Tag: Arundhati Bhattacharya

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Arundhati Bhattacharya Advocates Women’s Role in Emerging Tech

At the New Delhi declaration of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) last December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised that the government’s endeavour is to take full advantage of the capabilities of AI for social development and inclusive growth…reports Asian Lite News

As skilling becomes top priority for the government in creating a talent pool for new and emerging technologies like AI in India, women in the country need to be at the forefront of learning generative AI and play a key role in shaping up new industries, Arundhati Bhattacharya, CEO and Chairperson of Salesforce India, said on Friday.

Speaking to IANS, Bhattacharya who served as former chairperson of the State Bank of India (SBI), said that her advice to women professionals is that they must be at the forefront of whatever industry they are in.

“In the technology industry, generative AI and AI in general are evolving very quickly. Women are very capable of learning as they grow. You have to think on your feet, you have to multitask because it gives women a big advantage,” she said on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

“As long as you are open to doing that, as long as you are sort of conscious of the fact that you need to keep learning, you need to keep evolving, and there is barely any reason why in the new tech areas that are emerging, women should not be playing a far better role”.

At the New Delhi declaration of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) last December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised that the government’s endeavour is to take full advantage of the capabilities of AI for social development and inclusive growth.

“India is also fully committed to the responsible and ethical use of AI. We have started the ‘National Programme on Artificial Intelligence’. We are also going to launch an AI mission in Bharat,” PM Modi had told the gathering.

Bhattacharya said there was a lot of excitement about GenAI but it is still an evolving technology.

“The early excitement has somewhat gone down as people have realised that there are a lot of other concerns with GenAI. Therefore, they want to understand how those concerns are being addressed. Very few have actually put AI for complete use cases and skilling would the key going forward,” she informed.

One of the primary objectives of the ‘India AI Mission’ is to democratise AI skills by taking them to tier 2 and 3 cities.

Skilling for new technologies is one of the top agenda for the government, as it recognizes that there is an urgent need for the tech industry and academic institutions to work along with the governments globally in shaping the future pipeline of talent for AI-related jobs.

“It is clear that there is going to be a huge talent deficit in the field of AI. There is an urgent need for our academic institutions, whether in the UK, Japan or India, to really understand this and start delivering the talent that this AI ecosystem will require,” Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said during the GPAI summit.

According to the minister, the AI industry needs cutting-edge talent, architects and designers of large-language models (LLMs).

Nasscom said recently that India currently ranks first in terms of AI skill penetration and AI talent concentration, and the AI skill shortage is now being felt across the spectrum.

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‘Indomitable’ story of Arundhati’s life as a banker

Did that mean people like me couldn’t dream? This book is written to prove that India can be the land of our dreams and it is our ability to reach out with the right attitude and the right ideas that will get us there…reports Asian Lite News

Growing up in the sleepy towns of Bhilai and Bokaro, Arundhati Bhattacharya never imagined that one day she would go on to chair India’s largest bank. It was sheer chance that she came to know of the bank probationary officers’ entrance examination through a friend. She applied, was selected and went on to have a glorious banking career spanning four decades.

Indomitable is the story of Arundhati’s life as a banker and the challenges she faced in a male-dominated bastion. She takes the reader through her growing up years and early education in the 1960s, getting to Kolkata for her college education and then into the State Bank of India, where she started her career. The life of a woman banker with a family in a frequently transferrable job isn’t easy. In Arundhati’s life, too, there were breaking points when she almost thought of quitting her career to balance her personal aspirations with her family’s needs. But she didn’t give up. Instead, she faced her challenges with humour and positivity and took up every assignment as a new chapter in learning and adapting.

In her role as the chairman of SBI, she steered the bank through some of its worst phases. She inspired confidence in the banking sector when the NPA crises led to a significant public trust deficit. Under her leadership, SBI metamorphosed into a customer-centric and digitally advanced bank while playing a pivotal role in national development. Some of her human resources initiatives included industry-first practices that were appreciated and later adopted by other banks.
Candid, lucid and humble, Indomitable is the story that will galvanize you to embrace challenges, break barriers, push forward and achieve greater heights.

“From a very young age I listened to many older people talking about migrating to the Western world as it was defined as ‘the land of your dreams’. First it was UK then USA and Canada and thereafter Australia and Singapore. I often wondered why India couldn’t become the land of one’s dreams. But I was told in India things don’t work unless you know people. That capital was scarce and that the multiple barriers to living out your dreams didn’t allow for anything other than a mundane existence to people coming from small towns with no backers or backgrounds.

Did that mean people like me couldn’t dream? This book is written to prove that India can be the land of our dreams and it is our ability to reach out with the right attitude and the right ideas that will get us there. Today’s generation is proving me right and I am so proud of them. So to all those who dared to dream – cheers! Hang in there and you will make it,” says the author, Arundhati Bhattacharya.

“Indomitable is the story of small towns, big dreams and greater achievements. Arundhati’s journey, growing up in the sleepy towns of Bhilai and Bokaro, getting into a challenging banking job and leaving her mark as an exceptional leader is an inspiring tale that will be etched in a reader’s mind for years. We are excited and privileged to be publishing this book,” says Sachin Sharma, Executive Editor, HarperCollins India.
Arundhati Bhattacharya is the first woman to chair the State Bank of India (SBI), a 210-year-old institution, India’s largest bank and a Fortune 500 company. Currently, she is the chairperson and CEO of Salesforce India, a cloud-based SaaS company, listed in the USA and headquartered in San Francisco.

HarperCollins Publishers India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers. HarperCollins India publishes some of the finest writers from the Indian Subcontinent and around the world, publishing approximately 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalogue of more than 2,000 titles across 10 imprints.
Its authors have won almost every major literary award including the Man Booker Prize, JCB Prize, DSC Prize, New India Foundation Award, Atta Galatta Prize, Shakti Bhatt Prize, Gourmand Cookbook Award, Publishing Next Award, Tata Literature Live Award, Gaja Capital Business Book Prize, BICW Award, Sushila Devi Award, Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and the Crossword Book Award.

HarperCollins India has been awarded the Publisher of the Year Award three times: at Publishing Next in 2015, and at Tata Literature Live! in 2016 and 2018.HarperCollins India also represents some of the finest publishers in the world including Egmont, Oneworld, Harvard University Press, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet.
This story is provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/PRNewswire)

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