On Saturday, May 20th, DataEthics4All Foundation hosted their 1st in person My Journey into Tech event with the support of SAP at the state of the art SAP Academy for Engineering.

My Journey into Tech is an exclusive event series designed by DataEthics4All Foundation for High School Students to help them explore new linear and nonlinear career paths in STEAM, STEM, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, and Generative AI through the journey of Silicon Valley Techies!!

We hosted this Pie & AI event as a Deeplearning.AI Ambassador to help High School Students break into AI with a Welcome message from Andrew Ng!!

We had 8 fabulous Speakers for the event, each with their very own unique journey into the world of technology who generously volunteered their Saturday morning and their wisdom and expertise to help local Bay Area high school students learn new career paths into Biomedical Engineering, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, Social Good, Data Ethics, Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking, Social Sciences, Product Design and more…

What was inspiring about these Speakers was that most of them came to the US as Immigrants and found their place in the World of Tech by perseverance and hard work.

Pablo Roisman, Senior AI Product Manager at SAP

Pablo, born in Argentina, moved to Israel when he was 3 years old and moved to Bay Area in 2019.

He studied Industrial Engineering and Management for his Undergrad and did his MBA in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Pablo started his tech career as an ABAP Developer in 2007 with SAP, then as a Senior Mobile Developer in 2010 to become a Scrum Master in 2013. He then rose up to the ranks and became a Software Architect in 2016, then led the Conversational AI team in 2018 and is now the Senior AI Product Manager all with SAP!!

Pablo’s Key advice for High School Students: Be Honest with Yourself!!

• Stay Curious

• Learn and develop interest in variety of subjects and fields

• Develop soft skills

• Surround yourself with knowledgeable colleagues who can serve as valuable sources of learning

• Be Proactive – Don’t just wait to opportunities, equip yourself to seize them when they arise

Shilpi Agarwal, Founder and CEO at DataEthics4All Foundation

Shilpi, started her career in tech with a Bachelors in Engineering, Computer Science from the National Institute of Technology, Surat but didn’t enjoy coding.

Driven by creativity, she then went on to pursue a Masters Degree in Designmajoring in Visual Communication from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India.

Continuing on her creative path, she pursued her passion in many creative fields such as Glass, Clay and even started her first Company offering services in Photography, Videography and elaborate digital collages in the early days of Snapfish and Shutterfly.

She then started a Digital Marketing Agency, went on to become a growth Mentor to the Startups Worldwide at the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center and the MIT $100K Entrepreneurial Competition.

Shilpi then got an opportunity to become an Adjunct Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz as well as the University of California Berkeley and then went on to teach ‘Social Data and Artificial Intelligence for Marketers‘ at Stanford University as an Adjunct Faculty before she started DataEthics4All Foundation.

She’s now known as a thought leader in Data and AI Ethics, speaks at Conferences by the California Depart of Education, her work is featured on the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation Website and she’s an invite only member for the World Economic Forum Responsible Use of Technology Initiative.

Shilpi’s Key advice for High School Students: Follow Your Passion to create Big Impact

1. Identify Opportunity and Gaps around you

2. Discover your Passion

3. Leverage your Strengths and Skills

4. Turn that into a Product or a Service

5. To lead the biggest Impact

So, how does one get started on this Journey?

DataEthics4All Foundation’s STEAM in AI Program helps high school students explore interests, discover career paths, acquire new skills, prepare for jobs for the future, and boost their College Applications!

Shubhangi Agrawal, Director of Software Engineering at Lyell Immunopharma

Shubhangi started her journey in tech with a Bachelors in Bioengineering & Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, then went on to pursue a Masters in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley.

She started as a Research and Innovation Intern at L’Oreal in 2012, then joined Accenture as a Business and Technology lead, went on to become a Data Analyst at AB Sciex (Danaher).

Shubhangi joined Thermo Fischer Scientific as a Data Analyst in 2019, then grew to be the Assistant Director of Engineering, Data Science and Architecture at Genentech. Today, she works as the Director of Software Engineering for Lyell Immunopharm.

Shubhangi’s guiding principal for High School Students:

1. Gain Multiple Perspectives

2. Take the Road Less Traveled

3. Find a Purpose

4. Be a Specialist

Susanna Raj, Founder and CEO at AI4Nomads

Susanna’s journey into tech unlike other speakers before her did not start in Tech.

It started with curiosity and a commitment to make AI and the world more equitable, ethical and inclusive.

She’s a proud Social Sciences and Arts Major who then went on to work for Companies like Intel and Amazon to finally start an AI data labeling startup.

She volunteers her time generously to organizations such as DataEthics4All 501(c)(3) where Susanna serves as a proud Member of the Board, Women in AI and she’s an AI Ethics Advisory Board Member for the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University.

Susanna’s key advice for High School Students: THE JOURNEY INTO TECH HAS MULTIPLE PATHWAYS

Shyamala Prayaga, Senior Software Product Manager, Conversational AI at NVIDIA

Shyamala talked about her journey into tech, how she grew up in a small town in India called Jabalpur to pursue an undergrad degree in Civil Engineering to gain accolades such as ‘The 10 Most Influential Business women to follow, 2023‘, ‘World’s Top 200 Business & Technology Innovators‘, ‘Top 100+ Women Advancing AI in 2023′ and more…

She’s the proud author of 2 books ‘Emotionally engaged digital assistant‘ and ‘Close Calls‘ and has been featured on the cover of CIO Views.

Shyamala’s big advice for High School Students: Growth Mindset!

1. Never stop learning

2. Attitude of gratitude

3. Fake it till you make it

4. Giving back

5. Passion

6. Discipline

7. Challenge yourself everyday

8. Do it now

Debbani Naskar, Director of Engineering at Slack

Debbani walked the students through a design thinking exercise by sharing her own journey as an Engineer at a tech company like IBM to now the Director of Engineering at Slack.

What was it like to develop a software product 20 years ago with just the engineering team and no UX or Product Design teams.

Debbani’s big advice: Key components of Design Thinking

1. Human-centered

2. Collaborative

3. Iterative

4. Prototype & Test

She talked about how Design Thinking is not just for Graphic and UX Designers, and how it does not replace Analytical Thinking.

Debbani also emphasized the importance of Human Centered Design and how it takes the 4 key Pillars: People, Design, Business and Technology into consideration to create an optimal Customer User Experience.

Dhruv Diddi, Senior Software Engineer at Turo

Dhruv shared his journey into tech, how he grew up in New Delhi, India, then pursued BSc in ECE at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

He is an ML Engineer based in the San Francisco Bay Area with interests in Applied Machine Learning, MLOps, Data Engineering and Full Stack Development with focus on interdisciplinary projects!

He shared how his role and his contribution at Google YouTube has touched millions of users and in fact, if you’ve used YouTube, you’ve used something that Dhruv contributed to.

His experience has allowed him to contribute to a variety of projects including his passion project AI Art Greetings – art created by AI to personalize and send heartfelt messages to your loved ones.

Dhruv’s Key Advice for High School Students: LOOP

1. Learn Passively

2. Observe Actively

3. Objectify Goals

4. Practice

Katherine Goyette, Computer Science Coordinator at The California Department of Education

Katherine sent in a video for students talking about the role of technology in Our World yesterday, today and into the future.

From the very first computer device, to rotary telephones to listening music on CDs and tuning into radio stations and reading an actual newspaper to keep up with the latest and greatest in the world.

Today in 2023, our media landscape has completely shifted to likes and tweets, social media feeds, how we’re giving up data everyday and how ethics is key.

California’s Computer Science Standard adopted by the California State Board of Education in 2018 calls for all students in the state to have access to education that includes concepts regarding the impacts of computing, data and analysis, computing systems, networks of the internet, and algorithms and programming.

The California Department of Education recognizes the need to educate all of youth to be informed, productive digital citizens and that’s why the California Department of Education encourages students to take advantages of opportunities such as DataEthics4All Foundation’s: Pie & AI – My Journey into Tech to continue learning new technologies such as AI whether or not you choose to pursue a career specifically in AI

Here are a few highlights from the event:

If you’d like to learn about future Pie & AI events or host a My Journey into Tech Series at your Company Campus, please reach out to us.