Sajida Siddiqui

Once in a lifetime moment 🥹 Not only did I get to meet & interact with the Group Captain & Astronaut (Gaganyatri) Shubhanshu Shukla, I also got to listen to his experience and watch behind the scene videos of his experience at the International Space Station 🤩 I had an amazing opportunity to also have such interesting and relevant conversations with HAG Professor Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Mr. Nitin Saxena, Educator & research mathematician Mr. Filip Bar, and the one which made it all possible: Prof. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon 😃 The panel discussion by Asif Siddiqui, Shubhanshu Shukla, Neha Jain, Nitin Saxena, Dr. Arun Mohan Sherry Prof. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon was so insightful and impactful that I'm still thinking about it. Each and every student of City Montessori School who got to attend it offline/online, ask questions and show their projects to the esteemed panelists were so lucky to have this opportunity. It's rare to have this level of exposure at their stage! What stood out most was how accessible everyone made these big dreams feel. Space, research, mathematics, technology, innovation... None of it felt distant in that room. It felt possible. This was one of those events where you leave feeling more hopeful about what young students and professionals can do when they are given the right exposure, the right role models, and the chance to ask questions. 😃 I'll be sharing more about the conversations I had with all the dignitaries soon :)

I went to Product Builders Day event by the Google Developer Groups Lucknow this Saturday as the only person in the room who does what I do. I was neither a founder, nor a student and I wasn't there as a developer either (I am an ex-developer though) But here, I was the one who helps all of them explain what they've built to the person who actually needs to use it - their end user 😃 For the first few minutes, I genuinely wasn't sure I belonged there. Then someone asked me what I do. I said I work with founders who are so deep in what they've built that somewhere along the way they stopped talking to their user and started talking at them. I help close that gap. And you know what one of them said? That, "Oh, I actually need that." Rooms that weren't built for you still have conversations in them that are meant for you! You just have to show up for enough of them to find out which ones. (You can always quote me on this 😉) Grateful to everyone who made this room possible and to every person who stopped to talk to me and take my inputs, even though I was there as an attendee and not a speaker! You all gave me more than you know :) More coming up soon on this event, be ready to take notes ;) Google Developer Groups Lucknow Integral University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh INTEGRAL STARTUPS FOUNDATION (Centre for Incubation & Entrepreneurship Development), Integral Univ. Abhishek Sahu Dr. Nida Fatima Dr. Noor Alam Khan

“I’m attending events, learning new tools, doing everything right… am I on the right track?” I got this question multiple times at the CNCG Lucknow event at Babu Banarasi Das (BBD) University this Saturday from the attendees. And not from just one person, a pattern of people.. What made it interesting was that everyone asking it was already doing the “right” things: Showing up to events even on a Saturday morning, learning enthusiastically, putting in efforts.. And yet, something felt… incomplete. So I stopped focusing on Kubernates ( Sorry Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) team 😛) and started paying attention to conversations. And here’s what I noticed: Most people were focused on what to learn next. Very few were were thinking about what problems they’re actually trying to understand and solve.. And what made this even more interesting was seeing how different people contributed to shifting that perspective. Saurabh Kumar Singh simplifying complex systems in a way people could actually follow in real-time. Mritunjay Dwivedi getting people to make their first open source contribution right there. Ujala Singh sharing about agents in a way people understand and can build on their own. Sudhanshu Prajapati, Pranshu S. building the space where this exchange even happens. Tushar Bajpai and other volunteers making sure people feel comfortable enough to engage... Different contributions but in the same direction: Helping people move forward. And these parts doesn’t show up in event highlights but are the reason people stay till the end. (Those who have organised events will get it) This is why I attend these events. To observe how people think, what they optimize for, and where that thinking can expand. Because what we build improves when what we understand improves. And there's always more happening in these rooms than what's been discussed on the stage.