2022 WEBINAR AND CEREMONY

Navigating Success

Opening Keynote by Nivruti Rai and Lakshmi Pratury

Nivruti Rai is the Country Head, Intel India. and is passionate about the Indian technology ecosystem and how we can usher in the next technology revolution for India and the world.

Lakshmi Pratury is an entrepreneur, curator, and speaker. She is the founder and CEO of INK and has previously spent time in various technology and venture capital Rokes with Intel, Global Innovation Catalyst. She was also included in Forbes Magazine's 2010 list of "Women to Watch in Asia". She is deeply curious about technology and the role it can play in changing our society.

Together Nivruti Rai and Lakshmi Pratury bring their years of experience into an enriching conversation about the Indian technology ecosystem, ushering in the next technology revolution in India, and paths taken by women in advancing in technological fields in India.

Lifelong STEM Learning with Anant Agrawal and Chitra Nayak

Anant Agarwal is the Chief Open Education Officer at 2U, Inc., guiding and furthering the company’s mission to increase access to high quality education for everyone, everywhere.  Anant joined 2U through the edX acquisition, where he directed its evolution into one of the world’s leading online platforms as founder and CEO.  As the first educator to teach an edX course on circuits and electronics from MIT, Anant drew 155,000 students from 162 countries. He remains a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT today.  Previously, he served as the director of CSAIL, MIT’s Computer Science and AI Laboratory. 

Chitra Nayak is a board member at Infosys, Invitae, ForwardAir, and LifeWorks. She advises startups on Go-To-Market. She was COO Platform at Salesforce. Chitra is the co-founder of Neythri.org, supporting the advancement of South Asian professional women. Chitra has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS from Cornell University and a BTech from IIT-Madras.

Entering STEM fields offers women a wider range of employment opportunities with higher pay.  The demand for STEM skills grows around the world, and it is up to us to ensure that women and girls do not miss out.  In the panel discussion on lifelong STEM  learning, technologists Anant Agarwal and Chitra Nayak have an enlightening conversation about the future of education and lifelong learning, particularly drawing attention to opportunities available for women in advancing their STEM education as they continue to advance in their careers.

STEM Journeys Panel with Pooja Goyal, M.S. Archana, Anjana Susarla

Pooja Goyal is the Cofounder and COO of Avishkaar which is a platform to support children learn next gen tech skills like Robotics, AI, IoT and Coding. Avishkaar is her 3rd start up and has been named in the top 100 disruptive start-ups to watch out for worldwide by Analytics India. Her last start-up, Intellitots was in the early years education space and was acquired by Founding Years. She worked at Adobe in the Bay Area for many years where she managed the Acrobat product marketing team. Pooja graduated from IIT Delhi in 1996 and later did her MBA from INSEAD, France. Pooja has been awarded the ‘Women transforming India’ award by the Govt of India. She invests in women led companies and supports women founders through SheEO club, an organization she founded a few years ago. 

Anjana Susarla is the Omura-Saxena Professor of Responsible AI at the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. She has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Texas at Austin. She studies algorithmic bias and responsible AI.

M. S. Archana graduated from IIT Kanpur in 2019 with a B.Tech. major in Electrical Engineering, and minors in Machine Learning and Computer Systems. She is an alumna of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya and a Dakshana Scholar. She received the Ashok Jain award for being the Female topper from the Dakshana batch of 2015. Archana is presently a software engineer.

It is well recognized that there are varied challenges faced by women in their STEM journeys across the globe. In the panel discussion on STEM journeys, technologist Pooja Goyal, scientist Anjana Susarla, and young software engineer M. S. Archana talk about their individual STEM journeys, challenges they faced, and in doing so, provide inspiring lessons to listeners.

Prize awarded by Priya Pattathil  

Joy’s wife & Biz dev executive at Thermo Fisher

Conversation Between Prize Winner Kavita Chopra and Kavya Gopal

The very first JTF Prize winner – Kavya Chopra of IIT Delhi meets the very first Presidential Gold Medal winner of IIT Madras – 2019 BTech graduate Kavita Gopal for a delightful conversation between the accomplished senior and the curious first year student!

Kavya Chopra, the first recipient of the Joy Thomas Prize is the top ranked woman student in the 2021 All-India Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) (Advanced). She is also the first woman to obtain a perfect score and All India Rank 1 in the JEE (Main). During her school years, Kavya has been selected to attend various Olympian camps conducted by HBSCE, including Junior Science, Chemistry, and Mathematics. She is a senior diploma holder in Bharatanatyam. She is presently pursuing a BTech degree in Computer Science at IIT Delhi and exploring fields such as machine learning and web development.

Kavitha Gopal is the first woman to be honored with the President's Gold Medal in 60 years of IIT Madras history. She is also a World Finalist at ACM ICPC, which is considered the Olympics of programming competitions. Kavitha holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and is passionate about solving real world problems. Kavitha is presently a software engineer.