Hailing from a middle-class family in Vadakara, Kerala, Nikitha Hari broke stereotypes, shattered glass ceilings and raced to the global stage of engineering and research.
Can you trace out your growth as a young scientist?
Right from my childhood, I wanted to have the best education but could never study where I wanted to. After my B.Tech, I joined for M.Tech and passed with a gold medal. Finally, I got into IIT-Delhi as a research associate but was disappointed with the research atmosphere and returned home after three months. After a year-long process of applications, interviews and so on, I joined Manchester University with presidential and departmental scholarship. My earnest desire to pursue a Ph.D. from the prestigious Cambridge University stemmed from the fact that it has a rich legacy of culture, heritage, and tradition of academic excellence. As an academic, I have had a successful stint at Cambridge and in the UK power electronics space for three and a half years now. I have had the honor to be the Chairperson of the UK EPSRC Power Electronics Post Graduate Forum and to organize & chair the first UK Power electronics summer school-2015 attended by over 100 delegates from academia and industry. I also had the rare opportunity to be an interviewer for selecting undergraduate engineering students for Churchill College, Cambridge for two years. I supervised the engineering undergraduates of Churchill College and Trinity Hall. As a consultant, I’m currently on the advisory board of the student-run ‘Next Tech Lab’, SRM University, Rajadahani innovation disruption cell, Brainaura &Probiz, India.
I have held positions as IEEE Cambridge Secretary & Beyond Profit Cambridge Conference Director from 2014-16. I am active as Cambridge Association for Women in Science & Engineering steering committee member and is a regular invited speaker in GSA girl conferences, Cambridge Science Festival, Soapbox Science, etc to motivate girls to pursue a career in STEM subjects. The journey to Cambridge was of terrible downs -of sorrows, disappointments, and tears; terrific ups- of success, joy, and laughter! I’ honored to be the first Indian to be making into this prestigious list of 50 amazing women engineers in the UK. My most proud and thrilling moment was when I was among the few guests to be invited to Buckingham Palace as a global ambassador for the ‘Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering’ and had the rare honor to visit the fantastic palace and meet the Prince of Wales. I also became the only Cambridge student to be the recipient of the ‘Developer Emerging Entrepreneur Award 2017’ – a prestigious award for budding women in tech in Cambridgeshire. I was elected as the Vice-President of the Cambridge University Graduate Union becoming the first Indian to hold the post and first Malayali ever to be in the GU officer’s post since its inception in 1955.
Please share a few words on the start-ups ‘Wudi’ and ‘Favalley’ and about your future plans?
Start-ups are a very thrilling, exciting, challenging & demanding space with a huge potential to contribute to the world. Cambridge offers its students a wonderful platform to engage with like-minded entrepreneurs, offer business courses, free workshops, and training to develop & practice business skills. This has helped me in discovering my hidden aptitude in this area to live this start-up dream! Though a Scientist by Profession, I am a Social Tech Entrepreneur by Passion !! Somebody has to set the ball rolling at some point. I don’t call myself a ‘Change Maker’. We (Wudi & Favalley family) are just setting a platform, society will always remain the sole ‘Change Maker’. Over the years, I have realized that our passion is worthwhile only if we can use it to help others, be part of a bigger mission to change the world for the better. With this aspiration & vision, I co-founded two social tech start-ups; Wudi & Favalley. WudiDatatech Pvt Ltd is an exciting & unique initiative I co-founded with my brother Arjun Hari, who holds a management degree from IIM Kozhikode and Engineering degree from NIT Calicut who is the brainchild & CEO of this firm based in Kozhikode, Kerala. Our vision is to transform education through Artificial Intelligence. Also, we aim to make AI products accessible & affordable to small and medium enterprises across the globe. Our flagship product is Edu- Wudi – an AI educational software for institutions, aimed to transform the educational space by helping students identify their real talents & thus encouraging students and parents to think outside the obvious careers of engineering, medicine & management With the power of AI, deep learning and machine learning techniques, Wudi has developed one of its kind products for smarter business management. Biz-Wudi, Edu-Wudi, and Smart-Wudi are a few of our products in this domain. Favalley was founded with three Ph.D. students from Cambridge -Paulo, Stefano& Martin. It was started with the mission to convert slums into the next silicon valleys by engaging, training & matching marginalized youth in slums to coding jobs. For easing the practicalities of piloting & implementation, we are teaming with Wudi to better explore the learning dynamics and attitude of the youth in rural areas and slums to coding.
Did you face any pressing challenge as a woman in your journey to success ?
Coming from a conventional background I’m very happy to be representing a global role model for young girls across the world which I understand is a great responsibility as well. Science, engineering, and entrepreneurship have no gender. But there exists a subconscious and conscious bias to women in these fields. Never get intimidated if you are the only girl in your engineering class, the only woman in the start-up board and so on- Be the change! Just do the best you can by believing in you. And never allow anyone to tell you that you are incapable of something because of your gender. Recently I was awarded the Top 50 Women in Engineering by Telegraph & WES. Being the first Indian citizen and the first student from Cambridge University in the list is a matter of great pride and honor. I come from an amazing country like India who had lady Prime Ministers and Presidents long ago. So I stand for that Indian Woman who can excel in everything.
Please elaborate on your family and their support?
I was born in Coimbatore and my parents shifted to Vadakara when I was three years old. I did my schooling at five different schools. My mother is a trained botanist. She nurtures a lovely garden at our home, is also an amazing painter, interior decorator, and an awesome cook. My father is a small scale industrialist and runs an electrical manufacturing unit and is the secretary of KSSIA -Kozhikode. My brother did his engineering from NIT, Calicut, and masters from IIMK and now is the CEO and co-founder of Wudi.
