What will you achieve if you can break through diversity gap barriers? For Sowmya Chandrasekaran, it's getting an AI Engineer role at Lockheed Martin, an aerospace and technology corporation. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a Business Management degree and a minor in Computer Science and Mandarin.

As a member of student organizations such as Providing Opportunities for Women and Girls Who Code, Sowmya is aware that not everyone interested to learn coding enjoys the supportive environment she experienced at SFSU— especially young women. 

Tune in to know more about Sowmya's efforts in helping young women get exposed to technology as early as possible and how she breaks diversity gaps in a male-dominated industry.

Why is it important to have women and people of color in leadership roles? 

[00:07:45] My sister is working on her PhD at UC Berkeley in bioengineering. That is a field where you don't necessarily see a lot of women of color sitting at the table or heading those meetings. And being able to see a version of yourself in a position of leadership or influence, that's very supportive, right? You know that there is someone like you out there leading certain efforts, and then imagine not seeing that, as a matter of fact, you might feel unsupported because of certain non-inclusive environments or it's just the nature of the team. I want to become that person that eventually offers support to another person like myself, another young woman like myself, that's really empowering.

Applications of a programming language in business?

[00:71:14] When you have this tool that's coding in your hands, you can do whatever you want. You can become that entrepreneur. You don't have to rely on some web developer to come and make you a website and think about the things they might want for you. You can make whatever you want, which is amazing and innovative, and puts you further out, higher on the leaderboard, right? Being able to showcase what you can do that's different from what others are currently doing.

• Sowmya on LinkedIn
• Girls Who Code