Meeting the Ms~Chief

When  blog adda invited me to join the Sheroes summit, I was curious. Hyderabad,  or Bangalore seemed the obvious choices.  I wanted to be surprised so I did not bother too much about researching the event.

I entered a roomful of women, who were basically from marketing and technology, and somewhere along the line, trying to walk the path that women having been walking over the last two decades. The inherited image and patterns of an Indian wife, the challenges of nurturing vs. The personal growth.  It was an interesting bouquet

The summit brought together women in various stages of life, and various transitions. Though I would have definitely like to see women over  forty for women of that age group today face another set of challenge. And those challenges call for another kind of innovation or reinvention.

The first speaker Anurakt Jain talked about innovations, and how they happened and what in his observation lacked  bringing about success. His stand was innovation was there but the execution which was the key to success was missing and it could be due to failure  whatever level.  he also talked about the lower number of women entrepreneur.

Then we had Tavleen, a lovely person with a great sense of humor sharing her journey from vending automobiles, to creating awareness  of the congestion and pollution caused by automobile industry which in turn has created the need for smart cities. She felt the country needed to look at driving to work and not working to drive for 1/3 the nations earning went to buy oil.

We also got to see  great business plans and innovations again, the focus was twenty to thirty somethings, while women over forty who re-invent for different reasons, hence re-invent in different directions were absent.

Then came Karthiga  Reddy of FB, a total pleasure who shared her insights and personal journey something that she put hands on,  she says start your journey with what would you do if you were not scared. How we look at “or” when it comes to choices so we land  up giving things, if we could work “and” then a workable option would turn up. But that would require making your partner truly your partner  she actually called it the tyranny of OR.   Her final point was if your dream does not scare you then it is not big enough.  She left us with the take home of,

• Make your partner truly your partner. That share your options and choices.
• Ask,– for the standard observation is women don’t ask.

The final speaker was Manav from Intel, innovations he gave us some where interesting take homes,  like corporate has hit a plateau. entrepreneurship is the new option, and entrepreneur ship is essentially a calling that begins with addressing the issue in the  our backyard. Of course there would be failures, we are entitled to change our minds. Also being entrepreneur is getting stuck in a soft option, nor is it the survival of the fittest. It is a journey, a calling that becomes successful once we define our concept of success.

The final speaker was  Shraddha Sharma of yourstory.com, just back from TED talks, Shraddha shared her personal journey. I am going to keep her absolutely short here, because I am going to dedicate a blog to her. The take away she summed up was very simple, each of us deal with “Do I belong? Do I deserve ” to various degrees.  Well the experience is there, choice rests with me, wether I want to collect good take aways  or collect bad memories.

All this lovely stuff was organized by Sairee Chahal, who started off as fleximoms.  Like she shared being a mom, changes the perception.  It also meant re-invention, innovation and as this happened it  meant new problems. New problems meant a milestone travelled.

Sheroes, created the  awareness, road shows, Big sister mentor program.  Sheroes is also the first virtual agent. Innovation, and enterprise should start early.  Her point of view was marriage and careers are married to each other, so all moves need to custom fit to accommodate both. There has been a fundamental change in work place ecosystem and attitude,  at the end of the day growth is about inclusion.

Sharing the even http://sheroes.in/.