 Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us with another Pilates India Experience Sharing session. This session is going to be on women who has transitioned career from non-tech to tech fields and we have Nainika Baliga with us who would be speaking on her journey, how she transitioned from finance to front end. Over to you Nainika. Okay. Hey everyone. I'm Nainika and I'm going to be talking about my journey from finance to front end and this is looking to my timeline of the major milestones that really impacted my journey as a whole. So without like let's just start the presentation. So this is a quote that really speaks to me because I think it's actually written by Grace Hopper and she's someone I respect and admire a lot and it's my hope that I get to accomplish even half as much as she has in her lifetime because she really did so much for women and I want to be able to create that kind of change to someday. So the quote goes like the most damaging phrase in the language is it's always been done that way. The reason this quote speaks to me is because no part of my journey has been conventional. It was a series of what ifs that led to where I am today and I know it's not a lot but a year back if you told me I'd be here I would never have believed it. So I guess it's about like you know comparing your past self with your present to see how much you were able to grow in maybe in a span of a year or so. So let's begin with the presentation. So it all began with school and yeah so I was always interested in technology but I'll be very honest with you while I wanted to pursue something in this field. I honestly didn't know what I could do with it. We didn't have any kind of orientation you know where we were told about the importance of technology. I guess I should have been more resourceful and proactive and that's probably you know my biggest regret because I could have done something I could have taken initiative and you know done something about it. But at that time I guess things weren't how they are now the current generation is a lot more aware and proactive because technology is now an extension you know of ourselves. So anyway come back to school we had the option between computer science and commerce and this was in 9th grade. So this was like an elective that we could choose for 9th and 10th. So although it wasn't really a free will choice since I remember vividly having a test a single math problem that would be this like that would be the single deciding factor to get into computer science and the rest that didn't solve the math problem were automatically put into commerce. Now I'm not downplaying the importance of commerce just that things were very black and white where the teachers were telling the rest of us that if we weren't good at math that computer science was an automatic no no in terms of you know a successful career choice. So anyway moving on I continued with commerce but I knew this wasn't something I would be interested in the long term. I thought to explore my options and I started reading extensively about the different industries I could be interested in and that's when I stumbled upon the world of startups and how technology was disrupting the world as we knew it. So if you really look at it startups was something that finally tipped the scale in favor of technology. So that's when I started that I decided to give I was going to you know give technology a try so then I started to chalk out what I wanted to get into and the first language that I thought would align with my interest was Python since being a relatively easy language I'd say to pick up due to the syntax and it's also one of the main building blocks for the promising career with machine learning. I took a course on EDX it was by MIT a very rigorous one where there were tests and assignment submissions and I was and I was also currently balancing my 11th grade and preparing for my AS&A level exams so it was hard no doubt since it was something completely new for me but challenging nevertheless and so these AS&A level exams are actually a UK version of the US IB curriculum it's a little I guess it's a little harder than ISC I'm not so sure how many of you are aware but anyway it's a really nice curriculum so I started practicing Python it was more on and off since you know I had to dedicate most of my efforts to high school but after graduating I started sending meetups of my interests that has been my interest for machine learning actually really grew and I started reading up more about computer vision and NLP those were my two areas of interest I slowly grew my network in the tech industry by a meeting many professionals who are either into AI or ML and soon one of the organizers of one of those many meetups that I attended even helped me come up with a study plan to your dedicated plan with everything that I had to cover it was great so then I graduated from high school and I soon found myself yeah before I begin with that yeah so soon I found myself currently at university pursuing a bachelor's in business administration and on the first day of orientation the vice chancellor of my university addressed the class of 2016 about how technology is going to grow even further making it an indispensable skill to know so I decided to also try HTML and CSS and I realized that that brought me a lot more joy because it leaned more towards art and creativity and that's something that I always I love like a lot so that's when I started questioning myself I was it was a habit that I took pride in because very often we find ourselves in a place where we never intended to be so I find that if you ask yourself the hard questions now it's not clear about your choices that will end up altering your future later so right after that it was I started my first month of university and I took up an internship in digital marketing at Nordics based startup awards company called Global Startup Awards and I was looking after the whole SAC region I was helping them with understanding the startup ecosystem and the SAC region communities and talking to people from different countries and that's when I realized that the sheer importance of communities as a whole and how it was helping the startup ecosystem flourish and this is when I started to explore many different communities that I soon realized were available to me and then I was soon associated with communities like Facebook, Google and Startup Weekend among others but the first ever event I attended was by Google Women Techmakers in March 2017 and that event changed my life forever. I met some of the people who have helped me a ton and become like family. Moreover this community accepted me when I wasn't from the tech background and gave me the drive I needed to make it in this field and follow my passion so soon after that it was time for GDD. This is Google Developer Days it's an annual event that is hosted all over the world and luckily that year it was in Bangalore. Being a Women Techmaker member gave us entry into the reception which was just the day before the event where we could talk to a lot of people who were from Udacity and many Udacity certified professionals and mentors. There were also many other women in tech which was actually the best part because I think that's when I understood how much importance Google gives to words, diversity, inclusion and representing women in the best way possible. So it was a friend at GDD that I met at GDD who told me about Google Challenge Scholarship for Frontend and Android. He asked me to apply and so I did I didn't give it much thought since I was pretty sure I wouldn't get it but I was actually pretty shocked when I found out I was selected for the first phase. I was one of the 2,000 people out of 30,000 applicants. The first phase covered HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This was a span of 3 months and I contributed to the community a lot in terms of helping other solve their bugs, explain a concept, help out with projects so the whole collaborative learning atmosphere was the best part because when you start out in the self-taught journey I realized it can be a very daunting experience so having support was a huge thing and I learned a ton from the mentors and other students. It was pretty hectic because I was balancing a finance internship while also managing the course. I was then selected for the second phase of the course and I actually coincided with my third year of college the most hectic year but I loved the challenge so I took it up. 6 months went by in a GIF. Before I knew it, it was December and I had successfully graduated from the course a proud nanodegree holder. The first few months went in college exams. I mean the next few months went in college and exams and my research project. I did my research project with blockchain and Bitcoin. It was very, I think it leaned a lot into technology again, even my research project which was actually really nice. Yes, I graduated and even got placed. Although I did quit in a month because I realized finance wasn't my true calling and I decided to take the plunge and pursue something I was actually passionate about and I knew that looking back pursuing technology was something I would have a lot of regret if I didn't take it up immediately so I started a wedding. I took up like a few courses and Udemy that was mainly around JavaScript because I think it was a gap before I decided to actually pursue technology again and I had forgotten a lot of it. So I think that's why I needed to get back to it and study and really understand what I was getting myself into now. So the first ever, it was my first ever deafest and this was in last year I think in September I helped out with social media marketing, Google Cloud, Panglo Group, apart from that I was also the host for the deafest talk show. A completely new experience for me, I got the chance to interview some of the people who I look up to a lot like Karthik from Google, Akshya from Google and WTM and Bharan Agni, the co-founder of Pounds and Arvind from Elastic. So it was great because I actually did the whole thing in one take which is very surprising to me because I really didn't expect myself to nail it in one go. Right after that it was time for me to attend a five-way summit. So actually before deafest like a month before deafest in fact I had applied for the travel grant and again no hopes of even getting in but I thought to myself that if I had to get in I'd get in otherwise it's fine, whatever but I was like actually really shocked when I received the travel grant. I was one of the 120 women in the world who was selected for the travel grant and I was completely ecstatic. The experience was absolutely surreal. I got to learn a ton and meet so many new people. It was a great experience because of the amount of people I got to meet from all over the world which gave me exposure and broadened my horizons in terms of how I look at technology as an industry. So after learning I wrote a blog post and it was actually picked up by WTM which is great and then also more importantly Lakshya contacted me and asked me to make a video of Monday Motivation. This was essentially for women in tech and to help inspire people as well as it gave me a lot of visibility and in the community I guess when you have it's really important for everyone out there to have the chance to gain that kind of visibility and especially when you're starting out in a self-taught journey because a lot of times you only have yourself to depend on and I think that's what makes a difference. So I'd say go for it and get really active in the community. It really helps down the line. Then it was more preparation for my React.js because I was getting to react now properly. I also got my first freelance project. It was a month long project where I had to create an e-commerce website and a web app. It was an amazing experience to actually have the chance to apply what I'd learned in the real world. Soon after that I started my internship hunting because I knew I needed a little more experience before I could actually start a full-time job. I was ready and extremely eager to learn everything. I could get my hands on and so I did. The company culture at Anstac was great because we had a very nice set of employees and some of whom are still my great friends and they helped me a lot in terms of understanding the differences and that's when I actually also re-learned a lot of things that I knew because things are so different in the workplace and when you're at home sitting and working in a project, it's a totally different experience because when you're there, there are so many deadlines that you have to understand things on the go. You have to learn stuff, learn so many languages on the go. I think it was a very different experience so I would urge everyone to jump before you even think you're ready because you can always build your wings along the way down. I think for me, and for everyone out there, if you don't think you're ready now and you may be waiting for the right time, that probably will never happen so just jump and trust yourself that you will do it and you will do well. That's all I can say because if you believe in yourself, you're already halfway there to where you want to be. In addition to that, I also started contributing to open source projects where I got the experience, where I got to experience the tech community from a whole different paradigm which was incredible. I started contributing I think in May or April and in June, I was actually job hunting. It took me three months to understand how the tech contributing paradigm works. I had to learn DSA super fast and so I got guidance from a few close friends and some Twitter strangers that turned into family no time. I applied to 100 plus companies, got shortlisted by 20 companies and in the end had two offers of which I picked the company based on the learning opportunities and the chance to work in a great enterprise application. So that's Heroko and I'm also learning framework which is Angular which is the best part of everything because I think Angular is, even though it's, I think it has a smaller community in terms of when you compare to React but it's a great framework to learn in terms of getting into the whole enterprise application part. So this is my journey so far. I have a lot more to go, I know, but my next goals are to master DSA and I'm also participating in my first ever Hacktoberfest and I also plan on getting back to illustrating. I briefly stopped doing it in May and now I would love to get back to it now. Also I haven't given up on ML as a career. It's something I want to do now and I know it's so different and you know when compared to front-end I feel like I'm ready to actually take it up now because I think ML opens a lot more doors and there's so much you can do with machine learning and AI and that's actually where I want to head in the future so I'm really excited about my journey. Anyway I already have a two-year study plan ready so I might as well use it sometime and I'd like to leave with this quote. So you have to believe that the things that the dots will connect somehow in the future because for me many times I thought that maybe what I was doing wasn't really connected to anything that I want to do in the future but for me that see the thing is when you're starting out you don't know what's going to lead where you're going to get to in the future so you just have to believe in yourself, take every opportunity that comes to you and also find a way and also don't really let yourself lose importance to a certain thing and it's not going to matter later because you never know how it's going to impact you because for me even though I may not be using my business degree directly but it's helped me a lot in terms of understanding how the client's mind works and how things function in the business world and not just understanding things from the tech side of things so I have a more broader understanding of the company side of things as well as the whole technology side of things which actually like it makes me understand a whole lot more with the app development and you know what the user wants and everything because we learn a lot about user behavior even in my business degree so yeah I mean that's about it and thank you so much for joining me today it really meant a lot and for all of you out there I think just if you have a dream just go for it don't happen just do it go for it and you will do well and if you need any kind of help and if you're someone who's getting into the tech industry right now I'd be happy to help you in any way I can because I think if it weren't for my community and the friends that I made I would have probably not come even half covered in half as much as I would have so I'm glad and thank you so much. Thank you Nainika for this amazing session it was really inspiring to all those who are attending if you have any questions please put it on the chat. Nainika we also do have a backend Zulip channel for two channels for real time streaming. Okay so yeah if you would like to join you can also hang around there people can ask you questions and I'll do that yeah. There's a question from Havana did maths matter later since you mentioned you were in a conversation? Yeah no actually it did not matter as much as I thought it would because I think computer science is more inclined towards you know your logic and problem solving rather than just having you know the math like the math skills so but I think it is a good skill to have but you don't have to be like an absolute critic like you know from what our school was like telling us to be because I was from a very academic oriented school so we didn't really have this option there you know where we could like we didn't have this free hand I'd say you know because I think in school now in schools nowadays that's there like you get to pursue something that you really want to but at that time it was more of you know I guess just putting people into certain compartments you know like and that's not cool because there's so much more that people can do and if you just give them a chance and probably help them understand you know what could happen if you take this career option it could really make or break someone's career so I think that's there are a lot of flaws in the Indian education system but I think with the new policies I think they're trying to solve a couple of them and I hope it's actually a success because it will end up changing you know a lot more people's lives in the future so how much support did you get from family and I hope I answered your question Jagannath okay yeah okay great and how much support did you get from family in making such career switches I have a great family even though my mom is like you know you might not be able to make it because of you know how difficult it is to actually get into this whole but they never stopped supporting me even when I quit my job which is probably the most scariest part because I think the week that I quit my job I was so scared I had no idea what was going to happen if I was even going to be able to you know probably like even get a job in tech and it's really hard because it's not like you know an industry where there isn't you know already enough people and it's you know and there's so many talented people like so many people who have like you know a four year degree and who have done so much in there in their four years like you know related to technology and I just what I just have like a nano degree but I think the thing is the important fact is that you just have to believe and you have to make your family believe that you know you will do it that's the only thing because it's it all depends on your hard work and how much you put into you know what you like and it's it's the dream at the entity and how much you want to do it because it doesn't matter whether your family supports you or not if you want it then you should go for it definitely like you can't you can't just be like you know I have no support I'm not going to do this but because you know at the entity you are the one who's going to regret it later so just if you have a dream if you want to go for something just go right ahead don't don't really you know wait for anyone to you know say that you're not capable enough or you're not good enough although my family was very sweet but you know I'm just saying in general don't let anyone and if you need any kind of support in any way I'm here I'm always here on Twitter I'm available you can DM me whenever so the next and I hope I answered your question Prashant yeah next question is by sort of scope of financial modeling and role of python in that if you can brief a bit that helps okay so actually in school we had a semester where we had to take up business analytics and that's when I picked up our so we had a lot of experience and exposure in terms of how to you know connect the two because I think python and python is some I think maybe a little similar to our right I mean I'm not really sure between the you know the similarities but it does help a lot in financial modeling but for financial modeling we also have another software called e views it's basically for finance so you could also do a lot of financial modeling there like you know having predictive analytics and trying to you know get like different kinds of I'm actually I don't remember where there was a what is that thing called kai square I don't remember the the financial modeling test exactly but I had like a whole semester with it but yeah yeah exactly so that was yeah that was great but yeah so we use this e view software so if you want to know more about it I'd love to help you it was it actually helped a lot for me but yeah I also learned our which is which is great because I understood you know how the tech world works in terms of you know the data analytics side also and not just front and side but yeah I think I hope I answered your question let's see okay great yeah and if you need any help I can help you with with e views because I did my whole research project on that so we had like an end like a really long sessions where you know we had to cover how exactly the software works so that's good so I can help you if need any help so it was a picture of excel and yeah yeah I'd love to help you with that yeah great so if any of you have other questions I would love to answer them I guess we're done then are we done and close the session and I think people will mostly reach out to you yeah yeah I hope you got my social media I think it's right there right below thank you so yeah just please connect yeah okay great thank you so much Sukanya for all the help and thank you so much guys for attending my talk it really means a lot and I hope you enjoyed it and it was informative and I hope you go after you know your passion in your dreams and you and you don't really you know let anyone else tell you that you know you're not capable of doing something so the last one is very important the last one is very important exactly yeah and at the end you have to have that dedication you know if you if you want that dedication then you're just screwed yeah this is the more of I mean it's the fundamental of anything and exactly right dedication thank you for joining and thank you Nainika for this inspiring session once again and thank you so much it was really an example for many who wants to make a big breakthrough and also who is trying probably who is also a college student and trying to you know get back into the industry yeah I mean I know a lot of college students who who are in CS but now they're into UIX design so and that actually that didn't really help them their whole four-year degree didn't help them because they completely broke out of it and they were like no let's just you know take up designing and actually take it as a career and they did it all on their own like even from even in my case in fact for the whole job hunting scenario I I didn't depend any of my connections I was on LinkedIn like 24-7 and guys LinkedIn is the most important thing out there like it's the most important social media tool because you you get so much from it like you meet you get to meet so many people and if you network the right way you will end up getting a really good job like I I hadn't really I mean I underestimated the importance of LinkedIn before you know I start this whole job hunting part but it's actually great so just network as much as possible and yeah if you need any help again I'm here I'm always here so thank you so much great to know thank you all for joining thank you we'll be closing the session we are on the top of PR yeah alright okay thank you bye