New Delhi [India], September 16 (ANI/TechGig): No truer words have been spoken than Michelle Obama’s remark that “there is no magic to achievement, it’s really about hard work, choices, and persistence”. A year ago, when everyone was ruing about long work hours owing to work from home, Surat-based software engineer Kruti Dharaiya burnt the midnight oil – over and above her work hours – to improve her coding skills.
This Amazon employee rested only when she beat 73,000 challengers at India’s biggest coding competition for women – TechGig Geek Goddess.
“Work has been usual,” she said, hinting that she had also been toiling like all others while working from home. “I put in extra hours to improve my coding basics. I knew competition was tough so I had to work extra to make this happen”. It is this grit and determination that made her topple 73,000 technologists and etch her name in India’s coding history. Her story is similar to 1.3 million Indian women technologists in the IT-BPM industry (as per Nasscom study) who raise the bar at every pedestal in life to join the super competitive and ever evolving technology domain. However only 25% gradually occupy the managerial positions and just 1% are at the C-suite level.
Hence the critical need for initiatives such as TechGig Geek Goddess which provide a democratic platform for women technologists to show their skills, and promote diversity at tech workplaces. Geek Goddess was launched in 2015 with 15,000 participants. In 2020, the number of participants increased over four times, as the competition added new-age technologies such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and RPA to its fold. A career fair – which was an offline event in 2019, but became a full fledged virtual affair in 2020 – is an integral part of the competition which allows job seekers to find employment on the spot.
This year the competition added the TechGig Geek Goddess Diversity Awards to its bandwagon when it launched its seventh edition last week. These awards will honour the organisations and leaders doing outstanding work in diversity and HR domains at India Inc.
The TechGig Geek Goddess Diversity Awards will honour top performers in four categories namely, Coding Powerhouse, Tech Woman Leader of The Year, Best HR Practices (HR Policy) for Women and Diversity Advocate Star. These awards will be based on participation at Geek Goddess and nomination and voting from India Inc. firms. These awards have been instituted inline with TechGig Geek Goddess’ vision to recognise women technologists, hence naming and honouring the workplaces and people doing stellar work to further this mission.
TechGig Geek Goddess 2021 edition is presented by American Express India for the fourth successive year. TechGig and American Express India’s partnership started in 2018 based on a shared vision to empower, enable and engage women technologists. Hence year after year American Express India unit’s leaders and women engineers join TechGig’s platform with their advice on managing tech careers via thought leadership features, live webinars sessions, panel discussions and freewheeling chats to help women technologists advance their careers.
Explaining the concept of Geek Goddess, Sanjay Goyal, Business Head, TechGig and TimesJobs said, “TechGig’s mission as India’s biggest technology community is to help engineers learn, compete and grow. Women – despite being about 50% of the total population – constitute only 24% of India’s IT-BPM industry, as suggested by Nasscom. There is a pressing need to talk about their role and impact in the workforce, initiate dialogues around women in tech jobs and provide every possible platform for them to showcase their talent. This is the right time to launch the TechGig Geek Goddess Diversity Awards which will put the spotlight on the organisations and people who are doing remarkable work in these domains.”
“All over the world, women are leading the charge on innovation,” said Ruchika Panesar, VP and Head of Technology for American Express in India and APAC. “We see examples of this every day at American Express and we’re proud to back women in technology. We can’t wait to see what the amazing women participating in TechGig Geek Goddess go on to accomplish. Let’s get coding!”
Geek Goddess 2021 also has patronage from TomTom India as its platinum partner and UiPath as its RPA theme partner. This edition features an open coding round and two theme rounds – RPA and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. Its semi-finale is slated for Oct 25, 2021 and the grand finale will be held on Nov 20, 2021 virtually. This event will also feature the Women Disruptors’ Conference and the Diversity Awards.
The competition is open to all female technologists of India. Registration at Geek Goddess is free at TechGig Geek Goddess – Celebrating the Code Divas | TechGig
This story is provided by TechGig. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/TechGig)
