Since my college days, Google has been one of my dream company and so it is for almost every software engineer. But I did get a chance to visit Google Bangalore office, get training from Speechless and join the Google's cause to help motivate women in technology.
This all began around October, 2014 when I came across a form from Google saying it is inviting applications for women/girls who are in technology and feel for the cause of motivating others. I was super delighted to see the form because I was thinking about doing something to help budding technologists and this seemed to me a perfect opportunity. So I read on, there were two essays with no word limit which the candidates were supposed to fill. One of the questions was what was your motivation that you made you women in technology and what are your goals/objective another question was why do feel for this cause of helping the female technologists.
I submitted the application and then waited and waited. After around 15 days or so I received a mail congratulating me for getting selected in Techmakers program. They selected 10 girls from all over India.
Then a Program Manager scheduled a call with all the selected techmakers individually and we were supposed to confirm the dates. As I was supposed to fly from Delhi to Bangalore twice once around November beginning and next time around December beginning.
Skipping to the day of training. This time the aim was to introduce the techmakers to each other. Meet the PMs involved in this program. I also met the Country Head of Startup Support ecosystem at Google and other employees of Google Bangalore. There was also a team which had come to the Bangalore's office from Google Hyderabad. Another aim of this visit to give us public speaking training which would ultimately help us to motivate women in technology. The best part about the training was that no matter how much it sounds non-tech but there were a lot of technical discussions going on there.I came across other programs in which Google acts a technical support for start up ecosystem. I interacted with software developers there to know what exactly do they work on in this office.
For the training purpose. Actors/comedian from Speechless had come to India specially. That training was the best of all the trainings.The training began with a weird game in which all the candidates and PMs of Google were made to stand in a circle and we were supposed to innovate various sounds or body actions. Then the aim was to pretend that we are giving something delicate to someone else in different styles. After every one hour we would get break time. In which we used to explore every corner of Google's office. From Oatmeal to super amazing but unhealthy giant brownies. From a toffee to ice-cream, fruits we had so much to chose from. Note - lunch was altogether a different meal. In our next training session, we were divided in groups of 2 and we were asked to come in front of presentations. We didn't know what was there in the slides but we knew the story line around which we were supposed to speak. We chose Hindu mythology Ramayan. So, a random slide used to come on screen, say an exploding bulb or tree inside a house or green star and we were supposed to speak using the objects shown in slide and sticking to the story line we had picked in the beginning. Then we had an amazing lunch.
After lunch each techmaker was asked to come on stage and tell her story. THIS WAS THE BEST PART OF THIS ENTIRE PROGRAM. The stories were so different yet so encouraging and motivating. I prepared a story of around 9 min in my head but once I went on stage I skipped the unnecessary part and finished it in merely 4 min. I was given the feedback to include the details and go more in depth. Then we had dinner with Google team :) and we headed back to our hotel.
Next day real work began. Target was to shoot a a 4-5 min video. The content could be or could not be in line with our final video's script. This time aim was not to get the script right but to get us friendly with the camera. Each one of us got a chance to become director, producer, camera man, mic man, make up artist etc. It was fun to play all these roles that too with a professional camera and editing system right in front of you. In one of the practice session, a techmaker was speaking somewhere around the middle of her script another girl said CUT,STOP IT. We all were shocked and literally scared. It was like we were lost in the silence of the room with just one voice speaking. We asked her what happened and it turned out the speaker was not wearing a mike while the camera was rolling. We had an amazing time.
At the end of the day, 3 best videos were replayed. We were given a book/reading material and a super cool Women Techmaker logo stickers shown on the top of the screen. I have these stickers on both of my laptops to remind me about objective of this program every time I look at my laptops.
After I came back to Delhi, merely after a week our so, we started getting mails to prepare for the main day. We were sent literally 10 TB of videos/articles etc to help us make our final script. And each week we used to have around an hour call with Google Hyderabad PMs who met us in Bangalore. The first script which I wrote and the final one had only "is", "was", "the" common in them. The script went through so many changes. On the day of shoot, I was so tired because of flight and all that I asked all girls - present on that day to get their videos shot before me. Finally when my turn came I gave my best shot with a minor fumble in one word. They asked me to give another shot but I don't know was it the lights glaring right on my face or was it the relief that my first video was pretty good, I could never speak more than 15 sec. I either used to fumble badly or used to discover a new word while speaking the script. One time rather than saying opportunistic I said oppotunityyyIstic and then I was wondering whether it is a word or not. Finally, after giving 3-4 such 15-25 sec shots I gave up and said I am okay with first video itself.
Then I was given a logitech camera to shoot videos and a shrug with [W] logo.
Next day I took my flight to Hyderabad, to meet a friend and then came back to Delhi.
We get mails from the PMs now and then suggesting us some good reads.
No doubts the experience was amazing, innovative, technical, funny and unforgettable. I met the one of the finest people in technology who were not only professional but also down to earth. I met with such fine other female developers and discussed with them what all problems I feel that I faced being a part of minority group in the technical industry and got their advice too.
Once again thanks Google. This time not for the pic or URLs but for one of the most amazing learning of my life.And for actually taking a step forward to motivate women in technology rather than sitting back and just publishing statements on newspaper that "companies should aim for diversity."
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