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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

March - 2007 - issue > Woman Achiever

Learning to love technology

Vidya Balakrishnan
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Vidya Balakrishnan
Kalpana Margabandhu wanted to be a banker ever since she could remember. A nine to six job at the bank was satisfactory for her. A sudden change in plans saw her studying BTech. at IISc, at a time when computers and engineering were not in vogue. The thrill of getting into the institute ignited in her an interest for technology, something she feared, as it was a lesser-known subject for her. Into the middle of her first year, she got an offer to be a banker her dream job. It was an obvious choice but even to her surprise, she opted to stay at IISc. “I always aspired to take on difficult projects so I could prove they were not beyond me. If someone were to tell me ‘you can’t do it’, then I would make sure that I could,” she says.

Today Kalpana, General Manager IBM India Software Labs (ISL), is narrating the successful story of her 24-year journey as a techie. She is steering one of the largest Product Development Labs for IBM worldwide as it develops products, technology and solutions for IBM Software Group. Her periodical halts as Consultant Software Specialist to Program Director ISL strongly back her decision of letting technology take over her career graph. To add to her kitty of technical expertise, she also leads the WebSphere Mission (ISL) as its Program Director, where she overseas techies work on Architecture, Design, Development, Maintenance and Testing of IBM WebSphere.

For a lady who never aspired to be a techie, her achievements speak loud of her capabilities. Her motto ‘learn and deliver’ served as common thread connecting the steps in her climb towards professional success. And she won’t shy away from her achievements. “When I started off, I was not very good with technology. I learnt to nurture a love for it, the inspiration coming from within,” she says.

The lesson held good at her very first job at PSI Data Systems in ’82. While the rest of the country was just awaking to the prospect of personal computers and Internet applications were unheard of, a young Kalpana was busy with C (language), Compliers and operating systems. Working as the menu editor, she was creating an application combining the three that would enable building user interfaces. Back then PSI was among the very few companies attempting to help build such an interface thus making the project highly significant for the organization and more so for first-timer Kalpana.

However, the names appeared foreign to her and the processes seemingly distant. She was hesitant but soon delved into the subject matter learning the technology while working along with it. “The PC business had started during that time so there was a lot of experimental learning that we did on our own. It was equivalent to solving a problem,” she says. Utilizing existing technology and exploring options with newer ones, her team was able to pull off the project successfully.


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