Issue 2 – January 2020
News from the Affiliate
Welcome to the SWE Pune Affiliate!
SWE Affiliate Pune has a goal of mentoring engineering college students. The objective of this goal is to provide guidance to budding women engineers through various activities for successful launching into engineering and technology careers. This helps them to get introduced to people from various industries, be informed about new technologies, and learn upcoming trends. The goal is defined by topics like speed mentoring, campus to corporate transition, work readiness skills and technical lectures. Collaboration with Mentor Together is also being done in order to get a long term and defined outline for mentoring students.
This was the first Mentoring Event of the Affiliate organized on September 7th, 2019 at the MIT College of Engineering, Pune. The Affiliate group along with Samruddhi Mangrulkar, SWE President, MIT WPU Affiliate, arranged a mentoring session for the college students to guide them about the upcoming placement interviews and enlighten them about current trending technologies.
The session started with the Introduction of SWE Affiliate Pune team and their activities presented by Sayali Igave, Engineer at John Deere (India) & Lead for College mentoring goal at SWE Affiliate (FY2019-2020). The Agenda included Resume Writing and Interview Skills Training by Swathi Kesireddy, Talent Acquisition Specialist and Priyanka Karmakar, Talent Acquisition Manager from TomTom (India). This was then followed by a technical talk on 3D printing by Amita Golder, Engineer at John Deere (India). There was also a session on upcoming trends of Electrical & Autonomous Vehicle by Vidya Chavan, Engineering Manager at Black & Veatch Pvt Ltd (India).
Around 20 students attended this session wherein they got an opportunity to interact with SWE mentors and learn a lot about SWE as well as its activities. Positive feedback was received not only from students but also from professors. The students were eager to learn and looked forward to participating in more interactive sessions like these. The college expressed their gratitude honoring the SWE members with a memento, a frame of Dnyaneshwar Maharaj along with a shawl. The session ended on an informal note bidding farewell to students and looking forward to meeting them at SWE networking events.
Join Us. The affiliate’s focus has been both on professional development as well as outreach. We have our Executive team on board to drive our goals. Please extend your support and connect with them if you wish to participate in any of the affiliate goals.
Join SWE Pune Affiliate group and never miss affiliate updates and SWE Pune related communications.
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Special feature on WE19 experience by Rupali Patil, President, SWE Pune
Dear SWE members,
The SWE WE19 Global Conference and career fair was organized in Anaheim, USA from November 7 to 9, 2019. The event is billed as the world’s largest conference and career fair for women in engineering and technology. It was amazing to see so many of our SWEsters from around the globe come together, more than 16,500 professional and collegiate conference attendees, 400+ organizations at the career fair and 33 countries represented in the conference.
SWE Conferences offer professional development and networking opportunities dedicated to women engineers. The conference serves as a platform for women engineers and engineering organizations to come together and share their insights on succeeding in engineering. This year’s theme was WELive WELearn WELead and offered 250+ professional development sessions to help advance career skills in form of Keynote Speakers, Mega and Plenary Panel Sessions, Lightning Talks and events with mix of leadership development and emerging technologies topics.
Keynote speakers from Medtronic, 3M and Disney talked about their career journey and how to leverage SWE to build support system to aspire and advance in your career. Key messages from keynote on asking powerful question with grace to navigate difficult discussions and build your squad at work resonated with attendees. Keynote speaker, Carol Malnati also spoke about role of Women in Innovation. This set tone for my lightening talk on ‘Demystifying Innovation: A Designer’s Perspective’. My session discussed key barriers for Innovation journey based on research survey of 100+ R&D engineers and shared actionable learning through ‘IDEA Innovation framework’.
I am involved with the SWE since 2012, currently serving as President of SWE Pune Affiliate and honored with SWE Distinguished New Engineer Award in 2018. I, along with many SWE members was proud to support 2019 SWE award recipients as they were recognized at the conference for their achievements. I think, if you are prepared to grow your mindset and push yourself to grow as a person and woman engineer, SWE conferences have lot of value to offer.
My sincere appreciation to John Deere leadership and Affiliate Companies for supporting their employees to aspire, advance and achieve within engineering industry. I encourage you to reach out to me to know more about the conference experience.
Videos of keynote session presentations can be found here:
Keynote Presentation Carol Malnati
Keynote Presentation Rachel Hutter
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Message from member
“Received an email from the company HR regarding SWE paper submission in 2016. That is how I got introduced to this wonderful world of networking. Attended the SWE Conference in Pune and was fascinated by the lightening talks, lectures as well as panel discussions. SWE is a forum which brings people from diverse backgrounds together, shows better opportunities to explore and brings into focus how we can empower other women engineers in STEM related fields. SWE gives a platform to women engineers to mark their identity and present themselves in the smartest way possible. It’s an exposure to the world of networking to showcase our talent better. “
Ankita Singh, Product Pricing Analyst, TE Connectivity
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Events Next Quarter
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Affiliate Leader Spotlight
Tell us something about yourself:
I have studied Electronics and Telecommunication engineering and a PG-Diploma in Embedded systems. I joined Johnson Controls in the product verification and validation department for automotive electronics in 2013. After close to 4 years of experience on systems like Instrument Clusters and Heads Up displays, I had a wish to be a part of a bigger chain, an OEM.I joined John Deere where I got an opportunity to be a part of a bigger system – Tractor.
I am actively involved with the Society of Women Engineer as a lead for the School Outreach vertical within the SWE Pune Affiliate, and this is my second year as the SWE Global Ambassador. In the outreach vertical our goal is to conduct activities for inspiring school girls to take up STEM careers. I like to travel, read and paint in my free time.
Shruti Khalwadekar
Senior Engineer, John Deere India
Committee Lead – School Outreach
SWE Global Ambassador 2019-2020
How did you hear about SWE?
Back when I joined John Deere in 2017, the WE local conference in Pune was coming up and I came across a Call for participation. Through college I was passionate about the gender diversity rights. I decided to attend the WE Local conference where I learnt about what SWE goals were. I was meeting so many women engineers whom I could interact and network with. Women in leadership roles inspired me. Ria Ghosh a manager from our team recommended me to interact with Stueti Gupta. I found out that the SWE Global Ambassador applications were open and applied for it; got through in 2018. Attending the WE – 18 Minneapolis conference was an eye opener for me about how big SWE is. I was excited about the positive network I was a part of. I joined the SWE Pune Affiliate in 2019. With this opportunity I have had myriad experiences of event planning, budget, volunteering, communication and it has positively impacted my personality.
What do you like most about SWE?
The amazing network that SWE has where I get to interact with likeminded passionate engineers. Meeting and interacting with the SWE 2018 president Penny Wirsing and being inspired by the journey of amazing women associated with SWE. I also love the work I get to do as a SWE volunteer which helps me gain perspectives of leadership. SWE conferences have great learning and networking opportunities. I have had an opportunity to interact with women in leadership roles at many corporates which would have not been possible if I was not a part of SWE.
What advise would you give your younger self?
Be bold.
Being a part of SWE and leading events when I look back, I feel how easy was it to go out of your comfort zone and start that conversation or be responsible for something that you have never done before. Once you are in it give it your best and it all falls in place. Take the leap.
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To Read…
Five Fearless Women Engineers on Fighting Impostor Syndrome
” The more we bring different backgrounds into engineering, the better chance we’ll have of discovering something new. Diverse thought arises from diverse backgrounds,” says Dr. Heather Hunt
Source: SWE Blog | April 3, 2019
https://alltogether.swe.org/2019/04/women-engineers-fight-impostor-syndrome
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To Watch…
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