Empower, Encourage yourself

I got a chance to attend the”Women in Tech” event organized by Yahoo for Geeky women working in IT sectors. According to the Yahoo HR Exec, Aparna this was a tribute to all the geeky women and a platform where ladies could socialize with other women in technology industry. It was a great opportunity to “network, share and empower”.

The event started at 6.30 pm in Leela Palace, but as I reached there, I was given a Bingo sheet which had a number of events and we had to talk with girls there and get the signature of those who fit into the criteria and people who complete all the events would get gifts and 1 lucky lady gets “Ipad2”. It was fun, I met a couple of ladies, interacted with them, and we exchanged the sheets and signed the respective events we fit into…. :)

Later, there was a panel of executive level women who participated into a Debate topic and Sucharita from NASSCOM moderated the discussion. The topic was “Are women considered geeky enough to climb the corporate ladder? “ Since there were no guys, there was no as such hot debate on this topic, infact all of them shared their thoughts and views and gave some very good pointers.

I would summarize the discussion as;

Being Geeky means having the passion for technology, keeping abreast of all the upcoming technologies and wiliness to learn them.

Yes, Girls are geeky, but the number of girls that participate in such geeky talks are very less and hence they are not considered geeky enough. Girls should grab opportunities as men do and take up the challenges.

The statistics show that only 6%-7% of women are at executive levels. There are number of reasons, why the number is so low;

• As a woman grows in her professional life, she also has to take the responsibility of her family and that is when we give up growing and don’t take up roles of executive levels.
• Marriage and particularly parenthood, are life changing events in everyone’s lives and it is very important that women gets a supportive family for her to take up any executive level roles.

It is we, who do not consider girls geeky enough and hence backout from climbing high in the corporate ladder, so the message spread was “Empower and encourage ourselves.” Others will treat/consider girls the way they consider themselves, so it is entirely in our hands.

You must watch "Why we have too few women Leaders"talk by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook.

• No one gets the promotion unless they think they deserve their success. Believe in yourself, own your own success. Reach out for opportunities
• Make your partner, real partner. Make sure, your partner is real supportive at home and appreciates your job at home and at work.
• Don’t leave before you leave. Stay in until the very day you really need to leave. Don’t make decisions too far in advance.

Know your local language

It was my cousin sister’s engagement the day I reached B’lore and it was great fun. It was a gang of only girls and there was no one to stop us, we just had lots of fun and we had bhavis talks, all just enjoy the way she speaks kannada…. ;)

Then I realized it really does not matter much, if you do not know kannada in B’lore. Infact I find very few who talk the language or even if they know, they will prefer talking in English or hindi….My sister tells me, you should talk in kannada only with your family or where it is necessary. I really did not get why was she telling that and then I realized it a few days later;

One day, our bike was towed by the police and we went to the station to collect it. The police asked us to give 300 bucks and i asked him, why 300 for? The usual charge is 150 (100 for parking in Non-parking zone+ 50 as towing charges). I was about to debate with him, and then my sister told me, “Let me talk to your head officer”. We met the office, he was of 50+ aged and my sister, who never talks in kannada outside, started speaking to him in kannada and very softly. She told him, “Sir, it’s so late in the night, we are just 2 girls and we did not see the No Parking board there and why do we have to pay 300 bucks. Please be generous to us sir.” He got so emotional, he asked the other office to take only 100 bucks from us and give us our bike. I was stunned, he did not ask for the DL, bike papers, etc, just let us go so easily…. Then my sis tells me, if I had spoken to him in hindi, I doubt if he would have let us go without 200 bucks.

The other place she tells me to talk in kannada is with bus conductors, they will help you get down to the right bus stop and give you the change properly. Preferably, in all govt offices, try talking in local language, you can get your work done easily.

So, if you know the local languages, it really helps you a long way. It is way of showing that we respect the place and the language and it is mental psychology; we always get well with people who know our language than the person who doesn’t …..

This is everywhere; I am not telling this in particular to B’lore, but this really sucks, why we don’t treat “Hindi” as a common local language, why discriminate, people by language or places. At the basic level, I am a human being and I should be given all rights, it should not change as I move from one place to other. I believe, we should all change this attitude in ourselves and educate others too… But till the change happens, I would recommend learning local languages of the places we stay, it really helps….:D