Ep. 4 Constantly Upgrade Technical Abilities to Excel with Rashmi Urdhwareshe, President SAE India & Senior Advisor, Pune Knowledge Cluster

On this episode, we speak to Rashmi Urdhwareshe former director of the automotive research association or ARAI, a cooperative industrial research association by the automotive industry, as well as the Ministry of Industries. Rashmi is an automotive safety, emissions, e-mobility, and sustainable transport expert, among others. She did a graduation degree in Electrical Engineering in 1981 and completed a post-graduation in Electronics and Telecommunications subsequently. An unusual and challenging choice of career for a woman in India at the time. Rashmi is the recipient of the Nari Shakti Puraskar, a woman empowerment award, an annual award given by the government of India for her outstanding contribution to automotive technology.

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You can also read along as you listen to the Word to the WISE host Shivraj Parshad in conversation with Rashmi Urdhwareshe:

Host: Rashmi Urdhwareshe, thank you for taking the time to speak to us on the Word to the WISE podcast

Rashmi Urdhwareshe: Hello.

Host: Rashmi you did your degree in Electrical Engineering and Master's in Electronics and Telecommunication in the Eighties, but what motivated you to pursue a career in Automotive Engineering?

Rashmi Urdhwareshe: Well, my career in Automotive engineering is just by chance while I was doing already my Master's degree in the second year itself there came in an opportunity at automotive research association of India.

They had announced a position for trainee engineers. And I thought let me try and one of my friends at the time was working there and she gave a feedback that it's a good position and I should try it out. I actually did try I applied and the interview was quite rigorous. In fact, during the interview, I came to know a lot about what is expected for a new trainee engineer to work in a very, very tough environment..

I did accept the challenge. And I joined in the instrumentation laboratory. I continued there. I had various opportunities. My growth happened, the entire career span of 37 years happened. And finally, I retired from the same Institute as the director..

Host: And that's quite an amazingly long tenure to stay with one industry, one organization, but let's just go back to your time when you studied and accomplished so much in the institutions you studied in .Clearly at the time they were male bastions.It was unheard of, of women choosing such degrees, as well as choosing a career path like this. What was it like then? And what were your takeaways from your experience studying in these institutions?

Rashmi Urdhwareshe: Yes, I think the career and it's struggle started in engineering colleges. I took admission in 1977 in a regional college of engineering at Nagpur. That was truly a male dominated college and we were handful of us girls students in the class. We had to struggle. Those four years taught me a lot. And in fact, when I received my award from the same colleges, distinguished alumnus, I expressed this to the girl students there. And the struggle was really real.

And that gave me a lot to takeaway when I started the career without any fear, in fact in automotive engineering. The initial years itself we had an opportunity to visit on a fellowship for six months to United Kingdom and Germany that opened up a lot of ideas for us to work together.

It removed a lot of restraints constraints, et cetera, and brought a very healthy atmosphere, at least in the working level. And then of course, when I kind of was in a position to manage my teams much differently, much in a able manner. That made a great impact. The initial formative years were very important for me.

Host: And in those formative years looking at the way , the industry, the domain of engineering sciences has grown the way women have contributed. What do you believe is the message for women when they're up against the similar challenges?

Rashmi Urdhwareshe: I think going back and looking back at how I was able to manage it. My mindset always has been to give the best to where I belonged. Be it at family be it at personal commitments or be it at the career. I would go out of my way to pe...