TECH COURSES CONTINUE TO DOMINATE IN 2020
TECH I’D LIKE TO SEE
I n the US and some
other parts of the
world, courses
connected to dealing 1 Programming for Everybody
(Getting Started with Python)
with the pandemic –
such as Yale University’s
Science of Well-Being,
and Johns Hopkins
2 Machine Learning
University’s Covid-19
Contact Tracing – were
the top courses taken on 3 English for Career Development
Coursera in 2020. But in
India, tech courses
continued to dominate.
Here’s how the most powerful
women in TCS built their careers
Willingness to
take on different
roles was crucial
Shilpa.Phadnis@timesgroup.com
R
itu Anand is chief leadership
and diversity officer at TCS.
She is among the few who
have worked with all of the
$22-billion IT company’s renowned
CEOs – the late F C Kohli, S Rama-
dorai, N Chandrasekaran and now
Rajesh Gopinathan. Anand says all
of them believed in driving diver-
sity across the firm.
“When we opened our first office
in France 35 years ago, the first
resident manager was a woman. Her
name was Susan,” she recollects.
Over the past ten years, the diver-
sity agenda has been given a particu-
larly big push. “We felt the business
imperative of being diverse at all
levels. We want to provide an equi-
table workplace. The thought I want
to leave you with is equality versus
equity. We don’t want to be equal, we
want to provide an equitable work-
space,” Anand says.
At the leadership level, 13% are
now women. “For a company like
ours, that’s a huge achievement.
But that is not going to make us
happy. We will grow the funnel.
Our middle layer, I must say, is very
healthy and growing,” Anand says.
Four women now hold major
P&L (profit & loss) responsibilities.
They helped shape the Indian IT
services landscape as they grew
with TCS. Carol Wilson heads the
communication, media & informa-
tion services group for Europe &
UK. Seema Mehra heads the en-
ergy & resources group for the UK,
Europe & ANZ. Sowmya Rajagopa-
lan heads the transportation, trav-
el & hospitality group in the Amer-
icas. And Uma Rijhwani heads
banking & financial services for
Central Europe.
Join communities,
work on open source
projects, give talks
Shilpa Phadnis & Sujit John | TNN
T
hey are all self-taught, and they
have all become experts in Py-
thon by doing projects, attend-
ing conferences and seeking help
from communities. And they are only
in their early to mid-20s.
Sukanya Mandal of Capgemini,
Manaswini Das of Red Hat, and Ni-
harika Krishnan of TCS were our
guests on Times Techies Webinar last
week, and it was a treat to listen to
them. If you are a student, or a fresh
graduate, we would urge you to listen
to the webinar on our Facebook page.
Sukanya said there was no Python
course or training in her college, and
she learnt Python because she had to
work on a data science project. “I ex-
plored and learnt,” she said.
Niharika said she learnt Python
in her second year of college because
of an interview she had to clear. “So
I went on a two-week crash course.
That was good enough to clear the
interview and then it got me into data
science, and I kept learning,” she said.
IGNITE YOUR CAREER
Ditto for Manaswini. She started
with Java, for Android program-
ming. And then started using Python
for visualisations. Asked if it makes
sense to do a certification course in
Python, Manaswini said many com-
panies hire without any certification.
Niharika said if you put a certifi-
cation in your CV, you should be
ready to answer questions on how
you used that knowledge to work on
projects. “Projects have more impact
than certifications,” she said.
All three reiterated that point
multiple times during the hour long
discussion. It’s critical to apply your
knowledge of a programming lan-
guage to actual projects. Develop so-
lutions to real-life problems.
Manaswini said you should not
wait for a company to hire you to
start working. “Work with existing
open source programmes. Get some
code contributed or merged into one
of the well known open source soft-
wares,” she said. GitHub is one of
those places you could do that.
She also recommended internship
programmes like Outreachy, Google
MOST POPULAR COURSES IN INDIA
4 Python Data Structures
University of Michigan
5 AI For Everyone
Stanford University
6 Powerful mental tools to help you
University of Pennsylvania
Source: Coursera
MORE WOMEN ARE RAISING THEIR HANDS
Ritu Anand, chief
leadership and diversity
officer, says more and
more women are
raising their hands, and
it’s only a matter of
time before the
company sees more
women in
power roles
Uma Rijhwani, head,
banking & financial
services, Central
Europe, took up roles
on rotation across
Europe; after her kids
grew up, she took
on customer-
facing roles
WOMEN POWER
IN TCS
Client becomes a TCSer
Wilson has had two stints with TCS.
She rejoined the Mumbai-based
firm in 2016 after an earlier stint
from 2006 to 2011. Last year, she did
her 100th trip to India from Ger-
many. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? I kind
of expected Lufthansa would have
given me that flight for free,” she
laughs. A die-hard Shah Rukh
Khan fan and a Bollywood buff, she
took dance classes to perfect her
Bollywood grooves!
Wilson was SVP and global CIO
of SAP for over three years before
she first moved to TCS. SAP had
roped in TCS for significant out-
sourcing work after an arduous se-
lection process. “I was in touch with
Chandrasekaran who was COO at
that time. He said to me, can you
imagine coming to work for TCS?
And I always used to say, what am I
going to do with an Indian system
Be part of communities.
When we are
students or fresh at a
job, we hesitate to
ask questions. In
communities, you
can be open, ask
questions, ask someone to mentor
you. It then becomes a family
— Sukanya Mandal
When I was a
student, I
didn’t know there
were conferences
and events where
someone like me
could also speak. Conferences help
you get references, get internships,
get an idea for a project
— Niharika Krishnan
Don’t wait for a
company to
hire you, work with
existing open
source
programmes. Get
some code contributed or merged
into one of the well known open
source softwares
— Manaswini Das
Summer of Code, GirlScript Summer
of Code. Outreachy organises three-
month paid internships with free and
open-source software projects for
people who are typically underrep-
resented in tech. Hackathons are
another place where you can show-
case yourself.
Sukanya urged youngsters to be
part of communities. “Communi-
ties help us connect to like-minded
individuals, learn from them, col-
laborate with them. I know people
who started as students, gave talks
at small events, and then at larger
conferences and now they are
stars,” she said.
There are women focused com-
munities, like Women in Data Sci-
ence, Women in Machine Learning
& Data Science. Sukanya, Niharika
and Manaswini are all active in Py-
Ladies, an international mentorship
group that helps women become ac-
tive participants and leaders in the
Python open-source community.
University of Michigan
DeepLearning.AI
Live on Facebook today,
Learning How to Learn
December 16, from 6pm to 7pm.
master tough subjects Event page link:
McMaster University http://bit.ly/techieswebinar30
University of California San Diego
In normal years,
Sowmya Rajagopalan,
head, transportation,
travel & hospitality
group, Americas, is
on the road for
over 200 days
meeting
customers
Seema Mehra, head, energy
& resources group, UK,
Europe & ANZ,
recollects the early
days of
communicating using
fax machines and
getting software
requirements on
VCR tapes
13%
(VP and above)
Senior
30%
Middle
integrator. And this banter went
back and forth for about a year and
half. And when he asked the ques-
tion again, I said why not, let’s give
it a try. I have always been in CIO
roles, and suddenly I was on the sup-
ply side. It was a very different world
for me,” she says.
One of Wilson’s challenges was
coming in “as a bit of an unproven
entity into the company.” “One of
the first things you notice at TCS is
that most people in a leadership or
a management position have been
with the company for many years.
And it was challenging for me to
reset to zero,” she says.
Freshers to biz unit heads
Mehra joined the company as a
college rookie, and from a non-
engineering background. She took
a three-month crash course to
come up to speed with program-
ming. One of her first overseas
15 YEARS AT SABRE AND STILL GOING STRONG
Sri Soundararajan
Sri Soundararajan recollects there were just 4-5 people in
Sabre India when it started its technology centre in Bengaluru in
2005. He had moved from Sabre’s Dallas, Texas, office. “We were
initially in a guest house, but soon moved to Sigma Tech Park in
Varthur, and then two years later to ITPL (now ITPB). There was
big growth in two years,” he says
The Texas-based travel technology
company completed 15 years in India
this year. Soundararajan, who is a
senior principal and program manager
now, Bhaskar Kalyanasundaram,
senior manager, software engineering,
and Parameswaran Sundaramurthy,
manager, software engineering, have all
been there since the start
The facility quickly became a centre of excellence. They did
work in core services. There was a ticketing team, a check-in
team. They developed solutions for issuing tickets, printing
boarding passes. “Jet and Kingfisher were growing rapidly then.
IATA was pushing for interline electronic ticketing. We did a lot
of work around this,” Kalyanasundaram says
Pramit’s app helps blind people use common apps
Ardra.Shankar@timesgroup.com
A
bout 20 years ago, Pramit
Bhargava found his life
upended when an allergic
reaction to a prescription drug
affected his retina and left him
with permanently damaged eye-
sight. The incident left a huge
impact on Pramit’s life – the sud-
INSPIRATION
den loss of independence, an
awkward reliance on family and
friends, and a feeling of impend-
ing disappointment.
He continued his job at
Hindustan Unilever, but the
inability to do menial tasks – like
booking a cab or making a phone
call – on his own, sapped his con-
Our discussion this week is about
careers and trends in robotics in
India. We’ll be talking with Balaji
Viswanathan, CEO & founder,
Invento Robotics, and Aakash
Sinha, CEO & founder, Omnipresent
Robot Tech, both of who have built
amazing robotics companies.
days a year meeting customers.
Mehra recollects the time they
had to communicate using fax ma-
Carol Wilson, head,
communication,
chines. The UK client hadn’t heard
of outsourcing. “My boss had to do
media & information
services group,
the explanation before I got the re-
quirements of the documents on a
Europe & UK, did her VCR tape. We got it and developed
100th trip to India the software here. And I went with
from Germany last the tapes and completed the software
year. She says in jest implementation in London. The soft-
that she had kind of ware was uploaded and it compiled.
expected Lufthansa There was a lot of excitement in the
would give that flight client’s conference room and there
for free was a big shout out for my team,”
she says.
Rijhwani too joined as a trainee
and today heads an over 10,000-peo-
ple operation. “TCS is my first job. I
initially worked as an application
developer, then in mainframes and
open systems, Unix and then headed
sales and delivery for a large bank-
ing customer. When my kids grew
up, I started taking on customer-
facing roles. In 2001, I started manag-
45%
Junior
(% of total in that
category)
ing a very large banking & finance
services customer. From then on, I
really got very deep into that domain
and it has been a fabulous 30-year
assignments was in London, for a
UK customer. “I was so nervous. My
entire family had gathered to see me
off at the airport as if I was going
journey,” she says.
Power moves
Rijhwani took up roles on rotation
on some Everest mission or some-
thing,” she laughs.
across Europe. “I count Chandra
and NG Subramaniam (COO) as my
Rajagopalan joined TCS in 1995 mentors. We used to travel together
after completing an econometrics from TCS’s Switzerland office to our
degree. Initially, she was part of the customer location in Zurich. And
management consulting group in during those 20 minutes, I would
Chennai and then moved to Minne- speak to Chandra. It was mentoring-
apolis to manage some of TCS’s large on-wheels,” she says.
retail customers. “I started as a busi- Mehra had another assignment
ness analyst, leading a large custom- in Greece. TCS didn’t have an of-
er programme. In October 2003, I got fice there and it was remotely man-
a call from the then COO (Chan- aged from London. “We deployed
drasekaran), asking me to come over a product and it was a huge suc-
for an interview as TCS was looking cess,” Mehra recollects. “Some-
for a relationship manager for one of body later asked my boss if it
its customers in Arkansas. I was se- didn’t worry him to be sending a
lected and started to lead startup-like woman to Greece where TCS had
accounts in retail that went on to no office. And my boss said, `It
become some of its strategic ac- never even crossed my mind that
counts,” she says. Rajagopalan is she’s a woman. I just chose the best
normally on the road for over 200 person for the job’.”
Parameswaran Sundaramurthy
The centre became a hub to service
airlines in Australia, Asia and Africa,
because it was much easier to do so from
here than from Dallas
The centre, which has 1,700
employees, today does large-scale
projects end to end. Be it in commercial
(how much to sell, where to fly) or
operational (crew/cockpit/cabin
management software) or reservations.
Soundararajan says for an airline in the
Middle East with 10,000 crew members,
the team here is building a next gen
crew management system
Sundaramurthy says the centre
initially had only developers, but
today also has QA professionals,
technical product managers, product
owners and product marketers. “It’s
an extension of the parent company,”
Kalyanasundaram says
fidence. “For about 2-3 years, I
was sitting at home, completely Users from around the
lost and dejected,” says the world tell me how
53-year-old who’s an alumnus of helpful this app is and that
IIT-BHU and IIM Bangalore. He they’re completely
worked with a few other firms dependent on it. It makes me
before getting into consulting. feel like I’ve achieved
It was during one of his con-
something
sulting assignments that he got
the idea of developing an applica- Pramit Bhargava | FOUNDER, VISIOAPPS
tion that could help make technol-
ogy more accessible for the visu- virtual friend,” he says.
ally impaired. “At that time, And thus was born ‘Louie
screen reader was the only tech- Voice Control’, an app that helps
nology available for assistance,” visually impaired people use
says Pramit. “I remember taking commonly used apps using
a friend’s help to book a cab home only voice commands. The
as I couldn’t compare the prices idea of quitting his job
or set the pickup location on my and launching a startup
own. That was the moment I real- seemed intimidating, but
ised the importance of having a with funding from a ven-
Immersive virtual travel
T he pandemic has
brought recreational
travel to a halt, and as
with every crisis, this one
has a silver lining. We have
only scratched the surface
when it comes to explor-
ing what IoT can do for
us. And one area ripe for
disruption is travel. The
tech I’d like to see is the
integration of AI and IoT to
create a truly immersive
virtual travel experience.
I am talking about some-
thing beyond the AR/VR
products we see today.
Imagine being able to
experience a new place
from home – to not just
Esha Tiwary | GENERAL MANAGER, INDIA, ENTREPRENEUR FIRST
Java, Python most
preferred for cloud
native app devt
Habeeba.Salim@timesgroup.com
C COMPONENTS
loud is a very different con-
struct than traditional com-
puting environments. So if
you want to take full advantage
of the cloud, you need to look at
application development in a
completely new way. “That’s what
we call cloud native,” says Amee-
ta Roy, director of solution archi-
tecture at Red Hat.
Cloud applications are built
with services packaged in con-
tainers that can move from one
platform to another seamlessly.
They are deployed as microser-
vices, where each service of an
application is written as an inde-
pendent application that inter-
acts with the other using an in-
termediary software called API.
They are managed on elastic in-
frastructure, and they are deliv-
ered continuously. So, which is
the best language to use to build
cloud applications?
PROGRAMMING TRENDS
Vish Phaneendra, head of so-
lution engineering at VMware
India, says performance, includ-
ing scalability, time to market and
efficiency become important
while choosing a language for
building cloud native applica-
tions. “Every developer writes
programs in a different way. So,
having a language or framework
with boilerplate code (code re-
peatedly used with no variation)
is a real differentiator because it
helps developers focus more on
writing the business logic,” he
says. Some languages also have
many advanced frameworks.
This is where time-tested lan-
guages like Java and .Net find
relevance. Java is secure, stable,
portable, scalable, and has a
whole ecosystem of frameworks.
“Spring Boot, a Java framework
released in 2014, has made cloud
native development in Java really
easy. Python is extremely popular
among youngsters. Django and
Flask are the two Python frame-
works popular in microservices,”
says Raja Raman, GVP of tech-
nology in Publicis Sapient.
Raman says while choosing
the language, people tend to give
high weightage to skills they have
in the organisation, and to keep-
ing the number of languages they
need to support to a minimum, as
compared to barebone perfor-
ture capital firm and with three
developers on board, Pramit
launched Visioapps Technology
in June 2018 with its office in
Gurgaon. His team now consists
of 14 people, including three
visually impaired developers.
What sets Louie apart from
Siri or Alexa, Pramit says, is that
it’s designed with the needs
of visually impaired peo-
ple in mind. “Most
voice command apps
o f f e r support for
only the
most basic
tasks in an
applica-
tion. Louie,
on the other
hand, helps
see what’s around you,
but smell its fragrance,
hear the sounds and
feel the wind – all in real
time. Cutting edge smart
sensors, AI and computer
vision developments can
deliver an experience
that was unimaginable
a few years ago. It is not
just something that is
relevant due to
the restricted
conditions
today;
tech like
this could
democ-
ratise
travel.
READYMADE
The choice of language
you use, the
framework you
use, the approach
of development,
etc, are absolutely
important in cloud
application development
Ameeta Roy | DIRECTOR, RED HAT
A big benefit of cloud is
that the cloud
already has a lot of
components that
can be used to
build an
application. It helps
developers focus on the business
logic, improving time to market
Asutosh J G | LEAD ENGINEER, SELLERAPP
Spring Boot
has made
cloud native
development in
Java and
development of
microservices really easy
Raja Raman | GVP-TECHNOLOGY,
PUBLICIS SAPIENT
Performance, including
scalability, time to market
and efficiency
become important
while choosing a
language for
building cloud
native applications
Vish Phaneendra | HEAD, SOLUTION
ENGINEERING, VMWARE, SOUTHASIA
mance or some language specific
feature. “So, if they have always
been using Java, they will con-
tinue to use Java,” he says.
Java, .Net, and Python are sup-
ported by most of the top cloud
service providers. PHP, Type-
Script, Ruby, PowerShell, and Go
are backed by some. “If you have
built a part of your application in
an esoteric language, say OCaml,
you may not be able to wire up
and integrate a service, say user
authentication, provided by the
cloud. For a completely integrat-
ed solution, your code should be
written in a language that the
service supports. ” says Asutosh
J G, lead engineer at SellerApp, a
provider of e-commerce data in-
telligence software.
users navigate within an app,
knowing very well that they can-
not see the screen. On Uber, for
example, it’ll tell you the rides in
order of increasing prices and
provide every possible assistance
until you reach your destina-
tion,” says Pramit.
Louie, named after Louis
Braille, is available on Play Store
and has users in over 70
countries. While some of the
technologies used in the app are
developed in-house, Pramit has
also leveraged existing technolo-
gies, like Google’s speech to text
conversion. It currently supports
Uber, WhatsApp, YouTube, Con-
tacts and Messenger, and Pramit
says he is working on many more
integrations.