Expert talk on "Challenges & Opportunities for Women in Director Boards"

An interview session on the topic “Challenges & Opportunities for Women in Director Boards” organized by IEEE EdSoc Kerala Chapter as a part of the series of events that are being conducted every month. The resource person was Mrs P. Vijayakumari, Consultant, BEST Engineering Solutions, Kochi. | Rtd. Director – Transmission and System Operation, KSEB Ltd. | Former Director – KINESCO and TELK | Former Director- RPCK Ltd. and the interviewer was Diya Arun, ECC, IEEE EdSoc Keraĺa Chapter. The event started with a welcome note by Prof. Gayathri Manikutty, STEM and HAC Coordinator, IEEE EdSoc Kerala Chapter. The speaker was introduced by Mr Abhinav R., STEM and HAC Coordinator IEEE EdSoc Kerala Chapter. The interview started with Diya Arun introducing herself and Mrs P. Vijayakumari introducing herself. In her introduction, she talked about the positions she held and the experiences she got from them. After that ther interviewer asked about what were the things that initially sparked her into energy sector. She started answering by saying it was her mother’s wish was for her to work in energy sector, as following the footsteps of her father, and she told that it was very interesting working in KSEB. After that the interviewer followed it up with the second question of how she managed her personal and profesional, and as a women what were the challenges that she faced in early stages. She told that she was a very free woman in the initial stages and she only had children in her forties, and her husband and her mother was very supportive for her and the interview continued with a set of quality questions which were vividly answered by the interviewee. The topics were the problems faced by women in the workplace and about the renewable energy sector and KSEB. At the end of the interview, someone who had worked under her came and told about how his experience was in working with her, then it was followed by a virtual photography and Q&A session , the participants asked her about the renewable energy and she answered them satisfactorily. At the end of the session, Mrs Vijayakumari was presented with a virtual memento and the vote of thanks was proposed by Anna Johny, Content Writer, |IEEE EdSoc Kerala Chapter. In a nutshell, the talk session was so inspirational and useful for the participants because they were able to know about the Energy sector and the challenges faced by the women in Director Boards.