Hello, everyone. Thank you for chiming in my name is Mani Mittal. I'll be the speaker for you today for the session, tricks and tips to navigate in the tech world. A little about me.I have graduated from Indian Institute of Technology, which is one of the premium institute in India. Being in my pref final year, I was offered the internship at Visa, which I converted and got the full time offer from them since the last three years, I've been with them uh in the capacity of a senior developer and now switching roles, I'm looking and aiming to move to product management.

So this is a bit brief about me. A fun fact I would say is that I've studied in around 10 schools in total in my life. So I would just request you all to chime in and just get comfortable. Just ping, where are you from? Any fun facts about you? Let's just make this session as interactive as possible. So with this, let me just dive into what exactly we are here for in my sociology class in college. I learned about the theory of intersectionality. Simply put it means that a person being of a certain gender coming from a certain socio-economic background, being in say a certain industry so on and so forth, determines the experience he or she has and also the lens through which he or she perceives this word. So as I was on what message I want to convey in this year's women Tech network conference, I just thought what could be better than the lessons I have learned because of my positionality of being a woman in the tech industry. So here is what I have learned in the seven years of being associated with technology as a woman, the tricks and tips that I employ and hopefully can help you all to navigate the tech world or for that matter, any professional world. So here we come to the first and foremost, important tip. If you would call it, do not discount yourself a research done by Katherine B. Kaufman of Harvard Business School states that women are more likely than men to shrug off praise and lowball their own abilities.

And this is something we have all observed or done ourselves. It would be great in case you want to just type in your experiences with it, simply put what this means is. It's a classic example of imposter syndrome. Here. I would also ask you all to just type in what do you think imposter syndrome means just looking at your charts. I think this, this might be something that you like a lot of you might already have heard of. So, while you are thinking, yes, as Carolina pointed out thinking that you're not good enough. So what it means basically, it's, it's an internal experience. You feel, uh, that though you are competent, but what others perceive you to be, you're not as that competent. So even if you have done well internally, you will always feel that getting a certain job or accomplishing, say a certain victory is just by fluke or is just by hoax. What I've learned over the years is not to reject yourself. Let the interviewer, the award panel or admission committee be the one to reject you but do not reject yourself in your head. It's simple. We just have to understand that people are smart. If they feel you are not capable for the job or the opportunity, they will let you know. So do not discount yourself and do not reject yourself coming to the next very important point.

And, and a buzzword, I would say that has been going on these days is networking. What I believe is your net worth is your net worth. A concept of game theory called the strength of the weak ties. It states that people you are most connected to are least likely to bring unique opportunities to your life. Whereas people you are merely acquainted with are the ones that open the door to places you have never been to a study at Cornell about this concept applied to employment shows through linkedin data and service that in majority cases, people you are weakly tied to are the ones that get you your next job.

So in today's era, networking has simply become the most important asset. I've personally used it in various occasions. Even being a speaker here w at women Tech conference 2021 today was something that has stumbled upon through a linkedin connection. So going forward, I urge you all to build strong networks and increase your net worth. This comes, this makes us come to the 2nd 3rd point which is basically constantly upskill yourself. One thing that should never end in a person's lifetime is learning. And when I say learning, it could be in any domain, it could be professional, it could be personal capacity during this work from home scenario. What I understood was there is this immense knowledge pool available free of cost that just need to be harnessed. So here are some resources I came across. So there is this website called eventbrite.com and there is just, they just share this valuable information resource with us for your growth of sessions and events happening free of cost. And you can like without leaving the comfort of your home, you can just attend them. I mean they were taking Japanese sessions for free all the way from Japan. What else do we need? I would also request you all to type in any such resources with which you think the fellow women can uh can get like help with. Then in India, there is a site called Indian runners.in.

Uh It, it basically you can virtually participate in cyclon and marathons and have a community which you can speak to. And I'm sure uh the counterparts exist in every country in every place. So even as we speak, I just, I have recently completed my 100 kilometers on cycling.

And uh as we speak, my medal is on the way. So this is also something we can look into kind of improving our physical health. And this takes me to my third such resource, which is that many conferences which we did not have access to judicial location barriers. All are now streaming at our home with almost each of them providing scholarships. Even I have myself won many scholarships to attend conferences such as women in product conference, the Industry conference sponsored by Bals Mic and the experience just expanded my horizon, speaking to women all over the world who share similar passions, it definitely helped a lot and kudos to all of you, you being here today, it means that you've already taken the step required to move to the next space here.

The conferences that I have listed are related to product management because that is the field that now right now, I am looking to move into similarly whatever field, whatever domain in technology is what you are looking to move into. Just Google, just find out the conferences there are and I'm sure of it that there would be none of it. Also, there is this one more point I would require, I would just like mention here that many companies have special education programs or they have tie ups with platforms such as Coursera Udemy, et cetera. So please be proactive, find these resources and make use of it whatever is available to you. So do not wait up and take control of your destiny. With this. We come to a very important point which I think all of us and even I at one point has been asking how to do it is mentorship and I am definitely a very strong advocate of mentorship. According to me, a mentor can be anyone a college senior, it can be a family member, a person who works with you or a person you found on linkedin, they just have to be experienced and a trusted advisor and be part of your life for a longer haul.

Someone you reach out to time and again for advice and feedback. As we have moved to this digital world, this physical and digital world, the world has definitely become a global village with this. Now we have unlimited access to mentors across geographies. I also understand that initially in our career, it is quite easy to maybe find mentors because of the our goals are broad and many people are pursuing it. But as we go deeper or travel further, it becomes difficulty because of the our domain becomes niche. So it becomes more challenging to find people who could help you push your trajectory. But indeed, there are certain ways to approach this problem. And let's just talk about some of those ways first is find your resume twin. So who is a resume twin? I'll again open it for the audience to answer whatever you think a resume twin. This term means I quite agree with Rachel she has mentioned uh but maybe we never think we are experts. Yes, Rachel Jennifer has mentioned someone on your level that will grow with you. It's a good take, I would say, is it someone with the same career background, Rachel has asked and I think uh Rachel got it on point. So basically a resume twin is no, is someone who, who is basically from the same background which you are and uh they, they have kind of done things or their intersectionality is quite similar to yours and they, what they have achieved or where they are right now is something you want to go into.

So you just have to find people who are, where you want to be and who are very similar to you in matters of intersectionality and you just have to approach them and I cannot stress how powerful linkedin is. In this case, people are so kind you approach them and they will definitely help you in my personal case. Right now, I'm doing an internship with one of the start ups as their product manager. And without any experience bagging, that internship was all because I messaged a stranger who has done it and he was kind enough to speak to me for one hour. So just so uh just approach them with specific questions in mind. You think they can help with some basic hygiene factors. Here would be that res be respectful of their time, do your homework properly, do not ask things or doubts which are very well covered online or on youtube or Google. So I this, this is a very classic issue or classic uh mistake that people do. Even uh two days back, someone approached me and the kind, the first five questions that person asked was what if you would have just simply typed the question on Google, you would have received it as the first answer.

So, so that really, I was not in, I, I was not able to give that much time or attention to that person because of time constraints. So do your homework properly. When you send a linkedin request, add a short note of why you want to connect. And believe me, it increases your odds of getting accepted and converting a lot many. And the last thing would be that make sure you loop them back and you just update them. You uh you tell them your victories you tell them your failures, show gratitude that your specific this advice, help me. And I would just say that thank you for it. Here. One other thing also helps is in case you listen to someone, in case you are part of a conference or you attended a session. And there are certain things which uh resonated with. You always make sure to just drop a message to that person. It definitely helps, it definitely increase your network. And some of the other way that person will definitely help. So one other thing very useful in finding those mentors would be to follow pages channels and people who talk about or are involved with the domain that is your target.

So here, what we are basically doing is increasing the odds of availing an opportunity. So again, you are already in the right direction because you are already in this conference. So, so this is these are some of the tricks through which we can kind of find mentors with this. We come to not the last but like the not the least, but the most important point which is paid forward. Make sure if you are being mentored, you mentor someone else, the energy you give out will definitely come back to you. And it's truly a rewarding endeavor. In my personal experience, I was involved with teach for change for one year where I taught primary classes, uh Children aged 6 to 9, spoken English and Moral values and definitely it's quite a task teaching 30 young Children full of energy and enthusiasm. But the end of the year actually helping them increase just a bit of their capabilities helped me turn a lot these days, I'm on a mission to connect with as many tech enthusiasts as possible and make a bit of difference in whichever way I could. With the journey that I have spent with this, we come to the end of the presentation, the five points that we have seen would be first to just not discount yourself, feel confident about yourself and then to network network as much as you can with as many people as you can, then constantly upscaling yourself.

The fourth point is find those mentors who can push your trajectories and end would be to be the mentor that someone else is looking for with this. I would open the floor for questions we have still three minutes left and I I, I'll take up any questions you would have or any experiences you want to share. Uh Let's just make it as much interactive as you want to make it. So Rachel has asked that the tech industry landscape in India has changed massively in the last decade. This is true. Is it still super male dominated? I feel like there are much more women than 1015. I definitely agree, Rachel that things have changed a lot. It's not super male dominated for sure. Uh There are uh women uh on those CX os role. And there are a lot of more pro programs to kind of push them to come into. And uh this is a very relevant question because when I entered Visa, I entered through the women Kathan National event that they did and Visa does not uh like was not coming to our campus for on campus placements. But because of that opportunity that they give to women all over India was why I was able to back that internship. So surely the scenario is changing.

But there are still, I would say certain people uh and that would, that would always be the case who have still the mindset who still have those biases when they first uh look at a woman who's a manager or a woman who's in a technical role that they would al always just think that th this person might not be apt just because of their gender and there are certain people.

But in my personal experiences, I've not uh I've been fortunate enough, I would say that I've not come across such people, but uh but the landscape has changed a lot. It's, it's well more supportive. Now. I, I hope this answers your question. Uh I hope this session was in some way useful to all of you. Thank you so much. Uh You all loved it and please uh keep in touch. Uh You can always connect to me and anything you want to ask, we can take it offline as well. Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of the conference and enjoy the rest of your day.