Through The Corporate Glass

It is always a balancing act between making pragmatic choices and those driven by the heart and passion. Raluca Mihu, the founder of Synchromind, a security consulting startup with a unique approach strikes this balance and shares her choices.

She has over two decades of experience in the IT industry and has founded an initiative to help abused women become part of the IT industry by providing them with training and counseling.

Raluca Mihu's Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralucamihu/

Synchromind: https://www.linkedin.com/company/synchromind-eu/

Welcome to an episode of Startup Spotlight where we explore interesting and innovative startups.Today in the spotlight we have Live AI Dream

We chat with Chhavi Jain, Founder and CEO at Live a Dream about her journey, the startup, her collaborations with Nvidia & Microsoft and much more. Chhavi has a Masters in Artificial Intelligence from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and has over two decades of experience spanning Qualcomm, Intel Mobile communication and Nokia.

Chhavi's Linkedin Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chhavij/

Live AI Dream on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/live-ai-dream

Website:  www.liveaidream.com 

Watch their website, Live AI Dream will share a 10% discount coupon very soon to get a discount on the first payment of any subscription!

What does the field of linguistics entail? What are the various opportunities in the field? Is it purely theoretical or is there an experimental aspect? How does one delve into interdisciplinary research involving gaming, cybersecurity and computer science and what are the challenges?

To learn about this and unravel an extremely interesting career journey, we chat with Mythili Menon, an Assistant Professor of English and Linguistics at Wichita State University, Kansas, Mythili directs the Menon Lab.  she is also the Director of Linguistics at Wichita State, Director of The Center for Educational Technologies to Assist Refugee Learners and an Associate Editor of the  Journal of South Asian Linguistics. Her research is interdisciplinary and she collaborates with linguists, computer scientists, speech pathologists, education specialists, game designers, and psychologists

She is the recipient of two University faculty awards at Wichita State University. The Young Faculty Risk Taker Award given to faculty who experiment outside the norm in teaching, research and service, and the Young Faculty Scholar award given to faculty who have records of excellence in teaching performance and substantial achievement in research. The Center for Educational Technologies to Assist Refugee Learners’s Project Education for All was named United Way of the Plains Impact on the Plains Social Innovation Game Changer in Education in 2021.

Show Notes

Website: https://www.mythilimenon.com/

CETARL: https://www.wichita.edu/research/cetarl/#

Exhibition Details:

https://ulrich.wichita.edu/ulrich_exhibition/where-we-belong-refugee-stories-from-wichita/#:~:text=Where%20We%20Belong%3A%20Refugee%20Stories%20from%20Wichita%20is%20a%20collaboration,Mythili%20Menon

NSF Cybersecurity Research Details: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2210185&HistoricalAwards=false

Media and News

I appeared on NPR’s 1A Remaking America’s panel on Sorting out Facts, Truth, and Opinion. You can watch the episode here.

United Way of the plains game changer award news article.

News article on NSF-Funded Cybersecurity for All.

News article on State of Kansas funded Project Education for All.

News article on Aphasia in South Asian Languages

COVID-19 pandemic interview with the Wichita Public Library-  https://cdm17408.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/COVID-19_4/id/49/rec/13.

[News] 

Phenomenal woman award nomination: I was nominated for a phenomenal women award at Wichita State University.

Recruitment faculty fellow: I have been named a recruitment faculty fellow for 2021-2022 at Wichita State University.

[Upcoming talks/posters]

(2023) KU Linguistics Colloquy University of Kansas, Lawrence, October 12, 2023

(2023) Improving cybersecurity practices and understanding of privacy among refugees (with Kaitlyn Hemberger, Mohd Sabra, Murtuza Jadliwala) KSDE Great Ideas in Education Conference, October 25-27, 2023, Wichita, KS

(2023) Creating a Bilingual Digital Game-Based Learning Platform for Teaching Refugee Children Middle- School Science (with JaeHwan Byun) 17th European Conference on Games Based Learning, 5-6 October 2023, Enschende, Netherlands

(2023) Being displaced, building a new home: What we can learn from the resilient refugee community Public talk at the Ulrich Museum of Art, September 21, 2023

(2023) Creating a Bilingual Digital Game-Based Learning Platform for Teaching Refugee Children Middle- School Science (with JaeHwan Byun) The Migration Conference, 23-26 August 2023, Hamburg, Germany
(2023) Workshops for Improving Digital Literacy Skills Among Refugee Populations (with Kaitlyn Hemberger, Mohd Sabra, Murtuza Jadliwala) The Migration Conference, 23-26 August 2023, Hamburg, Germany

Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) are penetrating our lives & work. Data consumption, analysis and modeling contribute to increasing the carbon footprint of products.

How can AI/ML be applied in the field of sustainability? What kind of skills and training are required to create sustainable solutions ? What are the barriers to entry and what are the opportunities? As people look to dive into the field, how can one effectively establish technical expertise & credibility? To answer this and share his story, we have with us Narayanan Subramanium, a thought leader in Technology and Sustainability. He is currently the CTO of Eugenie and has nearly 3 decades of experience spanning Industrial AI for sustainability, electric vehicles IoT, distributed systems and networking. He is part of the IEEE Bangalore Computer Society,  Executive Committee. He has a Masters in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland. He completed the chief digital officer executive education program from Indian School of Business and a post graduate diploma in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning from the University of Texas, Austin. 

He talks about technology and sustainability at various events and conferences. As part of the G20, he has been invited by TiE to talk about Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction.

Show Notes

Narayanan's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cnsubramaniam/

IEEE Code of Ethics: https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

Narayanan's Website: https://climate350.com/

Other Talks

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cnsubramaniam_netzero-sustainability-carbonemissions-activity-7026907532182900737-atLr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/race-recycling-and-circular-economy-conference_raceconferences-plasticsconference-brandpartnerships-ugcPost-7033747867651457024-6ngh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android

For women’s history month we would like to acknowledge and thank all the women before us who made our success possible. 

In the past we had put together episodes for the women’s month focussing on the thoughts, motivation and influences behind career and life choices. This was very well received and we enjoyed the experience so much that we wanted to put another episode together for this year’s women's month. 

This episode covers answers to the following 6 questions from 13 inspiring women.

1. What does lead like a girl mean to you?

2. What advice would you give your younger self?

3. What is your biggest fear and how do you cope with it?

4. What is the most significant/unconventional choice you have made so far?

5. Who are the women you admire and have shaped your decisions and life?

6. Could you share a favorite book or quote which has influenced you?

The inspiring Women featured in this episode:

Kelly Boyer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-boyer-b6a09a7/

Mollie Holland: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollie-holland/

Tulika Mittal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tulika-mittal-68a8939a/

Srividya Tata: https://www.linkedin.com/in/srividya-tata-949538/

Uma Varma: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uma-varma-09b8277/ 

Anupama Lolage: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alolage/

Sarala Mandi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarala-mandi-57787097/

Anusha Sethuraman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anushasethuraman/

Sandip Bhakta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandip-bhakta-22a3232/

Meghana Bhagavan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghana-bhagavan-5a808b1a/

Jaya Narasimhan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaya-narasimhan-6661a811/

Amy Ward: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/w/amy-ward

Ekaterina Arshinova: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-arshinova-88b76b20a/

Previous episodes in the Inspiring Women Series

Inspiring Women Series - Part 1 

Inspiring Women Series - Part 2

Inspiring Women Series - Part 3

Episode Cover Art: Produced using DALL-E 2 to generate the base image.

What is data engineering? How does it differ from software engineering? What skills do you need to become a data engineer? What are the opportunities and challenges in this area? Harini Rajendran, Senior Software Engineer, Data Engineering, Confluent answers these questions and shares her experience in this episode. Harini's team builds a cloud scale observability data platform. She is one of the leads of the San Francisco chapter of the Women Who Code Backend Study Group. She is a passionate advocate for Diversity. Equity and Inclusion and animal welfare.

ShowNotes

Harini's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hrajendran/

Harini on WWCode: https://www.womenwhocode.com/sf/about

Learning Resources: 

https://developer.confluent.io/learn-kafka/apache-kafka/events/

https://developer.confluent.io/learn/

What does research in the fields of molecular biology and biophysics involve? How can this research contribute to sustainability efforts? What are the challenges in this area? What skills do you need to contribute to this research ?

To learn about this field, we speak to Sowmya Raghavan, a research lead at BioMan technologies. Sowmya was a consultant with Strand Life Sciences for over fifteen years after she completed her PhD in molecular biophysics from the Indian Institute of Science. She is a passionate advocate of sustainability and a dedicated practitioner as well.

Referenced in the Episode

https://www.bio-man.in/

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/bengaluru-eco-team/article8484697.ece

https://www.swachagraha.in/sgcc

https://www.swmrt.com/

What does a career in print media entail? What are the skills required to succeed in this field? How does one build credibility and brand recognition for new publications?  Suresh Selvaraj, formerly the president of the Outlook Group of magazines and later the CEO of the Suvarna News shares his journey, learnings, and perspectives. He has over 30 years of experience, having worked for different kinds of print media brands like dailies, weekend papers, and magazines. He has been part of national and regional leaders, fledgling brands, start-ups, challenger brands, and international brands. He currently blogs about Travel. 

Suresh's Linkedin Profile: https://in.linkedin.com/in/suresh-selvaraj-b508a645

Suresh's  Travel Blog: https://thebikerman.wordpress.com/

His Travel Writing in Deccan Herald: https://www.deccanherald.com/content/625357/a-bikers-tales.html