Women On Web (WoW) : Highlights of Session 4 | Felicitation Ceremony

Venue : Venture Studio, Ahmedabad
Date & Time : January 17, 2-6 pm
Organized by : Utkarsh Foundation

#HelpWomenGetOnline : As mentioned in the Agenda, here are the highlights from the last session of Women On Web event.

Our master in Action : Rekha Adhwaryu - A big thanks to her for motivating the women and co-ordinating with the whole event.

We invited distinguished chief guests to award the certificates to the participants. Jatin Chowdhary from eChai enlightened the women about entrepreneurship.
                          

The participants were awarded the certificates by Jatin Chowdhary (eChai) , Manisha Vaja (herexpertise.com) and Jigishaben (Mirambika school)

Speakers getting awarded the certificates!

The cool teacher - Dhruva Shastri

The strict teacher - Jenny Chawla

 Leader of the initiative - Vaibhavi Desai

The mandatory group photograph!!

Women On Web (WoW) : Highlights of Session 3 | Blogger and Social Media

Venue : Sadvichar Parivar, Ahmedabad
Date & Time : January 9, 2-6 pm
Organized by : Utkarsh Foundation

#HelpWomenGetOnline : As mentioned in the Agenda, here are the highlights from the third session of Women On Web event.

This session was aimed at introducing the participants to Blogging, Social Media and Smartphones.

                           

Our speaker Jenny Chawla started the session by introducing them about "Blogging".

The participants were really excited with the concept of a "Blog" and all of them created their own blogs at the session.

This was followed by a detailed informative session on different social media Platforms like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. It took some time initially to understand the differences between all these social platforms, but ultimately they could get the concept well !

Jenny also taught them to use all these applications from their own smartphones, having the world on their fingertips !

A big thanks to Rekha ma'am for helping with the co-ordination.

As this was a smartphone specific session, participants liked it the most ! I will update soon on our next session.

Women On Web (WoW) : Highlights of Session 2 | Gmail & YouTube

Venue : Virtual Height IT Solutions Pvt Ltd, Ahmedabad
Date & Time : December 26, 3-6 pm
Organized by : Utkarsh Foundation

#HelpWomenGetOnline : As mentioned in the Agenda, here are the highlights from the second session of Women On Web event.

The session was mainly aimed at introducing the women participants to Gmail and YouTube along with a hand-on practice session.

                            


Our first speaker, Dhruva Shastri helped participants creating a Google Account and then explained them all the basic concepts of Gmail. All the participants found this tool very much helpful and interesting as most of them have their relatives staying abroad, and they'd be able to communicate with them well. Also, some women who wish to help their husbands with their business & work, were very much satisfied with the hands-on session.

Here is the link to her presentation - Learning Gmail Basics

This was followed by the YouTube session, by Jenny Chawla. Jenny introduced the participants to the world of Online Videos via YouTube. The participants could make their channels on their own at the end of the session !

Here is the link to her presentation - YouTube Basics

A big thanks to Rekha ma'am for helping with the co-ordination. Also, Pratik and Amar turned out to be a great support throughout the event.

It turned out to be a very informative and interesting session overall ! I will update soon on our next session.

Women Techmakers Ahmedabad - Event by GDG Ahmedabad

Google Developer Groups (GDGs) are for developers who are interested in Google's developer technology; everything from the Android, Chrome, Drive, and Google Cloud platforms, to product APIs like the Cast API, Maps API, and YouTube API. As a local chapter of GDG (GDG - Ahmedabad), we plan regular meetup/events to discuss, share experience, share and get knowledge amongst the group.

Women Techmakers is Google’s brand and global program for women in technology. Women Techmakers provides visibility, community, and resources for women in technology to drive innovation and participation in the field. Women Techmakers events are designed to promote an environment of inclusivity for women in technology, as well as celebrate women leading the industry. We want to advance, grow, and celebrate women developers, designers, and technology entrepreneurs.

In order to celebrate the month of International Women’s Day (March 8), we had a very successful event “Women Techmakers Ahmedabad” on 27th March, 2015 at Ahmedabad University campus. Currently, team GDG Ahmedabad includes Paresh Mayani, Dhrumil Shah, Ketan Raval, Vaibhavi Desai, Utpal Betai, Pratik Patel, Chintan Rathod and Dhruva Shastri.

Following are some statistics regarding the event.

Participants:

  - Total 75 participants

  - 50% developers + 50% students

  - Gender ratio was 70% (female) - 30% (male)

Technologies/topics covered:

• Opportunities with Google
• Google Anita Borg Scholarship
• App demo of an app made up using Beacons
• Tech startups - Success Stories
• Social startups - explaining how website and mobile world is helping them reach out to a larger audience
• Introduction to Git and GitHub
• Latest trends in android

The event started with a talk on “Opportunities with Google” by the Women Techmaker Lead of GDG Ahmedabad, Vaibhavi Desai. She explained different initiatives of Google for students and professionals. It included Google Student Ambassador Program, Google Developer Group, Google Business Group, Google Anita Borg Memorial Asia Pacific Scholarship, Google summer of code, Google internship/jobs etc.

This was followed by a tech entrepreneurial talk by Nidhi Suthar, founder of a tech startup - “Persona”. She inspired the audience a lot ! Then we had a session on “Latest trends in Android” by Dhrupal Patel, who works as a Software engineer at InfoStretch Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

After two light sessions, we again had Vaibhavi Desai on board as a speaker, explaining the use of Git and GitHub in detail. She explained the whole technology from scratch, which the participants found very much useful in the era of collaborative working and open source contribution.

We also had some product demos of the women-led-startups, where they talked about their lives, their experiences, how they are using technology to take their startup to an altogether new level.

It included the talks of Monica Yadav (Respire Experiential Learning Group - Breathe the change), Kruthika Katrat (OoWomaniya - Women's Health and Wellness Companion) and Kanan Dhruv (Lawtoon - Where Children can learn the laws Comics way). One demo was on a budding startup - wWhere - World's First Location Sharing Service, which was presented by the team members Kajal Patel and Kinjal Patel.

Last but not the least, the lighting talk by Aditi Gupta (Founder, Menstrupedia - Your guide to healthy periods) on “Using technology effectively for a social change” made a deep impact on people’s minds. Aditi is working towards spreading awareness about menstruation. Aditi made it to the achiever’s list of Forbes India 30 under 30, 2014 for her work towards breaking the taboo around menstruation. Menstrupedis’s website has 2 lakhs visitors per month and a community of 100+ writers on Menstrupedia Blog. Aditi is also is a TEDx Speaker and a Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum. She dreams of a future where menstruation is not a taboo but a welcoming change in a girl’s life.

The biggest achievement of the event was, that we had a wonderful combination of  leading women speakers - starting from budding and well recognized startups ( both tech and social ), bright students, experienced developers working in reputed companies of the city.

As this was a woman centric event, we got an extraordinary response from the female participants saying that they want more and more events like this. The invited women speakers proved to be a great source of motivation for all the participants over there.

Google Summer of Code 2014 : Timeline

I am working for Systers, an Anita Borg Community as a part of my GSoC project. My project is about making an admin website which can be used to interact with the android and ios applications of Malaria Prevention Application and Peacetrack Project. The  project is in python-django.

Here goes the timeline of my project...

Malaria Prevention Application

Week 1 : May 19 - May 25

Complete UI design, make the templates ready and start python project backend

Week 2 : May 26 - June 1

python backend complete, integration with jinja/django template system

Week 3 : June 2 - June 8

starting with api making

Week 4 : June 9 - June 15

api making complete,

checking integration of api with android and ios applications

Week 5 : June 16 - June 22

code review, refactor, testing

Week 6 : June 23 - June 29

Evaluation and suggestions

PeaceTrack System

Week 7 : June 30 - July 6

requirements understanding, UI design complete, make the templates

Week 8 : July 7 - July 13

python backend

Week 9 : July 14 - July 20

python backend complete, start with api making

Week 10 : July 21 - July 27

api work complete

Week 11 : July 28 - Aug 3

integrating with android and ios applications

Week 12 : Aug 4 - Aug 10

messaging functionality implementation, both multicast and unicast;

refactor, review, testing

Week 13 : Aug 11 - Aug 17

Evaluation and suggestions

'Conflictorium' : Depicting Conflict Through Art

'Creativity comes from the CONFLICT of ideas'

                                                            -Donatella Versace

Housed in the Gool Lodge, The Conflictorium is set to be a participatory museum that addresses the theme of conflict in the Mirzapur area of Ahmedabad. It seeks to act as a third space to create a dialogue through art.

Conflict is an inseparable part of an ideal life. Whether we talk about the history – the time of Buddha, Mahavira, Akbar, Gandhi or talk about the present – the current social, political issues - conflict is everywhere. Conflictorium is an initiative to engage the society with a variety of conflict issues, by celebrating plurality and encouraging conflict expression and avoidance in artistic and creative ways.

The different models depicting the above concepts are the following :

Conflict Timeline:

A collection of historical rebels, riots, violence, revolutions  - the news paper cuttings of the same which reflects conflict in a way.

Empathy Alley :

The great Indian leaders – even in today’s world, the shadows of their differences prevail and affect the people.

Moral Compass :

The Constitution of India – the best example of it.

Sorry Tree :

Aplogizing and forgiving are the most profound of human behaviours, leading as a solution to the conflict. They have the capacity to change the situation.

Memory Lab : 

Memory Lab is a collection of personal experiences of conflict. You can make a small shape out of clay, place it inside a jar and write a caption on a chit. By collecting these master pieces, the plan is to develop a community art installation.

Perspectives :

No two people see and imagine in the same way. Everytime it gives a different angle, dimension and though seeing from each others’ position and point of view.

Gallery Of Disputes :

Conversation Quadrangle :

It is a small auditorium where every Saturday (5 pm) an episode from the famous Indian series – “Bharat Ek Khoj” is screened. 

The series has been created by Shyam Benegal, inspired from the well known book of Jawaharlal Nehru – “Discovery of India”. You get to see a rare combination of olden culture, dressing, architecture, monuments, people and the most important one – an interesting story.

We enjoyed the life story of the great emporer Ashoka, who afterwards left his kingdom and became a true follower of Buddha.

Truly, a place worth visiting !