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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.

Outstanding Woman Achievers in IT

Priya Pradeep
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Priya Pradeep
As women’s activist Simone de Beauvoir puts it, “One is not born but rather becomes a woman…it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature.” Thankfully the young IT industry across the world and especially in India does not see a woman as an unusual creature on the prowl amongst its cerebral corridors. The statistics are a clear indicator of this refreshing news: according to Catalyst, a U.S. based women’s business advocacy organization, only 11 percent of corporate officers in America’s top 500 technology companies are women, whereas the top Indian IT companies have more than 20 percent of women on their rolls. That’s way above the representation of women in the banking or manufacturing sectors.

At present, 76 percent of the software professionals in IT companies in India are men, whereas only 24 percent are women. However, Nasscom says this ratio is likely to be 65:35 (men : women) by the year 2007. “There was a time when marriage meant the end of a career for women, but now you see less women dropping out,” says Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom.

We at The Smart Techie seek to build on this positivity. What was our criterion in choosing the women of substance within the IT domain? Simple. Those who had a long innings here. We chose women whose careers are built on the pedestals of passion, perseverance, professionalism, creativity and ability to stretch the limiting limits. In bringing forth these inspiring stories to you, yes both to the male and the female readers out there, we want a change of attitude. From the men encouragement and from the women continuity of their dreams.


A Loyal Trailblazer
Vasantha Erraguntla, 38
Engineering Manager, Design Labs, Intel - Bangalore
* Joined Intel in 1991 and worked on the high-speed router technology for the Teraflop machine.

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