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00:00:21 KAVITA DOSHI: Hi everyone and welcome to #SheMeansBusiness, where we celebrate amazing women leaders who are driving change and making a difference. Today we are speaking with Vidushi Kapoor. She brings 15 years of experience in language, technology and finance after successful stints at EnY and Goldman Sachs. She is currently leading Process 9 and is dedicated to building the company into a global leader in language technology solutions. Vidushi, in addition to her corporate responsibilities, actively contributes to industry development initiatives, including service on the Executive Board of CITLOB, as Chapter Manager for India and Women in Localization, and as a member of Nasscom's SME Council. Welcome, Vidushi. Thank you for joining us. Vidushi, let's start with your journey. And was there a specific moment or experience that first drew you towards technology? I mean, were you a tech gig, perhaps an early innovation? And there you thought that this is where I belong.
00:01:19 VIDUSHI KAPOOR: Well, I never knew I'd end up in technology. Actually, my background is is not one of engineering or IT. I actually studied economics from LSR but I had a very early influence of both languages and technology. My father who is also my Co founder at Process 9 has been in this space for since pretty much since when I was born. And he has been making language technology solutions to make Indian languages available on the desktop, on laptops, making you know, typing easy, making solutions for Indian language newspapers, regional language newspapers. So I was always exposed to this world from the very beginning and when Internet and mobile and smartphones really started coming to India in a meaningful way, that's when ideas sparked and conversation started. One thing led to the other and I saw myself leaving my finance related job at a bank to come back to Gurgaon and start processing with it.
00:02:32 KAVITA DOSHI: Oh, great. So I think localization is in the blood, you know, and when we talk about localization and breaking language barriers, we think of, you know, they're not just about business, but then they're also about access and inclusion. You know, how do you see your work impacting, you know, the underserved communities and what's been the most rewarding feedback that you've ever got on this?
00:02:55 VIDUSHI KAPOOR: So absolutely, absolutely. It's about inclusion. In fact, the reason why my father got into this space altogether, and that is a big reason for the genesis of Process 9 as well, is because he faced the inclusion problem or the language barrier personally while growing up. You know, he was born and brought up in a village and then when he came for his higher studies, he realized that the medium of communication, the medium of imparting education was English, whereas he had studied in Hindi medium. And that was his personal encounter with the language barrier. And that is why, you know, he has been on this mission and he has inspired me and so many others to be on this mission to break language barriers. And for us, I think it's not just one or two isolated examples. It's when we see merchants, mall mom and pop stores, auto rickshaw drivers, fruit vendors, Cobblers, everyone today having AQR code, being able to use apps like, you know, Google Pay, Paytm in their own language and being part of this financial inclusion journey or, or using any of the different apps or banking applications in their language and, and getting that empowerment with technology. It is, it is the most rewarding thing that that you can do when you realize that you're playing some sort of role in it.
00:04:26 KAVITA DOSHI: I think that I totally agree that that's quite amazing how technology has, you know, made a lot of things inclusive for, you know, a lot of people, especially in a country like ours, which is so diverse in many ways. You know, currently we're talking about technology that existed, you know, before and, you know, that has also brought in these changes. But as we move forward, you know, if we look at AI's role in redefining industries, how do you think from where we stand, you know, how do you think the role of emerging tech like AI will transform, you know, an area like localization landscape over a few years?
00:05:05 VIDUSHI KAPOOR: AI has been in the language space for a very long time. Actually. It's just now that other industries are also finding use cases and are waking up to the magic of AI. But we have, for example, been creating AI and transformer model and neural models for translation from a very long time. And that is what has been driving a lot of our products and platforms that now power localization for some of the biggest brands of the country. So language, especially for the translation industry, AI has, has been one of the game changers, but it has been around for a while and it is now of course at the place where we can make changes faster, we can make progress a lot faster than than we could do it before.
00:05:59 KAVITA DOSHI: I mean, if you have to give us an example, what would that be?
00:06:04 VIDUSHI KAPOOR: An example of?
00:06:06 KAVITA DOSHI: Of the role of AI in one of these areas. Is there a specific example that comes to your mind.
00:06:17 VIDUSHI KAPOOR: Well, the fact that machine translation itself, that is the biggest and most prolific use of AI in the translation industry. And previously it was statistical models that were being used. But today everyone has moved to, for example, the neural models and transformer models in making translation AI. And that has brought about such a jump in the accuracy of translations. We're also able to do voice with languages now. So when you combine that, you can actually have me talking in one language, whereas another person getting a simultaneous translation of that in text and voice. And we have seen that happen in many conferences or even public speeches where the power of AI and technology is actually being used for real time communication between two people who speak two different languages.
00:07:18 KAVITA DOSHI: Well, that's fascinating, you know, but you know, currently we, you know, the kind of changes that's happening around the world, you know, and we talk about leadership in a tech powered world today and you know, there is just so much happening in tech. But when we talk about leadership, which is also something that is extremely important, how do you decide, you know, when to embrace a new technology versus when to step back and wait?
00:07:47 VIDUSHI KAPOOR: Well, so there are two things to it. Your, your earlier point of, you know, capturing leadership with technology. One thing that every leader today needs to understand is that there is no future without technology. And they need to make conscious effort to become more savvy with technology, to start understanding technology. And they can no longer afford to be a loop, you know, remain separated from the whole process and have just a small team or a department deal with technology for them. They have to have to understand that, that if you are a leader today and you want to survive, thrive and, you know, grow in the future, you have to be technologically savvy. That will give you the appreciation to a understand what let's say you talk about a new technology. If you are able to get some understanding of what that technology is, you are able to take a decision between the risk and reward of adopting that technology. If you don't understand the technology and you're just following the hype that comes with it, and you're taking decisions without, you know, understanding what lies at the core, that's when mistakes can happen. But if you have that appreciation, you understand that, then you can do a proper evaluation of the risk and reward. And if those match, if the risk is something you're willing to take and the reward is something that excites you, that's when you would decide that you know, whether this is for me or not.
00:09:31 KAVITA DOSHI: Well, that's, I think that's very well said on the risk and reward front. Looking ahead, if you must, let's say look 5 to 10 years ahead, what excites you the most about this intersection of technology and leadership then?
00:09:45 VIDUSHI KAPOOR: Well, for me personally, I think the space that we're in is, is what excites me the most today. If we realistically look at the situation knowledge for any topic, any subject, it's freely available to 1:00 and all, But what is it that is really stopping someone from getting access to that knowledge, that power, it's language barrier. The Internet, YouTube, there's so many online courses, they're free. And thanks to technology and our leaders, the Internet and a smartphone is available in almost every hand in this country and in the world. So it's not that they cannot learn anything that they want to or be anyone they want besides or accept language. And if we are able to really break this barrier and make every piece of information accessible to everyone in this world in their language, then, you know, the possibilities are immense. Then there's, you know, So for me, the most exciting part is continuously working to find tech solutions to break this language barrier across the world and then unleash the potential of what mankind can do.
00:11:14 KAVITA DOSHI: With this, I think we come to an end to this wonderful chat. Thank you so much Vidoshi, and I think you're doing some exciting work and we look forward to partnering with you in future. Thank you so much.
