Word to the W.I.S.E. #whystandardsmatter - Ep. 4 Constantly Upgrade Technical Abilities to Excel with Rashmi Urdhwareshe, President SAE India & Senior Advisor, Pune Knowledge Cluster

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

01/11/22 • 34 min

Word to the W.I.S.E. #whystandardsmatter

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.

Through Word to the W.I.S.E, we will continue to build on our legacy: driving transformative change in pursuit of a safer and more resilient society by inspiring more young women to a career in the field of STEM.

Remember, you too can nominate more remarkable women to be part of the show. Or just send in your questions for future guests on the Word to the WISE podcast.

All you have to do is visit us on saferindiatoday.org.

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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...

Remember, you too can nominate more remarkable women to be part of the show. Or just send in your questions for future guests on the Word to the WISE podcast.

All you have to do is visit us on saferindiatoday.org.

You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Safer India Today.

Don’t forget to subscribe and like us on your favourite podcast platform

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?

Previous Episode

Ep. 3 Women are Powerhouses with Dr Rashi Gupta, Founder & Managing Director,Vision Mechatronics Pvt. Ltd.

Our guest today is fondly known as the Batterywali of India. Dr Rashi Gupta, Founder Director, Vision Mechatronics has pioneered the manufacturing of advanced lithium batteries and made herself a name to reckon with in the field of renewable energy and energy storage.

Named Asia's most influential woman in renewable energy, Dr Rashi advocates for gender equality and women empowerment at every possible opportunity.

She is a committee member of the Bureau of Indian Standards for batteries, energy storage, and e-mobility, a member of International Electro-technical Commission and the list goes on.

Remember, you too can nominate more remarkable women to be part of the show. Or just send in your questions for future guests on the Word to the WISE podcast.

All you have to do is visit us on saferindiatoday.org.

You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Safer India Today.

Don’t forget to subscribe and like us on your favourite podcast platform

You can also read along as you listen to the Word to the WISE host Shivraj Parshad in conversation with Dr. Rashi Gupta:

Host: Dr Rashi Gupta thank you for joining me in this conversation on the Word to the WISE podcast. How does it make you feel being known as the Batterywali of India? And more importantly, can you tell us a bit about why you came to be known as the Batterywali?

Dr Rashi Gupta: Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity here today to be with you on this podcast. Well, how do I come to be known as Batterywali of India? Now this happened because I'm one of the pioneers in this segment and being a female, only female entrepreneur in a domain, that the tagline as Batterywali of India. And, you know, being the pioneer, there were not many people. When in 2015, when we started with advanced lithium batteries in India and, you know, in India, there's always a wali or wallah tag attached to your work. So that's how they describe your work profile. And then it was easier for people to just see and relate, you know? Okay; Go to Batterywali, that female who works in batteries. She'll tell you what is to be done. So, so that's how it came and and then I took it as a tagline for me as a respect and affection given by the industry. So, I said, why not adopt it?

Host: And that's in good spirit. But before we get into your work and views on the role of women in science and engineering, can you Dr Rashi, give our listeners a sense of where your love for the sciences began.

Dr Rashi Gupta: Well, right at the childhood. My love for science began right at the childhood. You know, as a female, my parents never gave me dolls, playing materials with generally girls get, I always got a computer to play with, so I was the one who was playing PC man and Pacman, at that time, And I was always into computers and you know, more things with innovation would fascinate me rather than, you know, get into the traditional. But at the same time, my mother did strike a balance to ensure that I could do everything at home. I mean, all the household chores is something that I can still do. So, you know, that was something which was fascinating. And I'm very thankful to my family, that they could allow me to take a science as a background and they always encouraged and said it's fine, you can take up science and then it really fascinated me a lot. I would love doing those experiments, I would love seeing how computers would work. In fact, when I created my first email ID I was so excited. We had those old modems in our house at that time, you know, those 144 kbps those white colors small models which would work. So that internet would give me such a big exposure to more technology and it would connect me to the world to read more and understand more. So, it goes way back to my childhood.

Host: That's so interesting. And why renewables? More specifically energy storage and lithium batteries

Dr Rashi Gupta: Why renewables? I tell you what I mean. I started in 2009 with robotics and my plate was full very soon because of the kind of work we did, very niche, very advanced. And then I was like, okay, now I'm getting stagnated. I feel stagnated. How do I give my brain some challenge to really create, innovate? Because it was on an autopilot mode for 3, 4 years. Next 3-4 years. So, what do we do? So then renewables did catch my interest. because that's where, you know, energy and power comes into play. And I loved power, somehow. It was very important for me to give back to the society at large because the society has given me a lo...