eWIT 3rd Anniversary Event held at Taj Connemara on April 3, 2009

eWIT, Empowering Women in IT, a forum powered by STPI to address issues related to women in the IT/ITES sector, celebrated its Third Anniversary on Friday, April 3, 2009 with the theme "Women Managers in Challenging Times" . The program included several prominent key speakers on the theme.

The Key speakers included Mr. Davidar, Tamil Nadu IT Secretary, Ms. Chaya Srivatsa, Corporate Life Coach, Guild of Women Achievers (GOWA), Mr. Ganesh Chella, Founder & CEO of Totus Consulting, Ms.Jamuna Swamy, Head-Infosec Governance, Hexaware Technologies Ltd., Ms. Saundarya Rajesh, Founder President of Avtar Career Creators.

About eWIT
eWIT was formed in 2006, with the vision of "To be the preferred forum for exchange of ideas and for forging pioneering initiatives so as to unleash the potential of women and drive their growth in the IT/ITES industry" with specific objectives of:

•  Supporting women workforce at all management levels to expand, sustain and flourish

•  Enabling women to tread the career path by equipping themselves with necessary skills

•  Facilitating women's quest for a better 'work - life' balance in IT/ITES Sector

eWIT, during the current year had embarked on two different initiatives besides conducting regular training programs, namely Consulting Services and Research. eWIT through its Consulting Services primarily offers the services of women who would like to work under flexi-career option to various companies that would like to optimize their resources. The other key thrust area is an Industry-wide Research to study the share and sustainability issues relating to women in IT/ITES. The end objective of this study is to analyze the various patterns that emerge with respect to the ratio of men to women employees in organizations, women-friendly policies and support infrastructure etc. and based on the patterns and findings, put-forth some industry-specific recommendations with respect to women.

Anniversary Event
The theme of the evening being Women Managers in these Challenging Times, most of the speakers emphasized that Women Managers Need to Network, Use mentors, and be resilient to get ahead during these tough economic conditions .

While Ms. Saundarya Rajesh of Avtar Career Creators pointed out that many corporate during this recession, prefer women managers due to their balancing act and multitasking abilities, Mr. Ganesh Chella of Totus Consulting went on to explain how mentoring and coaching would help women to progress in their career. He used case studies to demonstrate the effects of mentoring on women in the corporate world.

Ms. Jamuna Swamy of Hexaware spoke about the importance of building resilience skills by sharing with the audience the challenges she faced in her own career and how one must proactively equip themselves with necessary skills to advance in their career. Ms. Chaya Srivatsa of GOWA (Guild of Women Achievers) enlivened the audience by quoting few examples from her own life to highlight how 'right kind' of networking which is networking without selfish motives will always help succeed in life. Being vocal about one's vision and values are important to get noticed and stay in touch with people is also part of networking.

Finally the Tamil Nadu IT Secretary Mr. Davidar gave personal anecdotes from his life to illustrate how work-life balances can be achieved within a family where both the parents work. He ended his speech by prescribing a three-point survival program for organizations to face the challenging times - (i) learn to manage expectations, (ii) avoid extravagant expansions, (iii) maintain required level of energy within the organization.

eWIT, on this occasion, awarded Rs. 60,000 worth of cash prize to the winners of the Excellence Award 2009. The 3 rd Anniversary souvenir was also released during the event.