Tell me about yourself and your journey as an entrepreneur

I’m a very passionate storyteller with the sole agenda of creating an impact in the lives of people by creating more job opportunities for them with my company.

After my engineering, I joined a consulting company through which I got the opportunity to work with Fortune 500 companies in the US in the area of enterprise sales. I have 10 years of work experience in all. After working for 16 hours each day, I realised that I was just helping the rich get richer. So, I decided to come back to India and start on my own. My first startup was in the media space and content production where I wrote 70 original scripts of my own. Perhaps ahead of my time with regards to content production and popularity of OTT platforms, I sold the copyrights of all my content to a Mumbai-based production house and made an exit. After that, I published two books of my own and also worked with CXOs globally to help them build content strategies. My deep-rooted industry experience and understanding of how content works inspired me to start Instoried.

What do you think are some key qualities AI startup founders set them apart? 

The first quality that any founder should possess is having a clear vision of what exactly they want to build and why. Secondly, team building capabilities are a must along with being humble and having the patience to listen to team members and understand and resonate with their challenges. A persevering founder will definitely figure a way out of any problem at hand.

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

The biggest challenge of being a woman is that she is a woman. Along with oscillating hormones and long trending societal norms that have kept women away from pursuing their dreams, another major challenge that women face is that they are generally perceived to be technically deficient and more artistically bent, which is very circumstantial in my opinion. It completely depends on the career choices that a woman decides to pursue. Women coders are equally smart and efficient as their male counterparts. They deserve equal opportunities and a fair salary based on their competency levels. Also, women who are both building a career and a family should not be barred from any opportunities at work.

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

A calculative mind and a risk averse attitude are sometimes great while building a company. Women inherently are hard negotiators which is a huge benefit for any startup, especially while raising investments. We need more women founders in India. A woman founder running a tech company also is proof that women can lead both tech and non tech companies and have the same mindfulness and smartness to deal with data and arrive at meaningful insights along with patience. It’s high time we change the notion that women are bad at dealing with data and number crunching.

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

More women founders running tech Startups is a huge value addition to the ecosystem. This will encourage more women to take up challenging roles at work and seek leadership activities.

What changes do you expect in female participation & representation in the tech workforce as a result of COVID?

The one opportunity in this adversity has been that everyone is now going to work from home indefinitely (hopefully). As a result of which women who are also mothers do get the advantage of spending time with their children alongside pursuing their dreams. The stress caused by unnecessary travelling to work will hence be completely mitigated and will give women the leeway to be more productive at work.

What would you like to see change/improve/get introduced in the field of AI for women? 

Do not discriminate based on gender and let women thrive based on their core competency. Women too can be great machine learning experts like we have at Instoried. Just give them the freedom to explore and grow.

What is your biggest AI nightmare?

My biggest AI nightmare is that someday human clones will replace humans completely and that they will be immortal. I don’t want my clone replacing me and running startups on my behalf.