in the software modules that he was developing
• After a few years of being a software engineer, he join NII consulting with specialisation in secure software. In each step, he talks about the want to expand his knowledge and thirst in this area
• Rohit is the author of the book GitOps and he shares some of the key challenges that he encountered in writing the book including creating a fully functional design, code and keeping up with the versions of the software modules

Rohit Salecha is a technology geek who loves to explore anything that runs and understands binary. As a security engineer he is passionate about learning the length, breadth and depth of technology.

Being more on the defensive side he has evangelised secure software development at various organizations for more than a decade.

Rohit is driven by “everything as code” mantra and strongly believes that the security team must strive towards making themselves irrelevant. In his free time he is either reading books or watching movies. He is a fitness freak who loves to jog, swim and cycle on different terrains.

More details checkout his linked in page - 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohitsalecha/

https://rohitsalecha.com

In this second part of my conversation, Bill Hall, President of Simulation Studios shares

• Some of his professional failures when he was given large responsibilities at a very young age
• How sims enable executives to get a feel for the impact of their decisions and learn from that experience
• The role of software in the simulation exercises he runs
• A quick walkthrough of how a sim is run
• Aspects of an organization that need to be built into a simulation
• Qualities that would help someone be like Bill
• No fear of failure or encouraging failure as an opportunity to learn
• Giving things a go and learning from the experience
• How he communicates with all levels of roles in any organization
• How he understands the context of an organization quickly
• Using butcher paper to spatially and visually organize his thoughts
• Taking a break and breathing in nature - to organize thoughts and doing a brain dump
• Cascading learnings in an organization by training learners to also be trainers
• Relevance of simulation based tools to enable high performing teams quickly
• What he reads
• Limits of simulation

Bill partners with companies and individuals to build highly strategic mindsets resulting in accelerating change. Utilizing business simulations, leadership development, and business coaching, Bill helps shift mindsets and build skillsets resulting in driving positive change more quickly and with less friction. Currently President of Simulation Studios, Bill closely partners with companies and people in all types of corporate development scenarios. Bill has successfully worked for and with companies such as Apple, Sony, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Korn Ferry, Caterpillar, Sephora, and many more. Prior to Simulation Studios, Bill managed Skype’s global strategic software business, was in executive marketing roles at AOL and Nortel, and enjoyed working with Steve Jobs on various strategic projects during his 15+ years working with Apple where he was a five-time Apple MVP, and a Golden Apple Award winner. Bill authored a #1 Training and Development Amazon best-selling book, been featured in major publications and podcasts, and earned an MBA in Entrepreneurship and a Strategy Execution certificate from Harvard Business School. Bill spends the majority of his time with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Book Link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CMBP1TA

Forbes Articles:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/people/billhall1/?sh=373b957726aa

Contact Info:

Contact at SimulationStudios.com and ask for Bill

LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/wphall