POOJA PATIL

What was it like joining SWE right after its establishment in Cummins College? Were you doubtful about investing a lot of efforts in the club especially since you were not sure of the kind of response it would get from the students?

At first, when I got to know about SWE being an organization facilitating and encouraging women in the tech industry and their contribution towards the same, I signed up without giving it any second thought.

Also, about investing the time and effort was worth it as we started with a bang and our first event being a huge success with around 100-150 girls attending the inauguration ceremony of the affiliate.

How was the student response initially? How many people did you start with? What events or activities did you hold then to inspire more women to be a part of this organization?

The initial inaugural ceremony was a huge hit and that pumped us as a team to keep continuing that work and making sure that the girls find it interesting to attend the events and our activities.

We started with a core team of 3 girls and our affiliate head Mrs. Anagha Kulkarni.

We held a one-on-one interaction for the students and roped in some of the greatest working professionals from the industry with the help of Mrs. Nima Nair and Mr. Arun Kumar from Cummins India Ltd. Each student attending the event was assigned with a certain professional expert from the tech industry and paired for the fun activities and games

As a woman who is currently working as a professional how important do you think it is to educate other women about STEM and encourage them to pursue a career in it?

Very often women are underestimated about their intellect whether or not they can keep up with the skills and trends of the tech industry. But as a woman I think that these stereotypes that the society has already set need to be challenged. The younger the age since the girls are taught about breaking these stereotypes and educate them about the pros of pursuing a career in the tech field, the better are the outcomes. You can always start by talking to and encouraging these young female minds by giving them the real life examples of women who have already made it big in the industry.

Have you ever faced any kind of discrimination in the industry based on your gender or technical qualification? How did you fight it?

I have been surrounded with a lot of men since I am working in the field of cyber security, but, I personally have been fortunate enough to never have dealt with any sort of discrimination during my career.

How has SWE helped you through your professional or personal growth?

When I joined Cummins College for my professional degree, I was a very shy and a under confident girl who had a tremendous stage fear. After joining SWE, Anagha Ma’am and my fellow colleagues encouraged me in a lot of ways and I could see the difference in myself after a year as to how confident as an individual I had grown.