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00:00:00 KAVITA DOSHI: Welcome to this special series of Nasscom Spotlight where we are looking at #SheMeansBusiness tale of women's in SME. We have a fantastic, very special person with us, Deepika Saxena, President and CEO, NetEdge Computing Solutions. Deepika, without any Much Ado, I will just, you know, jump on to questions because I think our viewers are really waiting to get that insights from you that we're looking at to begin with. You know what inspired you to start your tech company and how has your vision evolved over time?
00:00:35 DEEPIKA SAXENA: OK, so first of all, thank you for having me today. When I started, at the time I started around 1992, that was the time when people did not. There were not too many startups or anything. The main motivation behind starting my own was to be my own boss and to have the flexibility in timings so that I could devote time to my family. Also, my son was born around the same time and I wanted to have the flexibility of doing whatever I wanted. So I wanted to work on cutting edge technologies at my pace, you know. So that was really the main motivation. And we were very lucky because although at the time there were many challenges, unique challenges like no Internet, no mobiles, not even laptops. But then there were, you know, opportunities for innovation. And since the Indian economy was just opening up, so I just thought I had worked enough. Let me just give it a try. That's how I started.
00:01:48 KAVITA DOSHI: But that's actually, you know, when you spoke about challenges and there is just this one thing that came on me. Sudha Murthy keeps talking about her journey as being an engineer and saying that she was probably the only woman in the entire college and how she went through that journey. Is there anything that you would also want to share given you were, you know, you started this much early? And we didn't have so many women in that field back then.
00:02:13 DEEPIKA SAXENA: Yeah. So see, I did my post graduation from IIT Delhi and before that I did my mathematics graduation in Saint Stephen's College. So there were not too many women at that time. And even if you see the whole IT industry at that time, it wasn't, it was kind of in fancy and there were not too many IT professionals. But I think I did a right choice. I was working in a very good company and you know what to work on, good projects, and things turned out pretty well. So you also talked about the vision. So really speaking, if you see at the time I didn't quite have a clear vision of what I wanted to do. It was just like whatever came our way and I would say I was very lucky because we got some very good projects, like we had a project from Thailand taxation, which was to implement in the whole country the distributed network, which was a huge project. So the learning was a lot because we were able to work with people from all nationalities and working on advanced tools and everything. So after that, you know, once you work on a good project and you make relations, then things start happening because you get good references and then you know, get more projects and so on. South, I would say our company as the name implies, Netex. So we have actually tried to be always on the cutting edge of the products. So I mean if you really see, I think our we have been very lucky because we got very good opportunities and you know, it just kept building up with you know more and more projects. And I would say we were far ahead of from the time like in I think around 2003, we were doing the forecasting kind of things, forecasting fuel prices, using the weather data. Those are the kinds of things which are happening right now. So people are working on the models and so on. South, I think we got very good opportunities and we got to learn a lot from our clients because we were on the technology side, but the exposure was in two different domains and that was excellent.
00:04:34 KAVITA DOSHI: So you spoke about, you know, cutting edge solutions, you know, saying that you've always been cutting edge, you know, trying to be cutting edge in your company. So today, you know, how do you see edge computing and IoT solutions transforming businesses operations for SMEs if we talk about and what specific challenges do you, you know, help companies overcome when implementing these technologies globally?
00:05:01 DEEPIKA SAXENA: The first thing is IoT and edge computing, etc. The way they have over a period of time, as you see the speed is improving. First thing is edge computing means you are actually having, you know, computing on the edge, which means you are not relying on the cloud infrastructure, which is excellent because that saves all the energy. It, you know, gives you more bandwidth. You can actually do all the compute on the edge. So that is excellent and IoT also as you see IoT actually connects with the cloud. So we have now got used to Alexa and all those things. But these are of course some of these are just for entertainment so on. But if you really see from the SME perspective, I think there is a huge potential because if you want to work any do anything in the remote areas, you know you can have the these IoT enabled devices over there and you can get notified sitting somewhere else and you know know what exactly you have to do. So I think they have a huge potential for SMEs already you can see factory 4.0. So you know all these sensors, IoT enabled sensor are being used in manufacturing industry and so on. There is a huge potential and people are innovating, new solutions are coming. So definitely quite a lot to look forward to.
00:06:27 KAVITA DOSHI: I think you spoke about new solutions, Deepika, you know, in the next three to five years, you know, do you see, I mean, what are the kind of tech trends do you believe will significantly impact us?
00:06:39 DEEPIKA SAXENA: Well, there are already, you know, for example, right now there are no code or low code developments. So now SMEs can even create their own custom solutions, right? And which can, you know, because see, earlier they were always dependent on technical manpower and, you know, they were a little bit of scared of technology and so on. Now they're not because so many things have become so much easier. I mean, to the extent that programmers feel they might lose their jobs, you know, so. And there are, of course, many more technologies like quantum computing. Is there blockchain, cryptocurrency? You know, this is so much happening in all these technologies. You know, they are getting refined every day. And if you really see the new technologies are actually, you know, very positive, giving very positive comforts, not only comforts, but things like in health tech, if you really see, you know, there is so much advancement, new drug discoveries or, you know, diagnostics are becoming better. So there is, I would say, because of this huge Internet connectivity as well as all these devices, the quality of life is becoming better. And there is a lot of advancement and there is a lot of innovation happening. That's what I would say.
00:08:09 KAVITA DOSHI: Yeah, along with innovation, there is a lot of confusion for our youngsters, you know, in terms of so many technologies, you know, going around this that, you know, as a leader in education and training, what are the course, course skills you believe individuals should focus on acquiring today? It's not only the students but also people who are already in profession, you know, particularly in the areas of AIIOT or data science.
00:08:34 DEEPIKA SAXENA: See, there are two parts to it. One is of course technology and the other is problem solving skills. I think there is a lot available on the Internet and you know, obviously everybody needs to because all these technologies are new. Not everything can be taught in college. So you have to have a, you know, mindset that you have to do continuous learning. You have to learn about the new technologies and you don't have to, you have to have a plan for yourself. So you can't be just, you know, randomly just browsing Internet and once watching a YouTube on blockchain and next next thing you're watching is something else. So you have to have a plan. I think Nasscom has done very well. You have a future skills platform and you have a SSC also where you know, we are also teaching some of those IoT and AI courses over there. So there is quite a lot. I think mostly the students have to 1st find a guide who can just tell them this is what is of your interest to you. So don't try to just follow anything and everything like data science is good for the people who are actually, you know, in maths and you know who are more towards, you know, machine learning and so on. But then there are so, so many people who can achieve so much with the genea itself. So it is and, and because of these technologies, it can all be customized for the students. So it doesn't have to be that, you know, in college 1 teacher is teaching and you have to just follow that only. There is so much you can do on your own, you know.
00:10:17 KAVITA DOSHI: In your organization, Deepika in particular, and also, you know, with the experience that you have, where do you see AI taking all of us? You know, especially the advent of AI and you know, where is there is the space for humans in it. I mean as an organization, as an individual, what are your views on it?
00:10:37 DEEPIKA SAXENA: The first thing I would say, AI is a good thing, but don't follow it blindly, OK? There is a lot that we are getting out of AI and especially I would say see I studied AI sometime in 1989 or 90, OK. At the time there was number Internet, no data, you know. Now of course, there is so much platform available and we have been using AI for a long time. However, since the time the Gen AI has come, people understand what exactly is artificial intelligence. People, not all people, understand the difference between artificial intelligence and Gen AI. So AI of course has a lot of potential because everything where there is a routine processing, you can automate so many processes using AI. But eventually I think the control still has to be with the humans. You can't totally rely on AI. There are so many places where AI is also making mistake because it is getting refined, so there are new models getting created. Everything is not already there. So definitely and AI is improving. Like if you see the progress as this is tremendous. So from that perspective, I think AI is going to stay. It's not going to go away, and it's going to make our life simpler. Of course, there are going to be prods and other things also happening with the help of AI and so on. But overall, I think AI is a very positive thing that is happening. But the controls have to be with the humans. So learning here is important. But don't think that it is going to replace him with. That's how I think.
00:12:21 KAVITA DOSHI: Thank you so much. I think that is, you know, all of these insights are going to be very, very helpful to a lot of people who are actually listening to this or will listen to this. You know, I think in the end, I just want to ask you one personal question. Thinking back to your early days, what's one piece of advice you wish someone had shared with you? How would that have impacted your journey?
00:12:44 DEEPIKA SAXENA: So first thing which I want to say, see, my company is 32 years old, OK? So as I said, we were lucky. We got many good projects. We started our company in UK, We have our company in US also. So I mean, the opportunities have been many. However, overall, I'm very satisfied with my journey. However, I think we made too many mistakes, OK, We made lots and lots of mistakes. We failed many times. I think what we are, we see we because we were first generation entrepreneurs, we were more passionate about the technology. We did not quite have business sense and we did not have any guidance either, neither from the family. I come from a middle class family where, you know, they would say Jitney, Jadar, Ruthne, Pam fell off. So you know, we never went for any financial assistance. Whatever we were earning is what we were investing in the company. I was very emotionally attached to my company. I treated my company as my baby. You know, nowadays people are much smarter. They say, OK, if you have a company, you know, just take it to scale it and then sell it off. That's how that's what business is. So we were not very smart in business, I would say. So I think what we lacked was a mentor. It's very important to have a mentor. We did not have any mentor. But now on the positive note, we have an incubation facility where we are incubating startups. We are mentoring the startups also. So there were mistakes that we did which we hope that others won't do, so they can actually do things faster. So maybe we were a bit slower in our speed, but overall things have been, well, that's what.
00:14:32 KAVITA DOSHI: I well thank you so much. This has been so insightful. Thank you so much for this and we wish you all the very best.
00:14:38 DEEPIKA SAXENA: Thank you so much.
