Blogs

I recently got an opportunity to attend a talk on Indian women Scientists: Triumphs and Tribulations at IIC. The talk was held in the memory of Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, the renowned freedom fighter. I came to know that this was the third lecture in the series of other lectures held before in the memory of famous Indian women.

It was not easy for 25-year-old Garima Goyal to get three post-graduate degrees. But the coursework, deadlines and submissions were not the deterrent. The biggest challenge she faced was the lack of easy access to the prescribed texts in a format she could study after she started to lose her sight at 15. “Most of my books were not available in audio formats due to copyright issues,” she reveals. “Moreover, college notes are often hand-written or photo-copied. So often, I had to get someone to type them out in a legible format,” she adds.

I moderated a panel discussion for an in-house ‘Women in Technology’ event in Bangalore this month.

The three women on the panel were an impressive lot — a former defence scientist, a renowned mathematician currently on the Prime Minister’s panel and a former-CEO-turned-entrepreneur.

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Original post: http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2010/06/21/women-in-technology-unmarketable-product-in-marriage-market/

Whenever we talk about the question of violence on women, we tend to think about it's direct physical and mental forms. It seems quite natural given the fact that they have a direct resonance on the life of a woman and for that matter, has been a long standing issue in the whole history of the feminist movement. But working here in FAT I often think about another dimension of this violence, i.e. an invisible societal coercion which limits the dreams of a young women, which is perhaps not very direct and thus not easily tangible to the eyes.

I just returned from Bangalore after attending the first Grace Hopper Conference (GHC) in India organized by the US based non-profit Anita Borg Institute of Women and Technology (ABI). Recently I also attended the 10th Grace Hopper Conference in USA (also organized by ABI) and the Amrita ACM-W Celebration of Women in Computing (A2CWIC) in Coimbatore, India (organized in the Amrita University). Here's a piece on my experiences at these conferences and some thoughts that have been lingering in my mind on women's rights and women in technology conferences.

People like you and me often talk about the oppressions and exploitations prevalent in our society and we often come to the conclusion that this inequality based society needs to be done away with. During moments of enthusiasm the task might seem easy but the hegemony of patriarchal and capitalist values are so enmeshed in our everyday life and the society that even to bring about a little change, a long drawn out struggle is necessary.

Today, it's been more than a month of me joining the Tech Centre. Me and Saraswathi reach the office around 9:30 and make preparations for the classes. For us, this tech centre is not just a space to learn about technologies. It's a space which is of our own. It's a space where we envision our dreams for a life of our own and without tensions and inequalities; and work collectively to turn them into reality.

A blog post by Khushboo Jain, Communications Trainee, on 14th July 2010. This post has been copied from our old blog to the new site.

The Tech centre had much been talked about. Worried about. Still further worried about, worked on harder for. Now it is happening. Started and happening. Right here, on the 3rd floor of our office at Lajpat Nagar. Feels good. A new feeling. The noises. The talking. Not a quiet place any more. The door opens more frequently than before , as new faces enter with hopes and dreams under construction.

A blog by Zandra Karlsson, Intern at FAT, on 8th April 2010

This is Zandra writing. You probably don't know me as I have not previously posted anything on this blog. So, let me introduce myself. I'm a Finnish marketing student doing my internship here at FAT. I work mostly with grant-writing, but also with other fund-raising tasks and I help out with the marketing in general for FAT. I'm writing here now to tell you about one of the most incredible experiences I have had here in India. And believe me, I have experience a lot of new things during my more than five months here.