Google scholarship application for attending Grace Hopper Conference in 2016

What do you hope to gain from attending Grace Hopper, and how will it help you further promote and support women in tech?

I’ve seen first-hand the effect that gender discrimination has on women and it has compelled me to take the initiative to empower and enable women to reach their full potential.

In India, despite my mother’s Bachelors education and professional ambitions, she faced immense pressure from my father’s family to work as a housewife and to forget pursuing her own dreams of working at a technology company in the United States. Unfortunately, my father could do nothing to help my mom in fear of alienating his socially conservative parents. Yet, in the face of so much overt discrimination, my mother found the will to stand up for herself and pursue her own dreams in graduate education and an exciting professional life. To this day, as we visit my father’s home in India, my mom faces what we would term as microaggressions. However, for the past 20 years, both my mother and father have worked diligently to support my mother’s novel aspirations. Today, she leads a large team at Microsoft as a Principal Software Engineering Manager. As her son, I’m immensely proud to she that she has stood up against ingrained gender stereotypes and is continuing to realize her professional potential. Experiencing the effect of discrimination versus empowerment firsthand, I’ve made it a personal mission to empower women whenever and wherever possible.

Gender diversity is important. The meaningful efforts being taken by institutions like Georgia Tech (my college) and Microsoft (my mother’s employer) to include more women in computing is already showing great promise for the future. These organizations are generating research and products that account for the unique experience/talents of women who eventually become one-half of end users. In my experience, I’ve seen that women provide a more consumer- focused approach and long-term vision to projects. In addition, I’ve seen that the very presence of women in a group environment generates a more thoughtful discussion and produces innovative ideas. This is what happens when we empower others to unleash their potential. As an attendee of Grace Hopper, I would like to learn more about current diversity efforts and how I can contribute to the empowerment of women in the university and professional environments. Right now, gender stereotypes still persist in our classrooms, hackathons, and research settings. In particular, I would like to take back this learning to Georgia Tech’s web development community (in which I am a leader) and to the institute’s efforts in recruiting more women into computing research.

Full integration of women into the world of computing is not only vital to the growth of our organizations but is a vital component of realizing the full human equality. At Grace Hopper, I would like to learn how to do more to advance this immensely vital and personal cause.