 Let me start with a brief introduction through all of our panelists so that you have an idea of who is and who's coming from what area and what's their design background. I'll begin with you, Jaya. So I'm Jaya Deshmukh. I work for Microsoft. I'm based out of London. I have a very long career, 22 years. So perhaps I'm the oldest of them. I've worked across the US, I've worked in Europe, India, of course, Singapore and Dubai. The only places I've not worked in, I've worked in Africa but not worked in South America. So I've not worked there. So what I do is I lead innovation for Microsoft Digital and I bring with it consumer experience or customer experience design. That's really the angle of my skill set in my team. Hi. Good morning, everybody. I'm Sneha Badaria. I work with a firm called Use Designs. I'm a principal experience designer. And I want to start about why I'm a principal experience designer. I'm not a user experience designer because I think the term is very shallow. We should start looking beyond it and that's what transformation of design is about, which is a theme of this event. So every project or everything that we work at is innovation according to me and that primarily happens because I believe the day we start solving problems or challenges of a business, by solving the problems or challenges of users is when we create great design. And with that thought, I'm going to pass on the mic to my co-panelist and I think we'll talk more. Thank you, Sneha. Hi, everyone. I'm Sheveer and I'm a lead designer with Samsung at Delhi and it's great to be here at UX India. And what I do primarily at Samsung is I design experiences for smart TVs for mobile phones, for a wide range of products. Samsung has a wide range of products that I advocate for user-centered design. The thing is I started as an industrial designer so I learned UX on the job and that's the sort of knowledge that I try to spread within my organization. It's still very software centric and product centric and a lot of times UX tends to get put on the back burner so I try to advocate for those practices within the organization and I try to advocate for the user basically and I'm really looking forward to having a fruitful discussion here with all my co-panelists. Thank you. I'm Caitlin. I'm from New York. I am a global, that is my water, I am a global design director with IBM. I work in business transformation and experience design so we try to look at complex business problems and solve them being empathetic with the user. So that means I lead a lot of workshops, do a lot of client engagements, co-creating with our clients. There's a lot of business dinners, things like that. And working globally means that I go to a lot of different sites. Sometimes Japan, I worked in Thailand so I was also working in Singapore where our clients were. So a lot of global roles, different cultures that I've been able to experience, which has been great. Let me introduce, give a little more information on what I do. Like I mentioned, I work for an organization that is helping women step into leadership roles across all sectors. And this is a particularly full circle moment for me to sit here because I started my career in NIFT in 96. I graduated from the master's program, worked in the government industry for a little bit and then moved to the United States. And to sit here, I know way back then, even as a designer, there were very limited choices and very limited role models. And to sit with this diverse group of women in 2018 and talk about it, it really is indication of how far we have come in design and how much further we still have to go, though. So it's a really wonderful moment to stay, to be here and part of this panel. So let's dive into the real stuff now. I will start with Jaya. You are the most seasoned business and design leader here. I prefer to say seasoned. So let's begin with your perspective on what is the purpose of... What is the goal that diversity and inclusion plays in the success of a product of a design team? And from your perspective, have you seen the design industry evolve? So tell us more about your perspective since you have a big range. It's interesting. So when I started on this journey, I used to be the only woman in the room. Slowly, there were more women, and I can see some of them. And that was great. But what to answer specifically, if you have enough diversity, not just women, enough diversity, and I really like the keynote this morning. It's diversity of thought, it's diversity of the way you create. It really, really helps. But having women is interesting because women communicate a lot and they will fight with you as well because they believe passionately about things. And so it's really, really wonderful to have more women. I would say that I don't find more women, women tend to have a voice amongst women, but women don't tend to have a voice amongst what we call the powerful presence. It could be another woman or it could be another man, but they don't tend to talk. So for me, it's about seeing the voice get louder and louder and that's amazing. So I'll move up to the younger folks here. Shavya, I'm gonna ask you the same question, but from a younger lens and the fact that things are fairly different from where Jaya was, so what do you see in your design teams or what's your perspective when you find yourself in a different context in terms of diversity? Thank you. So I'd like to start out by saying that one of my earliest role models was my mother and she got married pretty early on and there was not a lot of guidance at home. So what she tells me is that I saw her doing a lot of things hands-on. There would be unexpected guests who'd arrive at home. We'd have a lot of situations where there'd be no planning required. So there's a word in India called Jugaar, frugal innovation. So I saw her improvise on the spot and come up with solutions on the spot. So that is something that I take forward to my job when I do solutions. As we know in the industry, we don't get a lot of time to ideate. We don't get a lot of time to research. So I go back and think how my mother used to do things and I try to improvise and hack things. Yes, women have, I think they have an intrinsic capability to hack solutions on the spot and think on their toes. So I think we can really carry that to our jobs and I see a lot of young women in my experience group doing that and I think that will take us a long way in transitioning to leadership roles. And like we've been discussing, there is a severe under-representation of women at leadership roles. And that's where change comes from. That's where thought about women and organizational policies sensitive towards women would really steep from. So if we can take that opportunity at this level and go forward, that would really help to bring about on-ground change. Same question for you Sneha, but do tell me what you think in the Indian context, what do you see? So then we can talk to Kailan and see what she experiences. I think when I'm talking about my product teams, when I'm talking about the team I work with or the teams I work with when I'm working with my clients and the most important thing that I look at at that point is diversity of skill set. When we're talking as women in design, I'd like to take a moment here and say, let's stop undermining ourselves by saying we are women in design who don't, who feel that we are less seen. And I don't want to say that anymore. What I feel is when tomorrow we look at product teams, when we're looking at designing businesses, designing great experiences, we need to really look at what is the skill set that actually makes a team diverse. While I say this, I have two very strong opinions about it, one being, in a team you have men and women, both have certain amount of qualities of a feminine side and the masculine side. Each vary in how high or low they are. While this is happening, some men might actually carry more feminine qualities and some women might carry some more masculine qualities. That's why I make the point that today's product teams need diverse skill sets, diverse thought process, and actually a diverse design thinking. That's what's required. So same question for you, Kailan, but you'll be probably giving us a perspective which is fairly different. I think it might be a bit different, but the truth is we're all humans and there's qualities that we all share. So where I come from, we have a lot of large meetings and there'll generally be a lot of men at the meetings. Men like to talk a lot and hear themselves, I think. So something that we try to do, we call it amplify it. So you'll have a woman and you'll see her try to interject and you'll see her try to say something. Something that I can do to help is say, hey, Jaya, I think you wanted to say something, speak up. And that's the way that we can start to kind of involve each other in the conversation and help to include each other. There's other ways that we can do things where if we know that somebody had an idea and they wanted to say it first, I can say, oh, you had a great idea, why don't we hear it? Just include each other more. We have other initiatives where we're trying to understand why there aren't women in leadership roles. So we're starting to question that and starting to bring them up and include them more. Somebody mentioned earlier, not just opening the door for women, but truly championing them. I think that's a really important thing. So I'm just gonna add a little bit to this wonderful, data, wonderful information that we've already added. The way we answer this question in terms of diversity and inclusion is twofold. One is the business case for diversity and inclusion. What is the benefit for a company to have diversity? And then the other is the social case of diversity and inclusion. What really benefits? How does the society, how does community as a whole benefit when we have a workforce of diversity? So the business cases, again and again, research is continuing to pour in that when women come into the workforce and they are part of the team, the ROIs go up, there is better retention, there is better engagement in the teams, there is also a higher emotional intelligence of the group. So, and these are the challenges that the industry is facing at this point. And women tend to collaborate with the community's benefit. Then the other side is the social aspect of it. And we know that women are the hub of any community. When you empower women, in general the community's well-being goes up. So to disengage and to disinclude is not in our benefit. So it's a social case and a business case for having women and diverse voices in the team. So let's move on to some personal experiences. We've come a long way, as I mentioned earlier. I would like to ask Sneha to begin with and tell me what has been your personal challenge in the design industry and how did you solve it? So I have a very interesting one, okay? In the industry right now, when a woman decides to get married. Most people worry, I got married to an Air Force boy. I have to travel. So I thought this is going to be the worst thing ever. How do I continue having a job, having a life? What do I really do? I had this conversation with a man. And that man gave me two options. He said, do you want to make it? He said, yeah, then make it happen. And I work from home. I figure my life out, I attend meetings. What I'm trying to make as a point here is, yes, there are challenges in every industry for women. But what we really need is not a room full of women to talk about it, a room full of men to appreciate women, to understand that this is a need, to give us opportunities to make this really happen. We can all talk about a lot of bad experiences, but I want to share a good one too. So now I've been married for about two years. I work from home. Nobody can question the quality of work I do. The sort of clients I handle, what I really get to. But this has happened because of two reasons. I had the conversation and I decided to make it happen. Yeah, I'm going to ask you, since you have a long span, career span, I'm sure there are multiple challenges. You started way back, so it has been. But share with us something that the audience can take away. And a personal challenge in how really you stepped, how you overcome that. So I think that's a very interesting question. So what happened was that I am ambitious and some of you who know me know I'm very ambitious. Earlier I would feel shy to say I'm ambitious. Now I don't say it, I am ambitious. And I strive hard and I work hard to do it. When I would be ambitious, people would say you're very aggressive Jaya. And then they would say I would start talking about how I cook well, which I do, and how I have kids and I'm a great mother. I stopped doing that. Now the reason I'm saying this here is because I said, why am I trying to prove that I'm a woman? I am a woman. Does a man have to say I'm a man? No. So I'm a woman, I'm really happy about it. But I am ambitious. So the challenge was, and there was a company that I went to because I dreamed to be in that company. I was doing very well in the previous company and then I changed my job because that was my dream company. I went in and I was surrounded by white men. Now I'm not saying white men are bad, they're amazing. And I'm middle-aged white men. And they would, they would, you know, they call me a young lady. Now there's a compliment, but I'm not young, but I like being called a lady, but not at the business table. I'm your, I'm sorry, I'm your colleague, right? And I can give it as good as it gets and you know, you've got to listen to me and you can't do this. So I kept quiet. I'm ashamed of it, I kept quiet. And I went home and I cried. And it was my daughter who said, why are you crying? I mean, why are you crying? I mean, you are crying, then I will cry. So I looked back and looked at my daughters and I said, I cannot, I, whether I like it or not, right, I am a role model. So I think each one of us have to understand whether you like it or not, you are a role model, there's someone looking. So every day, so when I, if I'm sitting here, you're looking at me. If you're not sitting here, you're sitting there, someone's looking at you. So speak up, use your voice and don't be apologetic. Be brave. Thank you. That was awesome. I'll pass the mic then. Yeah. So recently, someone came up to me with the idea, design a female mode for a smartphone. The first question I asked him was, why did you ask for a female mode? Why not a men's mode? That's something I really thought about. And I, you know, a smartphone at a certain level is a purely functional device. It's helping you carry out certain very utilitarian tasks. And I'm trying to figure out where a gender, a sex would make a difference in the usage of that product. What would those needs be? Which would differentiate how a man uses a phone and how a woman uses the phone. So I was talking to some product managers and it's a little surprising to know that a certain level of stereotype is still within the industry. I said, what are your ideas about how we go about it? They're like, oh, we'll put those feminine themes, we'll put lots of flowers and you know those decorative changeable skins. Women really like that, you should do it. And we'll do a lot of pink, you know, that always works. So we've come such a long way, but it's somewhere, it's a little amusing to see that how people high up the ladder still, you know, we still have such, we tend to have such conversations with people that decision making rules. And a lot of, we were talking about how a smartphone, the front camera applications, selfie mode, how it's really popular amongst women and especially women in China and women in Southeast Asia, it's very popular here. So we were wondering at the company whether, you know, we should target our products towards that, if that's a need that needs to be solved. Also, apart from at my workplace, I have found challenges of sometimes being the only woman still in a discussion in a meeting. And that's very similar to a user experience designer's role. Generally, we're the only people advocating for the user in, you know, when we're working in a development team. They're always talking about how to make things simpler, you know, oh, this will be easy to implement. The user is not gonna notice, come on, let's do it this way. This will be quicker to implement. And you have to repeatedly point out how it's gonna make tasks more difficult for the user. And that's where I felt that my role as a woman is still, come on, it's still really a man's world, right? And how we're, you know, wading through that to make assets be heard and to be seen. I really relate that to how user experience designer tends to work in the software industry, where there are still a lot of men at decision making roles right now. I'll just go really quickly and say I do a lot of different workshops and when I walk into the workshops, often there's a lot of men there. I've had times where the men have said, oh, when is your manager showing up to run this workshop? I think the best thing that we can do as women is go in and prove our value. We don't have to fight, we don't have to tell them anything. We as women bring a certain presence where men are talking and we can offset that with our feminine qualities. We also have the ability to empathize with them. So just go in, prove your value, prove your worth. Don't demand it upfront. And then they'll see what we bring to the table. I think we have to wrap up for now. So thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. Thanks for coming. Shaivya Ruchi, Sneha.