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Women and Technology

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A while ago I was asked to answer some questions for the Women in Technology website. The questions made me think about the role that women can play within Capgemini and in the technology sector as a whole.

Why should women choose IT? Personally I did not know much about careers in IT until I was at uni. Half my degree was computer science, chosen because I thought most jobs need some form of computer skill. But actually I found that there are a number of jobs which fall under the IT umbrella: Project Management; Business Analysis; Database Administration; Software Engineering; Technical Support; Test Analysis; Web design; Systems Integration and Technical Architect just to name a few. I am not claiming to know exactly what all those people do, but there is quite a bit of variety to choose from.

Do I need to know stuff about computers? You definitely need the basics, like emails, the internet and word processing. But you don't need to have done a degree in IT as the BTC graduate scheme takes people with different degree backgrounds. You will get training and on the job experience which will help you learn skills for your particular area. What you will need is to be adaptable and willing to learn.

I found that there were far fewer women enrolled on IT programmes at university. I thought this might be because of the stereotyping of people working in IT. I'm sure you will have seen tv shows or movies which portray anyone who works in IT as a geek. I have to say, just for those of you who do not know, this is not true. This stereotype of people with limited social interactions, who live in front of their computers programming all day is discouraging people from looking at jobs in IT.

Why should women choose Capgemini? I chose Capgemini because of the atmosphere, from walking through the door I knew it was somewhere where I could work. People are always helpful and I knew I would get variety in roles, some of which I never would have imagined myself doing. And of course Capgemini were voted in the Top Fifty places where women want to work (according to the Times).

IT is a well established community, I think that there will always be jobs for people skilled in this area. What do you think? Should we be encouraging more women into IT?

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“There are Updates Available”

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Spot the Tourist...

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Capgemini is an international company with over 88,000 employees worldwide, and in working for an international company, even at a graduate level, comes international opportunities.  These fabled roles abroad are not guaranteed whilst on the grad scheme - most of the time it relies on mere chance, one of those ‘right place at the right time’ things, but it does happen; indeed pretty much every grad can name at least one colleague who has been on an international assignment!

In joining the BTC, you will not be promised an international assignment as it is simply too hard to predict; what you will be promised is a week’s worth of training in Les Fontaines, Capgemini’s exclusive university in Chantilly, just north of Paris.  Set in a picturesque 120 acres of woodland complete with lake, the recently rebuilt Chateau (avec turrets!) offers accommodation for up to 300 employees, along with facilities such as a gym, spa, 20m swimming pool, sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi and bar.

Sound appealing?  Well, that’s just the start of it…

At any Les Fontaines training event, you can expect around 250 Capgemini employees from all over the world – at the start of the month I had the pleasure of attending one of these events which totalled nearly 300 employees from 23 countries, each bringing a wealth of experience, the openness to share that experience and the eagerness to learn more.  It provides the perfect environment to learn, with small classes facilitated by field experts and interesting and challenging case studies requiring high levels of interaction.

The course I attended is designed to bring every graduate up to the same level of understanding in the technology field, and as this course is mandatory, the BTC can therefore take graduates of all disciplines providing there is an initial interest in technology.

No training would be complete without social activities in the evening, and this extravagant university did not fail to disappoint!   Icebreakers had been planned for every evening; something fun and mentally stimulating to get your teeth stuck into before heading to the bar to philosophise about the development of new technologies with international colleagues of all levels. As for the final night, I will leave you with this picture that barely scratches the surface of the evening activities; something which has fast become the trademark icon of the university…

What a week!

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A gentle introduction

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It’s just after six o’clock on a Friday evening and I’m on a busy commuter train travelling home – luckily I’ve managed to bag myself a window seat! (I may not be so lucky on the Monday morning travelling back.) You see the life of a consultant isn’t just about giving your all on a client site; it’s more about choosing a lifestyle – a lifestyle which commands dedication, commitment, and flexibility. My name’s Sham Mitra and I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you, as gently as possible!

I joined Capgemini’s Technology Services (TS) graduate scheme – the Business Technology Consultants (BTC) programme – in March 2008, and it was arguably one of the best decisions I ever made – choosing to read Software Engineering at Durham probably wasn’t a bad one either. During my induction I found out I would be going to work on the Aspire account, and before I could finish saying “I’m going to Telford” I found myself at the hub of one of Capgemini’s most high-profile, highly pressurised, outsourcing assignments the Hard Disk Encryption (HDE) project – the aim was to encrypt the hard disks of over 10,000 laptop computers owned by HM Revenue and Customs within three weeks. Calling this a baptism by fire could be seen as a slight understatement – the hours were long, the coffees were strong, and (well) no one really cared if you came into work the next day with your shirt un-ironed. But the great thing was I felt part of something amazing, something really important, and that in itself was enough to keep me motivated.

I’ve worked on two projects since HDE – one as an Implementation Co-ordinator and the other as a Requirements Analyst. And the great thing about Capgemini is there’s never a shortage of roles or things to be doing; one day you could be on a plane to Barcelona to work on the Cadbury’s account and the other you could be on the Eurostar on your way to Paris for some training. On the domestic front there’s always working on one of the world’s largest and most complex outsourcing contracts (Aspire) or spending time in an Accelerated Solutions Environment (ASE) helping our clients solve often complex business problems. If that doesn’t keep you busy enough then there’s always contributing to the Capgemini business, for example completing some work for your Affinity group (essentially an extension to the clubs and societies at university) or writing an entry for the BTC blog. I was fortunate and privileged enough to work with Carl Bate (our UK Chief Technology Officer) on an article entitled "The Incognito Banking Corporation and the Fairy Godmother 2.0"for the award winning global CTO blog – this, I believe, is testament to the opportunities available to all members of the BTC.

In my next post I’ll be opening up the debate on virtualisation and the rapid adoption of virtual reality in the corporate world. We all know of the success of SecondLife – even Capgemini has a presence here – and I’ll be asking the question what will the world look like in five years time?

Only another 30 minutes to go and I’ll be home…

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New blogger! Let me introduce myself...

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As John Reynolds mentioned in his last post, he is moving into a business unit within Capgemini, so leaving the BTC scheme and the blog with it. I hope you have enjoyed his posts over the last eight months and I hope, as your new BTC blogger, that I can live up to his reputation!

Let me introduce myself. I'm Emily Homer and I've been at Capgemini for just over a year now.

At university I did a joint honours degree in Computer Science and Business, chosen due to the fact that all jobs today will probably require both these skills. Being brought up with a Macintosh I'd never really used a PC that much before starting, and hadn't taken business studies at school. I can't say that it was like a duck taking to water - I was the blonde who managed to lock herself out of her university computer access on my first day. During my first week I went on, in my first Comp Sci tutorial, to cause some sort of problem with my PC which resulted in the tutor saying 'I've never seen that happen before'! (I'm sure you have all had a fair share of computer mishaps – or have you? Why not share it with me?)

Fortunately my IT skills have improved since then! After graduating I did an MSc at Manchester before applying for jobs with a mix of IT and business. I thought the BTC scheme would allow me a mix of both and enable me to try roles that I probably would not have thought of. And it has. During my short time here I have worked on bids, testing, development and my current role is in requirements.

Like the other bloggers I hope to share with you a bit about my experiences in IT, current hot topics and, as the first female BTC blogger, I hope to bring a different perspective to the blog. I hope you enjoy the posts and please do get involved.

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So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye ... and the Nokia Morph

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It's been a busy period on the BTC

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I think it's now time for me to give you an insight into the roles that might be available should you join the BTC. In order to do this I will run through my last two which have been over the past month.

Firstly I spent two weeks working for a client of ours as they were rolling out a SaaS application. My role was as a test manager. I was involved with everything from writing test scripts to co-ordinating the user acceptance testing with the client. I was only on the role for 2 weeks but got good insight to the software and I can honestly say that with the freedom of discovery testing there is no better way to learn. SaaS is getting lots of interest here at Capgemini, we see it as a trend that is growing more and more as companies are looking to have solutions that are delivered quickly and at a low cost. The BTC involvement in this area is large as the client wants innovative software, and also innovative thinkers working on the project. The BTC are renowned for their ability to think outside of the box and it is this that the client buys into. All in all a great result for any graduate that wants experience to what can potentially be 'the next big thing'.

I then had a role in our ASE (Accelerated Solutions Environment). Click here to read more about it as it is a key unique selling point for Capgemini and definitely worth a read. I was part of the crew for a three day event, which meant that I was in charge of ensuring all inputs were created and ready, and also outputs were captured. The event was themed in the style of the A-Team and it was lots of fun being able to blast the A-Team theme tune out of the speakers in the environment!

That’s just a quick overview of two of the roles I have been on, feel free to ask questions about the roles and I will do my best to answer them.

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A little thinking goes a long way…

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Who says graduates don’t get opportunities?  Who says we are sheltered from the real world?  Well, I can safely say from experience, that’s not how you’re treated in the BTC!  Several weeks ago many teams entered into a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style competition, each required to pitch an idea to several of the company’s senior executives, or in this case, the dragons, based on one of four key areas:

Media and Entertainment
Health and Medical Care
Education
Technology
 
I will not write much more about the day, as this has already been covered by a post from John Reynolds and second external post from David Evans of the BCS.  The fallout from this competition, named the BTC Challenge, was for a few select teams, a second pitch to a more targeted audience. 

In a nutshell, our idea was to create a desktop widget used to download and view selected TV shows from all of a leading UK TV Broadcaster’s back-catalogue, absolutely free.  The TV shows would have embedded 20-30 second targeted advert clips which would be refreshed each time the user connected back to the service.  The full show, including adverts, could then be converted and transferred to portable devices via the widget for watching on the go.

Although we didn’t win with this idea, our pitch caught the interest of one executive, who used his network of contacts to arrange a second presentation to the COO of a major UK Broadcaster.  What an opportunity; I was blown away by the mere thought of it!  An executive taking time out of his busy schedule to arrange this was, to me, a credit to the company’s internal politics; the fact that he allowed us free reign of the presentation and agenda, and attended merely as an observer showed complete faith and trust in the abilities of four graduates with only 10 months of IT consulting experience.

The presentation was kept very informal, and after a brief description of our idea it became much more of a Q&A session where, in a very surreal haze, a senior figure and lead thinker of the company was asking for our opinions on technical and business issues.

Following the presentation we had a congratulatory lunch where we reflected on the experience, and each came away with a great sense of achievement – we had been given the opportunity to represent our company and had not disappointed!

So, are we sheltered from the real world... ‘computer says naaaoooo’.
 

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The Large Hadron Collider

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Today was the first test of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), this £5 billion project has been created to let us investigate the particles that make up matter and hopes to re-create the conditions at the time of the Big Bang.

The machine is situated 100 meters under the ground in Geneva at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). If you are a Dan Brown fan you may remember this is where Robert Langdon is taken to at the beginning of the novel "Angels and Demons".

Scientists always insisted that smashing protons together at close to the speed of light was "perfectly safe", however some members of the scientific community had voiced concerns that tiny black holes may be created and cause potential havoc; growing uncontrollably and destroying the planet. However, scientists on the project believe black holes could be created but they would only exist for tiny fractions of time. This has been rationalised by the fact that protons regularly collide in Earths upper atmosphere and the Earth still exists.

It may be a year or two before any meaningful discoveries are made from the project but hopes are that it may explain the origins of time, explain dark matter, possibly reveal other dimensions and to explain why gravity works the way it does.

So what do people think, is this a massive waste of money? Should scientists be trying to solve more practical problems? Or could this be a defining moment in the history of scientific invention?

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Post Olympic Blues

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I woke up this morning in my hotel in Birmingham and switched on the TV as I have been doing for the last few weeks to be met with BBC's morning news. The disappointing thing here was that it wasn't the Olympics, instead some US election news.

The Olympics is over and I will join the band wagon here and say that they were amazing. Right from the opening ceremony which was a stunning spectacle on how China can perform on the world stage through to the disappointing relay races for both the UK and the US in the birds nest, I was glued at every possibility to the TV screen.

But it wasn't just the TV I was glued to and this is where an article from Ron Tolido is a must read to see how access to all become apparent in this Olympics.

I would like to point out how I predicted in my previous Olympic post that if it involved water then we would do well. Without saying 'I told you so', have a think about it - you may recognise it was a good prediction. Next post I will try the lottery numbers! :-)

Moving onto some technical difficulties that the Olympics had I could mention the 'fake' fireworks at the begging of the event but I have read so much about this that my conclusion is that the BBC held information from us. They were told in the briefing that viewers would see a digital impression, but they failed to pass this information on to us. NBC incidentally informed their viewers and nothing further was said.

But what a spectator did catch during the opening ceremony was the good old blue screen of death! Yes indeed a crowd member spotted this blue screen and managed to take this picture of it.

Other than this though I failed to spot any other miss-haps with the technology from an end user perspective but this may have been because I was caught up in the success of the GB squad. If you spotted anything I would like to hear of it so please post a comment.

As a last point well done to all athletes that took part, getting there was a major achievement even if you didn't bring home a medal.

 

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