Poornima Vijayashanker

Poornima Vijayashanker is an engineer and entrepreneur. She is also a teacher at various tech hubs in San Francisco such as General Assembly, Parisoma and Hackbright.[1] She has also started Femgineer, a blog and teaching platform.[2]

Poornima Vijayashanker
Alma materDuke University
Scientific career
FieldsElectrical engineering, computer science
InstitutionsSynopsys, Mint
Websitehttp://femgineer.com/

Biography

During Vijayashanker's childhood, electronics were routinely "taken apart for fun" at her house.[3] Vijayashanker took apart her first computer at age 14.[4] The men in her family were all engineers, but as a child, Vijayashanker wanted to be a lawyer because being an engineer didn't seem "glamorous or exciting."[5] Vijayashanker began to write computer code right after high school.[3] After starting college at Duke University, she changed her mind, deciding that engineering would be "a cool and intense field."[6] She double-majored in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.[4]

After graduating, Vijayashanker started work as a research and development engineer at Synopsys.[4] Vijayashanker was a founding engineer at Mint.com[7] when it was a start-up company, where she was also the only woman on staff.[1] Vijayashanker was instrumental in building software for Mint from scratch.[8] While at Mint, she began Femgineer in 2007, in order to write about her experiences and show that "women can be sophisticated, cultured, and still be engineers, Femgineers!"[4] After Mint was acquired by Intuit, she left to start her own company, BizeeBee, which is a platform for fitness studios which tracks attendance, revenue and controls marketing for these types of businesses.[9]

In 2014, she gave her first TEDx talk where she discusses why tinkering is useful.[10] In 2015, she released an eBook, titled How to Transform Your Ideas Into Software Products. In 2015, she co-authored "Present! A Techie's Guide to Public Speaking" with Karen Catlin.

Vijayashanker has said that if society wants to see more women in technology careers, then it is important to have more role models for women in technology.[11] She also emphasizes the importance of encouraging women to pursue "hard-core engineering or finance roles" because these jobs are more likely to lead to top positions in the company.[12]

Vijayashanker lives in Palo Alto, California.[4]

References
  1. Pitts, Beth (7 May 2013). "Poornima Vijayashanker: Femgineer & Top Ten Woman to Watch in Tech". The Next Women. Archived from the original on 26 October 2014. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  2. de Lange, Catherine (18 August 2013). "The New Review: Discover: How to Unleash Women's Talent for Tech". The Observer – via Lexis Nexus.
  3. Shah, Semil (24 May 2012). "'In the Studio,' How Bizeebee's Poornima Vijayashanker Fell in Love with Building Software". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  4. "About". Femgineer. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  5. Miller, Claire Cain (17 April 2010). "Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  6. "Mint Team Spotlight - Poornima Vijayashanker". 28 June 2007. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  7. Quinn, Michelle (18 April 2014). "What Women In Tech Do To Thrive". Contra Costa Times – via Lexis Nexus.
  8. "4 Tips From Former Founding Engineer at Mint, Founder of BizeeBee and Femgineer: Poornima Vijayashanker". Clarity. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  9. DesMarais, Christina (2013). "Poornima Vijayashanker, Founder & CEO, Bizeebee". Ten Women to Watch in Tech in 2013. Inc.com. Archived from the original on 2013-02-04. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  10. "Taking the Time to Tinker: Poornima Vijayashanker at TEDxNavesink". TEDx Talks. YouTube. 12 June 2014. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  11. Borisoff, Deborah J.; Chesebro, James W. (2011). Communicating Power and Gender. Waveland Press, Inc. p. 90. ISBN 9781577666905.
  12. Miller, Claire Cain (4 October 2013). "Curtain Is Rising on a Tech Premiere With (as Usual) a Mostly Male Cast". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
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