My journey with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) has been a game changer. I became a SWE member with the support of my organization which sponsors bulk membership to its employees. As a part of SWE membership, we receive a SWE e-newsletter.
One of these newsletters had a section stating that applications for the SWE Global Ambassador program were open, so I looked at the criteria. I had just completed a couple of leadership assignments in my organization and felt I met the criteria to apply. In January of 2016, I got an email congratulating me that my application was approved and that I was now a SWE global ambassador. I was on cloud nine. I informed my manager and my diversity leaders about the news, and they were so happy for me.
The same year, SWE conducted its first WE Local India conference in Pune. My leaders readily agreed to send me to the conference as the only ambassador from my organization. My time at the conference was incredible. I met leaders from SWE and several other organizations, as well as my fellow colleagues from Pune. Each interaction had a great impact on me. I felt like I was really valued and not looked at like an outsider. I felt involved. This was a place where people see you as a whole individual, not just as your designation or role.
I felt so motivated after the conference that I wanted to do more. One of my SWE colleagues gave me an idea to create the SWE Chennai affiliate, since we had only one affiliate in India at the time ― the SWE Pune affiliate. I understood the process of forming an affiliate in India, so I collaborated with another organization and officially established the SWE Chennai affiliate in August 2016. We started with just four members, and I served as the affiliate’s president for three years. Currently, I am serving as one of the affiliate’s board members.
As an affiliate, we planned to produce a couple of awards categories at affiliate level. As an affiliate board member, I became the vice president of awards. I chaired this group, crafted several award categories, and got involved in all the planning, nominations, and selecting of award winners. We conducted an awards ceremony, where we invited the winners along with their family members and had a great celebration evening.
I am the type of a person who likes to do lots of different things. Although I already held a few SWE positions, I started looking for other SWE roles to contribute even more to the organization. I was reading the SWE newsletter, and I found that there were applications open for the SWE Leadership Coaching Committee (LCC). I applied for the role and got it!
I became a joint-focused coach. I started off coaching three affiliates, which turned into me coaching six affiliates. This role is all about interacting with affiliate members and leaders and giving them tips on how to increase their affiliate’s performance. I am proud to say that under my coaching, four affiliates in India have increased their contributions in the form of webinars, professional development events, and blogging.
I am proud to say that having a leadership role at SWE has helped me to increase my external eminence. I have interacted with leaders across different organizations, and they recognize me by my name. Colleagues of mine have told me that they follow me on LinkedIn, and my work towards SWE gets them motivated.
Additionally, I am proud to say that my abstract was selected for the WE Annual Conference in 2022. I have presented several sessions on technical topics within my organization, but that was my first selection as a speaker in an external conference. About 1,000 people attended my session, and I received the best feedback. I even presented at the WE Local conference in Bengaluru in 2023.
As part of the LCC, I was selected to train all the global coaches on the topic “Partnering Global Ambassador and Global Coaches.” I was happy when I presented my SWE ambassador work, and the coaches were awestruck. I tried to bridge different responsibilities of a SWE ambassador with the activities global coaches could do with their assigned affiliates. I provided some recommendations that were well received. My action plan is to implement these changes in the current fiscal year.
Lastly, I have been a SWE WE Local Advisory Board member since 2017. I joined this board as a special consultant for a couple of years, and then I became an active contributor. I then led as technical track chair for the 2023 and 2024 WE Local advisory boards. This was a very different experience. My responsibilities included reviewing the technical abstract submissions and ensuring that they were high quality. We had several rounds of shortlisting and discussions.
All of these SWE contributions are voluntary activities that we contribute to purely out of our interest and passion. I always dreamed about supporting others, especially girls, to ensure that they get support in the early parts of their childhood. I was fortunate to have both my parents and organization support me, but not everyone has this privilege. I use SWE as a platform, which has helped me to prepare others as well as prepare myself personally.
SWE has been a constant in my life since 2016, and I always strive to contribute more in whatever ways I can. Thank you to SWE for supporting women engineers like me in their personal and professional journey!
A list of many of my contributions as an ambassador:
- I got my organization (Kyndryl Solutions Pvt Ltd) to sponsor bulk membership, totaling 200.
- Since my organization was new, I decided to use my position to increase awareness of SWE’s mission and vision in the following ways:
- I worked with my team to organize an event where I invited all the senior leaders from other organizations like HCL, Emerson, IBM, Caterpillar, Capgemini, and more. I invited the SWE Chennai affiliate leader and SWE MD (Paul), and over 500 employees attended from my organization.
- I was invited as a guest speaker at the Capgemini office and presented on the topic “How to Become a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)” which was well received.
- I was one of the mentors during the speed mentoring session in WE Local Bengaluru.
- I participated in International Women’s Day.
- I was an LCC joint focused coach, and I met my team in Houston, Texas.
- I was selected as a speaker at both the WE23 Conference in Houston, Texas, and the WE Local Conference in Bengaluru. I presented my topic, “From an Introvert to a Thought Leader.”
- I hosted a virtual coffee circle with SWE members on the topic of “Summer Self-Care: Nurturing Your Mind, Body, and Soul.”
