Kiranmayi Lakshmi Satya Gandham is a project manager and solution architect at Infosys. She has recently made a career transition into AI after attending the Women in Technology (WIT) program at Infosys and Women Wizards Rule Tech (W2RT) program at NASSCOM. She talks about her journey in an interview with INDIAai.

Q: Can you tell me about your journey of reskilling to AI?

A: I have 15+ years of overall experience with Infosys but now I have restarted as a fresher. From the very beginning, I have worked on the multiple modules within Oracle ERP as a techno-functional consultant. In the past 2-3 years, I have reskilled myself and shifted towards AI. I have attended internal reskilling initiatives within Infosys as well as the W2RT program by NASSCOM. Women Wizards Rule Tech (W2RT) was a one year program that I attended in 2019, passing out in 2020. That is my reskilling journey.

Q: What were the key motivations for you to get into AI?

A: I had been working on the oracle EBS for the longest time. But when I started reading about AI, I found it very interesting what all we can do with AI technologies. Also, I have always liked challenges in my work so that was another reason why I wanted to challenge myself. After working on a particular technology, moving to something else is obviously a bit of a risk. A bigger challenge, though, was trying to convince myself that yes I can do this. Since I am at a senior position in a full time job, I have a team to take care of, there are deliverables and a set of expectations from my organisation. But along with that, I had to take out some time on a daily basis, learning on the weekends. And it’s not all about about learning, I believe that you need to have hands-on experience by actually working on the skillset that you are building. So while it was challenging, it is very interesting as well. Also, right now is the best time to get into these digital technologies, when even our government is gearing towards digitising everything – from what we’ve seen in the past few years. Even globally, all the organisations now understand the importance of getting into the digital space. And I believe that there is a huge skills gap: there is a lot of demand but there are very less professionals available who are ready to take up these roles. Therefore, I thought that this wasn’t an opportunity to be missed and that was the whole idea behind reskilling.

Q: I know that as project manager at a reputed organisation like Infosys you have to handle a lot of things. Besides, you have a personal life as well. What are the biggest obstacles and challenges you faced when you switched to AI?

A: First of all, it took a lit bit of convincing myself that I would be able to learn something new and work in it. Given the risk that it is, not a lot of people would want to shift gears in the middle of their career. Plus, I also had to take care of my current job and the responsibilities associated with it. So, balancing my time and effort between all this was definitely a challenge. The next challenge was to convince people that I am good at what I have learnt and I will be able to deliver on this new technology. When I tell people that I have over a decade experience in a certain technology but now I am working on so something where I am as good as a fresher, I need to be doubly sure of my capabilities. I was also lucky that I came across the W2RT program at the right time, which meant that I didn’t have to struggle all by myself. It is a comprehensive program of 12 months; there are online resources, mentors, multiple sessions. So it all worked out for me very well, and I also tried to grab the opportunity.

Q: Can you explain how the support from Infosys and their ‘Women in Tech’ program helped you?

A: We have an internal initiative called Women in Technology (WIT) which is for women employees across all India locations of Infosys. This started somewhere around mid-2018. This is a very comprehensive program. There is senior leadership who are mentoring us. And for each of the internal domains we have designated people who can guide us. Each of us has a one-on-one mentors assigned who are always looking at the progress that we are making. In the pre-covid times, we also had in-person training. This is particularly for women with more than 8 years of experience. When we came across NASSCOM’s W2RT program, our mentors encouraged us to take it up as well. Having a mentor, who you can approach anytime for any kind of guidance, was a great benefit for me. It is also like looking at a role model. If such senior people, who are working for 12-14 hours a day, can spare some time for us, it motivates us. They also keep nominating us for external training programs as well, or they get external trainers in the organisation. There are also review programs and half-yearly awards for mentors and mentees. So having a mentor and a rewarding system in place helped immensely.

Q: How can someone looking to make a career transition use the resources such as FutureSkills and W2RT like you did?

A: NASSCOM’s Women Wizards Rule Tech (W2RT) program is for women employees who are in leadership roles and are interested in learning new-age technologies like AI, IoT, big data analytics, cyber security, robotics etc. So organisations can nominate their employees for this 12-month program. We have dedicated Gurukul sessions where experts come in to train us on the technology that we have chosen, but it is also open for us to attend other sessions as well. So example, I was on AI but I could also attend sessions on IoT and other technologies. What I also understood is that this is not only for IT people who are from programming and coding background. I have also met people from other backgrounds such as banking. So it is designed in a way that it caters to people who are completely new to such technologies and want to start from scratch. There are mentors. There are technical sessions. There are sessions for soft skills. Considering it was targeted particularly at women, there were sessions on work-life balance as well where senior-level women leaders would come in and give us inputs. There were also labs available for hands-on programs. There is also the futureskills portal which we can use to learn at our own pace. So we had a mix of trainer-driven sessions and self-learning opportunities. Most of the sessions are recorded so we can use it in case we missed something – this is a very useful feature for women.

Q: What areas of AI are you currently focussing on and what is the work that you are currently doing in AI?

A: When I started, the initial 1-2 years were only about learning that basics of AI and how it fundamentally works. Right now, I am looking at the next stage of more complex problems and algorithms, deep learning and complex neural networks. I also want to fine tune some of the solutions that I have worked on earlier. I think in AI, that’s what you do: you keep working on your datasets, trying to better your algorithms. I am also trying to reskill myself in quantum computing and quantum mechanics which I hear is something more advanced and probably a technology for tomorrow. Even before you can finish learning one thing, there is something else that’s already coming out in the technology space. So this whole training and reskilling is a continuous process if you want to work on any of these new-age technologies.

Q: What is the role your family played to enable you to balance both your learning and work?

A: I’d say that you need to have a complete support ecosystem, especially for women in our country. But I have been very lucky on that front because my family is always their to support me on a daily basis. But even Infosys has been a like a second family to me. Only when your organisation also supports you equally will you be able to dream of doing something different. Then my mentors have been a great support by being a source of encouragement on days that I was not feeling very confident. It is also about getting the opportunities. For example, now I have learnt AI but there should be someone trusting me and giving me work around that. Generally speaking, Infosys always supports people and encourages them to reskill. Even within NASSCOM, I was always interacting with people and asking questions. And the more questions you ask, the more people will be there willing to help you. So approaching for help is very important. So it is all credit to these people around me that I was able to reskill and get into a new technology.

Q: What is your advice to someone who has the self-doubt about reskilling but doesn’t have access to the same resources as you did?

A: I get this question a lot from men and women alike because everyone is skeptical about switching over to a new technology. I think there is no restrictions on exploring new technologies. Some years back, the resources were very limited. But now, the moment you have your laptop and an internet connection, you can explore the world. You can take online degrees from reputed institutions from anywhere in the world. You just need to have the patience; it took me 1-2 years and I’m still learning. So it’s a continuous journey so you need to have a positive attitude towards dealing with challenges. You also need to have an ever-learning attitude. As you progress in your career, your responsibilities increase too so it may be hard to find time. But if you’re sure you want to learn something new, start with 15-30 mins of learning everyday, which you can gradually increase. Over time, you will realise that you can always take out time from your busy schedule for learning. So many online resources are available for free, from within organisations and universities such as IITs. There are so many people who are ready to mentor you, a concept which wasn’t available until some years ago. Ofcourse this is easier said than done: you need a lot of hard work, patience and persistence. Right now with this covid situation when everything is online, you don’t even need to travel anywhere, so this can be looked at as an advantage of sorts. I don’t look at reskilling as a gender specific issue. If you can garner all the support, you shouldn’t hold back – take that plunge and change your career to something that is more exciting for you. I believe that these emerging technologies are the future and we should grab these opportunities before it gets too late.

INDIAai wishes you well in all your future endeavours, Kiranmayi!

Watch the full interview here

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