Tell me about yourself and your journey as an entrepreneurial business leader 

I was the former head of Digital and Enterprise Services for Microsoft India. I have worked in the IT services industry for 26 years and have deep knowledge and expertise in the services sector. Prior to joining Microsoft, I served as a key member of the Executive Leadership team at Mindtree for over 16 years. I was responsible for seeding and scaling their digital business modek and establishing Mindtree as a significant partner for global clients to “Make Digital Real” for their businesses. As Executive Vice President and Global Head of Digital Business, I was responsible for digital, mobility, data analytics and cloud offerings. I formulated strategy, market positioning, building talent, capability, competency and offerings to market. I also worked at IBM as Country Alliance Manager and Solution Developer Marketing. At Flutura, I'm quite hands-on in helping scale and build the company's ethos in a digital-first world. This is a different space entirely - of industrial AI solutions - so it is critical to build awareness among customers and enhance adoption levels. Learning from some of the giants of big tech companies like Microsoft, IBM and Mindtree has helped shape my professional learnings and value system, which are especially necessary to lead a company in the era of new age technologies like AI. 

Name five key qualities that AI startups should have today to succeed

• Before joining Flutura, I used to mentor a lot of startups and still do. What I find typically among AI startups is that they're led by technocrats; they are passionate about the algorithms they have created. While the passion is great and I admire the same, I tell them to focus on the impact their tech and algorithms are creating. This is very crucial to gauge the value of a certain kind of technology and its application. 
• Bringing confluence of domain experts and business leaders is imperative to scale companies, make ML models richer and consequently gauge the impact the tech can make. 
• Constant evolution of product is essential for an ideal and successful product market fit. 
• Ethical AI is critical for the success of an AI solutions; startups should avoid creating these solutions in a black box, but instead open up the scope for discussion and analysis by peers who aren't just tech experts alone 
• Marketing from the early days is essential for long-term success. In an age dominated by information and new technologies, startups must be heard. Marketing shouldn't be an after-thought but a process that evolves with the company  

What challenges do women face in building a tech career? How can the business community and society address this issue collectively and efficiently? 

There is a very varied response to this question, and the breadth of responses are all very relevant. The way I see it, the root cause of limited diversity and female participation in the tech workforce began due to limited representation of women in STEM. While India now ranks well above even developed nations with 43% female STEM graduates, this funnel narrows significantly as women rise up the professional ladder. In addition to being viewed as primary caretakers, women face a challenge upskilling in tech. The tech sector is extremely fast paced and fast changing, and it is important to keep the learning fresh. Continuous learning takes a hit when women take breaks for childcare or family care, and their progress is hampered. What corporate India also lacks is sufficient representation of senior female leaders. Having a role model at the helm of affairs is hugely encouraging and will boost more women to continue their careers. As a career coach, I come across women who suffer from self limiting belief systems. We should collectively make an effort to overcome these limitations with confidence. Organisations should do more in enhancing the visibility and highlighting accomplishments of female workers. This will encourage a system of appreciation on public platforms, and urge more women to participate actively to an organisation's growth. Be it a services or product company, diversity is now a widely recognised mandate across companies. In India, this is still a WIP but we're moving in the right direction.

What qualities do women inherently bring to the table that make them assets in a tech company?

I feel there are many inherent qualities that make us true assets in tech companies, especially startups. Women are focused and loyal, have multi-layered bring diversity to the team in terms of not only representation but problem solving as well. One of the most endearing and natural qualities women possess is a combination of EQ along with IQ. This is becoming a core skill to solve ongoing, daily business challenges. Organisations are making an effort to understand women for who they are, not expect them to fit into a mould that fits the status quo. 

How do you think startups are moving the needle in terms of supporting more women to participate in tech building/development? 

While startups are becoming more aware of the importance of diverse hiring, they need to do more. There are several advantages that startups offer to encourage women to participate. They are fairly flexible structurally, allow mobility across functions that can enable a wider learning curve and offer versatile problems to be solved every other day. The naturally nimble and adaptive qualities women possess augurs well with this fast-paced, high learning environment. There is a real spirit of community that startups foster because they are small and teams do multi-task. This can make the learning environment quite rich. Of course, this cultural change has to be top-down for it to percolate through the organisation. 

How will AI transform industries? 

AI has a hugely definitive role to play across sectors today. The needs of consumers, solution providers and businesses overall are changing rapidly. Specifically in the industrial sector, we have seen energy savings benefit largely from AI, especially during the numerous lockdowns that disrupted factories. The ultimate nature of high connectedness and constant feedback loop will make AI a critical technology in the future. 

What is your biggest AI nightmare?

The prejudices generated by AI going unchecked is what alarms me the most. We cannot yet allow machines and intelligence operate in complete isolation. At Flutura, there's an intervention called Data Stories, where a human oversees the machine transactions and intervenes if there's a problematic practice or occurrence. It is important to blend tech with machines, while having a human to oversee operations end to end.