Alumni Award recipients

My name is Elizabeth Mossop, Dean of the  Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at the University of Technology Sydney. The UTS Alumni Awards recognise our most outstanding graduates. And believe me, the competition is fierce as we have many amazing alums. The winners are those whose achievements are outside the ordinary: pioneers and innovators, whose impact in their discipline is profound. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Angelo Candalepas, the recipient of this year's Design Architecture and Building Award. Angelo is an award-winning architect and a Fellow of the Australian  Institute of Architects. Within a year of establishing his own  studio, soon after graduation in 1994, Angelo achieved widespread  acclaim by his winning entry in an international design  competition for housing in Pyrmont. Over the last 25 years he has continued to build  his career across public, commercial and residential architecture as  director of Candalepas Associates, receiving numerous accolades for his work including the 2016 New South Wales Premier's Award and the National Architecture Award for  public buildings for St Andrew's House. St Andrew's House is a three-story,  not-for-profit residential care facility developed to provide accommodation and care for young adults with a physical  or intellectual disability. Another award-winning project, the extraordinary Punchbowl Mosque, received the 2018 National  Architecture Award for public architecture. The building features a large central dome and 102 smaller concrete domes decorated with Islamic calligraphy. The mosque's use of exposed concrete has superbly articulated form, and the play of light and shade  create one of Australia's most distinguished religious buildings. Angelo holds a Bachelor of Architecture from UTS and is among our most inspiring graduates. He epitomises the immense depth of  talent within the UTS Alumni community and our collective aspiration to high achievement, not only being professionally  distinguished but driven but driven by a desire to create  a lasting impact in the world. - My name is Angelo Candalepas. I am a director of Candalepas Associates and I graduated from the  University of Technology in 1992. And the degree I did was the  Bachelor of Architecture. I didn't really plan anything. I just felt that I really enjoyed being an architect. And I thought that that could be enough for the ambition that  I imported into the work that I was doing. I wasn't particularly fond of planning  too tightly what a career should look like because I often criticize those that do  that. I find the sort of people that are preoccupied with line items on their CV are the  one-dimensional people that exist on this earth. And I'm not really fond of that way of  looking toward establishing a name for myself. Rather, I thought that the best thing to do was to do as good work as I could and have as good  a reputation as I could from that work. I think it's an interesting question to raise  challenges in the context of one's career. I would rather think about the steps one takes to enable one to become that person  one has imagined they wanted to be. Insofar as challenges go I’m not really… I didn't find anything challenging or a challenge. I found mostly that I was  ensconced in what I was doing. And I was always wanting to be a person doing work that was better than the work that I  was doing at any one point in time. And I think that still applies  for the work that I’m doing today. I feel there's always an opportunity  to become better at that which you do. I think everything has to have  a balance of risk and stability. But I also think that the world has become this  place where risk is something that needs to be avoided. Which I think is a pity. Because we've all become in that way a kind of risk-averse society and it  means that nothing interesting happens. And in fact nothing rewarding happens either: because with the riskier of things that one  does there is a higher reward in my opinion. So for the most part I see that -  and even institutions such as this understand - that balance, or the  necessity to have that balance and I find, regretfully, that  bureaucracies and institutions aren't that capable of dealing with  that coefficient accurately enough. And such that they avoid risk  at the expense of actually creating something progressive  or cultural as a consequence. I have found it very difficult to work with institutions as clients and I found  it very difficult to work with large organisations as clients – because there's  a kind of default position to avoid risk. And I think in art and in the  work that I do (which I hope has an element of the art in it otherwise it  wouldn't be architecture), there has to be risk; otherwise there's no challenge and there's  no aesthetic dimension to the work that I do. On reflection, one has to accept the  fact that the past is what makes people. And so whilst there were kind of horrible days  because I was doing a course that was part-time: we had to work very hard during the week and  then come and be part of an organisation which had limited resources (being a  part-time course, et cetera); and I have to say that the lessons are always something that one  can reflect on after they've happened - maybe 10 years 20 years later - and I think it's important therefore,  when I teach, to have that in mind: that all the lessons aren't the things that  are understood in the room at the moment where they're being taught, but rather they’re things that the students  are able to reflect on later in their life and understand at that point in time what  was intended by that discussion or that really positioning moment in their education. And so I think that if I ask myself what I  learned most here was to ignore many, many, many of the people that were teaching me and to  enable to judge the frauds from the genuine people and discover later that there were  very few people that actually mattered in my education – and when they did  matter, they really, really mattered. And as a consequence, everything that they  taught me was something of consequence. So for instance, I can give you an example: Neville Quarry had certain things that I didn't  understand at the time that he would say. He would say things like…, ‘I could have made  this process shorter if I had enough time,’ or, ‘I could have made this critique of  your work shorter if I had enough time…’ And he would say things like this  that I would remember and reflect on and understand in a deeper way later in my years. But also there were people that were very pointedly critical of me because  I was so incredibly outspoken and what I learnt from that is that I  shouldn't care about what they think. There was a moment where one of the  teachers was really quite cruel in a way but I was resilient and I remember thinking, ‘this  is really going to cause me grief at this place.’ But what was good about the  outcome was that I didn't yield to the kind of  micro-politics of that moment. And what that… taught me, it teaches  you or anybody for that matter, is that you really have to have standards. And you have to live by them. And it doesn't  matter if your mark is ‘this’ or ‘that’, because there's something spiritual in the  dimension of every human being and if they give their standards up for some micro-political  proposition then they fail as an individual. Which means they can't actually succeed in life. and I think… without knowing it,  the university taught me that. I think the only thing that is  important is to care about what you do. But understanding what caring  means, then, is also important. And what does caring mean? Caring means that if you are interested in a  subject area you become the most knowledgeable person of that subject that you know. If you're not interested in it… then it's  not important but if you're interested in something you become ensconced in it,  you become absolutely submerged in it. The next thing I think that is important for  people that are aspiring to be successful is that they should understand that  life isn't there for them, actually. Life is something in which you are a part and  opportunities aren't there for you – you have to recognise what you can take as an opportunity  in a stolen moment which wasn't actually yours. And otherwise all you'll do is complain all your life that those opportunities that  you thought you were worthy of didn't come. Because the truth is that we're  all not worthy of any opportunity. I recognised very early on that  every day was an opportunity. And what I recognised very early on  was that I couldn't afford to fail in any task that I engaged in. For instance, if there was a letter to write about  some planning advice that was to be considered by some lawyer, I needed that to be  absolutely as good as it could be. And that to me was an opportunity to be  recognised in my field for that particular task. If there was a detail that was to be drawn, I  needed to make that the best possible detail and I saw that to be an opportunity in people's  recognition of my abilities in that domain. If there was a door to open for the right  person or a door to close from the wrong person I saw that every act that was as such was an  opportunity that I either embraced or closed off. And there needs to be a judgment for  this to be properly conducted in society. And that judgment has to do with taking  the risks which we talked about earlier. Making sure that decisions are made at the right  time. And then making sure, of course, that you don't dwell on decisions that  didn't quite work for you for too long. Well I come here and teach. And I love it. It's a very important aspect of a professional's  life to be able to engage with the academy in a way that I think enhances what  that professional is able to do. I have to say that it's very important for  me that there are good people at the Faculty and I'd left another university to come here  because there were some wonderful people here. And… with those people I think I've been teaching  some of the best classes I've ever been able to teach and they include Utzi and Guillermo and all  the people in the final year, you know, Miguel. I had suggested even to my son to come here. He had all the choices in the world in fact  – literally, because he did the International Baccalaureate – and living in Glebe it  was a wonderful opportunity for me to have my son at this faculty. So he's actually here which is  testament to my attitude to this course. And I hope that it can continue with all  of those incredible international-level people that I know. It’s good for our country. But I also have to say that I have found it  irresistible to employ people from the faculty and when I teach some people I find  some people irresistible to employ them. And the reason is twofold. Firstly, I feel that our industry is a  failing industry and in many respects very good people aren't, let's say, nurtured into  careers that are worthy of how good they are. And the testament of that is that,  ‘where do they go?’ is the question. I mean, where do they go, all these people  that are so talented? Or purportedly talented? And the answer is they go into commercial offices. And then there's a very clear distance  from the academy as a consequence. Whereas I think if there was  a closer relationship with the academy then there would be this wonderful  proposition where students could feel comfortable in practice rather than kind  of like fish out of water. And I say that thinking, ‘Maybe it's a little  bit arrogant for me to say that I take them into my office and want to deal with them myself.’ I find that might sound a little bit arrogant. But the truth of it is that I kind of know  them after teaching them for half a year. And it's a kind of selfish thing as well  to not want these people who you have invested enormous amounts of time to not work for  you but having said that, they come and go; and I absolutely love to become their mentor. I've discovered more recently that you end  up becoming their mentor for life because I've had people that I’ve engaged with in this way for 30- almost 30 years  of teaching that I've had ever since I left here. And they always tend to come back  and you can see in the generations that pass quite how important  that is for our culture. And very few practitioners do  that. And I think that's regretful. Well I’m very bad at being a barometer for…  let’s call it the commerciality of our industry. Because I sit outside of it in  the way that I operate, I think. I’ve never really been, clearly, a competitor  of sorts in the commercial market, so to speak. And people refer to my operation as a ‘brand’. But I don't regard it that way either. So if you're asking me, ‘what  is the future in the industry?’… I can see it is a broader thing than COVID  and it’s a broader thing than the economy. The future of the industry is about how well or poorly we deal with the  intellectualisation of our offerings. And if we're not careful, we're going to lose  sight of those things that are important. And I dare say those things  that are important for me are not how much money a firm can  make but rather what it represents. And in architecture it means a lot, because what  it represents is an entire culture's position; because what we're doing is we're  leaving behind artefacts that demonstrate the worthiness of  this whole generation's efforts and also their aspirations for the future  generations and yet, a broader people. So I think we've got a lot to lose and  yet people don't think in this way. How they think is how much  money they're going to make. Which is a bit stupid. If you're not good at anything  you won't make much money. If you're selling rotten fruit  you're not going to sell it, are you? So if we're kind of being uncaring and  uncareful about our own profession and all we've got at the end of education, at the end  of whatever it is that we're doing that present people forward into the profession, is  rotten fruit - then it will be a disaster. And I think it's going down that path. But from my office we've got a lot of  work, we've got an enormous amount of interest from a lot of people to do work  and, frankly, we have our choice of clients. So for me I'll be fine. How can I put it in a kind of elegant way? If a person is good at what they  do, they'll always be in demand. And I haven't felt anything that has caused me to believe that you are  beholden to a sort of commercial reality. If you choose to… I think people that chase  money are not looking at the right thing. And people that chase… kind of, exactitude  in what they do and a professionalism are probably, in the long run, better off. But from my point of view I can  only speak from my own experience. I've never felt the need to worry  so much about how much I charge or what I do or the commerciality of my practice, because those are the things that  fall into place with good education; and at least I had that here, where at least there  was a whole raft of teaching of how to practice architecture, in the practice  sector of my learning. So that was bedded down early. But then, what are the ethics  you bring to the profession? And what is the idea of that which  you do that elevates every discussion with whichever client happens to be in the room and such that it equally elevates every  act that you do within the profession? They're the things that people  should be worried about. I find that those people have always existed… All the people that are just kind of  careerists, they've always existed. And, y’know, people say that these days  it's a new thing that you have all these people that are overly ambitious well beyond  their capacity - let me tell you, it existed in the years that I graduated as well. So I'm not that… worried about  that changing, because that's a basic… attribute in the human condition. What I am worried about is, however,  that people are increasingly thinking that they're choosing architecture or they're  choosing their career only for its ability to pay, you know, their rent or whatever. And I think that's a bad way of  moving forward in your thinking. I think you should actually focus on what it is that you're doing and  do it as well as you possibly can. And if you're any good, every  other thing settles itself well. And if it doesn't suit you or you're not  even interested in it, you have to be very… much honest to yourself and say,  ‘well I'm not actually interested in this’. Rather than being interested in the  idea of being interested, which is not really… doing the right  thing by your own career. I mean, there are so many people that are  interested in the idea of being an architect. I mean, it's a George Costanza moment, isn’t it? They're not actually interested in what it takes. So just ask yourself, ‘Do I have what it takes?’ And it's not knowing things,  it's being interested in them. If you're going to be a professional,  you have to work for the work. And what that means for me is that the work  is the most important thing in the room.

hi there everyone um good good good afternoon actually it's just gone 12 o'clock uh and welcome to this um uts illuminated um series of discussions in terms of insights from our game changers and uh our panelists today mother bishankar is definitely a game changer just a quick intro for myself my name is sanjay sridhar a previous recipient of this award and a very proud graduate of uts though obviously a few years before madhavi my current role is i'm a partner and sit in the instant young sydney practice um so moving quickly quickly along i'd like to start off by acknowledging uh the traditional owners of our land and the land upon which you're joining this meeting from as well uh where i am it's the category people from the er nation and i'd like to pass my respects on to their elders past present and future so uh we're all keen to get into the the meat of the session but in terms of some some housekeeping i just wanted to let you guys know that this session is actually being recorded um and um we want you to ask questions so please feel free to read that that slide in terms of your consent required uh and we want you to ask questions we want this to be a very engaging and you know a dynamic session so please put the questions through the chat function and we will get to as many of those questions as we can and i know mother of these i'm very excited to be able to respond to many of those questions now with that introduction complete please allow me to invite mr tim lawrence the dean of studies at uts insert to join us and introduce our very special guest thank you sanja and good afternoon everyone it gives me great pleasure Introducing Madhavi Shankar to introduce our 2020 ugs international alumni award recipient madavi shankar this event will provide you with an opportunity to gain insights into modality's entrepreneurial journey and the incredibly difficult lessons that she's learned along the way completed a master of engineering management at ugs in 2014 and after that graduated with an mba from ugs in 2015. she's had an extraordinary career and it comes as no surprise that she is this year's international alumni award recipient madavin is the co-founder and ceo of space basic incorporated india's first technology forward interactive networking platform for day-to-day communications and task management within the student housing and co-living communities the davie is a fervent believer in equal opportunities and women's empowerment and conscientiously contributes towards global women's employment each year space basic inc pledges one percent of its profits and time towards educating women which in itself is an outstanding outcome modality has received many accolades including being named forbes asia 30 under 30 top 30 women transforming india she is also a tedx speaker a united nations youth speaker she is an incredibly positive role model and a great advocate using technology for social good i am delighted that she's speaking with us today and so without any further ado may i introduce sanjay shankar How has your career changed thank you so much tim thank you for the kind of introduction right so um by the way great to um great to start this discussion with you i genuinely feel like i'm in the presence of greatness but uh we'll get to that in a second uh tim uh thank you for the intro tim uh tim will be joining us again uh at the end of the session to wrap things up so how are you feeling motherfu are you ready for this yes i'm ready so look i i think um in this time and age where um there are so many so many changes happening to have someone like yourself who is both you know a young person and a woman in in coming from an emerging nation it's just such a wonderful discussion to have and value to add on so many levels so let me start with the first question um as we've already heard you're incredibly accomplished within your field um with your achievements today is this where you thought you would be when you first started your career or are you now feel like you're carving out your corner as you go well thanks so much sanjay and you know when i first started um i was really focused on what problem um you know i'm going to solve and um i i was really trying to find a you know a a pain point that really kind of um you know people struggled with and and you know having studied overseas having studied in australia having that exposure i was very passionate about the education sector and students you know students life and experiences really in general and um having said that i could draw a clear difference in terms of experience i had in australia as well as my experience back as a student in india so i think when i started off my goal was really to kind of really focus on on what problem will i be solving in the sector and how do i get started with it and i think you know the last two and a half three years has really been an extremely overwhelming and an extremely kind of rewarding journey and everything that is happening now i believe is a byproduct of um you know kind of initially having focused and trying to find um you know a solution to a problem cool cool i've read some of your background and some of the interviews How did you find the cultural diversity you've done previously and you credit your time um being overseas studying here etc to to really helping you crystallize uh and focus your efforts into into what you've now created how so how how how exactly did you find the cultural diversity or the geographical diversity that you experienced you know that said uts how did that help you kind of on your journey so i think um you know when i came through um as an international student and when i enrolled um into uts um the the experiences that i've had is mostly um you know as a student is it's in india it's it's very it's mostly cultural driven where you are guided through mostly by society or by your parents to pick the right uh you know to pick the right thing or do the right thing so um you know kind of most of your decision making happens um you know in coordination with your immediate family or our society but when i moved to australia it was refreshing change because you know uh most of most of um the decisions small and big were independent were based on situations so i believe i had the ability to effectively practice independent thinking and independent decision making purely based on um you know the situation and the given circumstances and i think you know um it's a we um you know our generation is very good with analytical decision making and i think i was able to experience and kind of exercise that in my own capability when i moved to australia both good and bad right that's what make great experiences and i think that's that was one of the key contributors to uh kind of being able to draw differences and kind of really understand um you know just the geography as well as cultural difference and when you went back to your home to Was it easy for you to continue to practice independence india was it was it easy for you to continue to practice that independence and and did you were you able to translate those those lessons that you learned here and the experiences and the capabilities that you developed here back into because in back into your home country yes so um i think uh it's a conscious decision when you come back you know a lot of things are your but the process is you're learning and unlearning simultaneously and you know you're questioning now you have the capability to question you have the you know capability to um kind of really think about it but besides just kind of uh following it because you were told to do so so i think that ability to question and analyzed early was built and exercised um you know for the four and a half five years i was in australia so when i came back i was better equipped i could say to kind of uh navigate um you know in in this ecosystem cool great um look we've actually just before i go to my next question we've got over 50 participants on the call How did you conceive and develop SpaceBasic which is terrific um so please give you guys here um oh you want to put some questions up please please do so as we have the conversation um so kind of coming back to the the business that you started i think we live in a world where everybody wants to be an entrepreneur right you know you hear these great success stories and everybody wants to do their side hustle and you know kind of you know replace their their primary job and you know and there's some terrific terrific exciting uh and inspiring stories out there you always included but i think the challenge everyone has is you know what is the problem you're trying to solve how do you how do you go from con how do you go from ideation to concept solution to delivery uh and you've done that obviously very very successfully with space basic inc so how did you how did you moderately conceive that how did you develop it as a platform to manage hostiles in student housing matters can you talk us through that sure so when i um you know when i was in australia i worked for i interned actually for early stage startup so that was my first job um you know straight after my um undergrad i moved here to pursue my master's and while i was um you know studying um to support ourselves you know as international students we you know end up working um you know uh jobs that that we can find and uh and i was pretty certain that if i were to find a job i would probably do something that i could put on my resume and um you know that will build i mean if you're going to spend 20 hours working on something it might as well be something that you're gaining skills out of you know that is going to help you in the long run and i was pretty certain that i would work through through that cycle and eventually i ended up finding um you know a company that would recruit me as an intern and um i worked there for for four and a half years until i moved back to india and that's where i learned about um i think that was my first experience with startups um i was probably the first or second employee they hired and i i went through that churn to see how startups are built and i was a part of that process and i think that's where my um kind of i can say love for startups really began so i took most of those learnings that i had uh you know acquired in that process and by you know by year four i knew i wanted to start my company i didn't know what i didn't know how i didn't know you know where i'm going to do it but i knew that um i knew that i was ready to do this um you know on my own and having said that um the skills that uh are were acquired you know when you're working for for for somebody else versus when you're kind of implementing the same process on your own are two uh different things so um i would say that when i started space basic the the key was to find a problem to you know which is a real pain point and also kind of validate that to potential customers or early customers um and i think that is the most essential part of the process and that is the key defining factor to we do we did a lot of due diligence we did thorough due diligence i would say i spent about seven eight months just working on due diligence to find out is this a real problem how often does it occur um you know what is the scale at which it occurs and you know a lot of feedback with end customers so i think that's the process we got right was one of the fundamentals as well to attain um success that we have today okay that's that's terrific so two questions and i'll remind you of the What were some of the lessons you learned while working at SpaceBasic second question um you know after you get to your first so so the first one is um when you when you were in the startup here in australia and you said you learned lots of lessons you know four and a half years without with them what were some of those lessons but some of some of the people are thinking about startups you know so so first question is you can just talk us through some of those insights that you got and not so much the insights you got doing your own business because that's different but the insights you learned from this business um so that's point number one question number one and the question number two is and i guess i'm showing my age a little bit here but in the 80s there was a very famous baseball movie uh and the blinder that build it and they will come all right so it was about this baseball field and in many ways you know platforms are a little bit like that i mean you kind of build a platform and you hope you're going to get people to come on to it i'm really interested to understand how not only did you build the platform but how did you get people to use it in the vast numbers they're using so question one question two got it so um question one uh some of the lessons that i learned while i'm working for um startup you know in australia was to be flexible you know we can come with a preconceived kind of uh predefined uh role roles are predefined but in startups they're not not an early state startups you know everything you know and that gives you the ability to figure out what you like and what you what you don't and what you would like what you're drawn to and you would like to learn more and i think that kind of ability comes only in a startup you know because you have that leverage to kind of experience all these different roles and also it's firefighting most of the time so i think um for me it was an acquired taste initially it was a lot um you know when i started but i realized i did sales i did admin i did door-to-door sales you know tech support and um you know finally ended up with product management and i loved the whole product management uh process i realized i liked talking to customers i necessarily didn't write like doing a lot of documentation work and i you know what today i have to do both it doesn't matter but the point is when i when i started i'm working here i kind of understood that all these are the things um you know i i got to experience and figure out what i'm good at and what i'm you know probably not great at and i need to kind of improve myself so i think that was one and the second thing is you don't work necessarily for the money if you're going to join a startup you're not going to work for the money it's the passion that drives it and uh you know for me i had friends who were working other jobs you know who are probably making two three times more than i was and here i am in a fancy office and probably not even you know just almost barely beating you know making my uh covering my expenses and after a while it was you know mostly the it was the passion that drove me it was the inquisitiveness that i had to learn more and see where this goes and kind of um you know experience that so i think um that was another learning i have so today i tell my employees i have i have young one young people join my company i said don't worry about making money money until you're 30 focus and focus on acquiring skills you know that's what is going to kind of drive you and really you need to understand what you're good at and what you're not not and i think for me uh my biggest lesson uh working for the startup was that and also what really passion is and to see that in my team and my founders at that point you know that was and what drove them it was almost like um you know kind of a directed reflection um as an early employee that i had of them so these were my learnings that's that's terrific we've actually got a question from the audience i'll How did you get people onto your platform come to in a second but it's on a personal level you know i actually think anybody who wants to do startup needs to do door-to-door sales or call calling you know their element of just getting yourself out there right but uh right horrific lessons so on to question two you know build it and they will come right so how did you do that how did you get people onto your platform so uh when we realized that there is a problem which needed technology intervention we decided to uh during the course of my due diligence i decided to sign up a couple of pilot customers who would kind of play with our mvp and let us know how we can uh probably clean it up or do better or you know things we can have and remove so i think one of the reasons why we were able to acquire more customers is because the product was extremely customer feedback driven um you know at every stage and i think um today um you know the guys we enrolled um as pilot users today are still are you know asla customers three years down the line and every we kind of practice this uh process in our company that any new feature and any new enhancement we have we run it through a customer advisory board and now that we have one and kind of really with end users before it's deployed and if more than five customers the more than six customers ask for it it's worth uh doing some r d and kind of running that through so i think involving customers when you're building a product for them is extremely essential it's not a choice and i think that was one of the key factors for us to have um you know users sign up and kind of have the scale of users that we have today thank you for that um and i guess now moving from What would you do differently in your next venture lessons you learned from working with your first internship two lessons you've learned um starting up your own business uh and particularly for the budding entrepreneurs out there like what what advice would you get them in and the question from from from an audience member is what would you do differently in your next venture as an add-on um i think my um okay so i'll answer the first part which is what advice i think you know what people tell you about entrepreneurship or what you see really is the glorified experience but it really um you know the glorified experience is probably ten percent of of all of you know of everything that goes around in the in the background so i think um you know it's it's mostly to do with um look you entrepreneurship is not a quick you know i'm gonna make a quick buck i'm gonna quickly get funded it's not it doesn't work like that i think that's what people think it is today but it's not um i think it is the ability to really kind of uh find something that you're passionate about find um a problem that is worth solving and um you know and kind of chase that and i think it's mostly passion it's not monetary that's a byproduct again that happens to be one of the things you attain from it but the goal here is um i would say is um you know start pick a problem uh build a solution validate it a validate build validate it's a constant process and you know get help and acquire help in this process even asking for help and you know is is a strategy by itself and i think that is uh you know very important for first-time entrepreneurs or or early entrepreneurs to kind of build that ecosystem around you so you can avoid potential pitfalls or kind of have that um help to navigate okay and and the final part of What would you do differently now my question then was um what would you in hindsight now you've been doing you know your company now for a few years what would you have done differently i think my most my biggest learning definitely has to be around hiring um i think you know especially for me because i have worked overseas i've never worked in an indian environment and after having uh you know come back here and build a team here i think there was a little bit of a cultural expectation kind of difference too it's very i would probably put a better and a more rigid structure around selecting team and kind of building a team which is so important um you know one of the pillars of a good company is the team and i think i would do a better job at that there's a lot of lessons i can feel a lot of pain in that answer there for people are your greatest asset but also your greatest challenge right getting the right team getting the right culture so that's terrific look just kind of pivoting a little bit away from your startup and your business to you What are the challenges women face with gender equality as as an individual and all the accolades you received now you're recognized as one of the 2018 united nations top 30 women transforming india i mean that's a pretty amazing accolade and recognition to have a few questions i guess around you know being a woman being a coloured woman uh not just in a in a tech space but you know you also worked in a western country what do you believe are the challenges women face with gender equal inequality in the workforce today um i think you know with women in general um [Music] i think it's changing to be honest sanjay especially here um when i was in australia and when i was working um for for my for the startup i did i was the only woman amongst like six seven uh you know male pairs and it never really crossed my mind or it never really was um that much of an issue you know one thing i did is whenever there was something of bias i would shut it down i would not necessarily engage you know um and i think one thing that i have seen is women usually say it's okay let it go it'll pass i don't think i think awareness is point number one so when when you see that happen to you to somebody else it's important to kind of step up and say and you know and stand up for yourself and that's where it really starts you know um you create awareness and you don't have to you know be an advocate to do that you can do it in your own habitat you know in your own surrounding at work at home wherever that is so i think that was uh one thing that i have um you know i i try to practice and i think i definitely see the change that that is happening i think we're in we're in the process of witnessing change from a very predefined kind of you know role women used to have to kind of change that you know to to kind of equal that out uh with with me with your male counterpart uh i think we're in in that process of change but um it's important to really stand up for yourself at the end of the day um and that that is uh the most important thing and secondly that i have seen is in a workplace you know um men um are it's okay for men to be aggressive but it's kind of not necessarily taken the same way for women and i think um with more women leaders that that mindset and that shift is changing too so i think we need more uh women to be a part of the leadership and the management level look i believe women are born with managerial skills and we just need to teach our generations that and we need to kind of optimize that and um i think just having access to that opportunity is enough for a fair player for a fair game you know there's no need of special preferences and i think that change is happening and that shift is happening that's terrific i mean you talk about standing up for when you think something's Have you felt obstacles in your career not right and that's i think one of the true foundations of good leadership right the standards you walk past say a lot about who you are as a person so you know it's terrific that you you haven't necessarily felt that that bias or am i assuming that you haven't felt that bias i mean have you felt obstacles in your career either from a you know because you come from a particular ethnicity or a socio-economic background on a day-to-day basis whether you're talking to vcs to customers do you get any sense of that yes initially i did um you know i think a little bit with pcs i think women have to try a little harder to fundraise versus um with with men uh in general as a direct reflection but um i think i guess with bc i had somebody ask me is this a hobby you know what happens after you get married and i think you know i think it's regardless of um regardless of the um you know from where you are or as women we tend to face this bias generally it's global um you know and when i speak with other women founders all of us have some sort of an experience like this that you know we kind of talk about or giggle about you know it's really about again it comes back to how do you stand up for yourself are you going to say are you going to sit and explain about oh how it's not and have you sacrificed all this to be here or are you just gonna say i'm sorry would you ask your mail um a male founder would come to you the same question you know um i did that um you know and it's also a conscious choice not to want to work with people who have that kind of um outlook you know and um i think yeah that's that's been my experience you uh said would you ask the same question to a woman i'd love to have been a fly on the wall uh well you know he was nice enough to say yeah maybe you're right yeah i mean it's it's it's full entrepreneurship is full of interesting experiences i guess well at least everyone can look it's Do you feel a responsibility to level the playing field just such an entrenched unconscious bias right and i think look i agree with you i think i think it is starting to change but uh you know obviously there's a there's a long way for us to go so in terms of your own experience when you are recruiting now right you do you have a positive bias towards you know any particular sub sector like do you feel it's part of your job now to also level the playing field not just my gender perspective but from a social economic or an ethnicity perspective or education youth age whatever it is i mean do you feel a responsibility to to level the playing field for all involved um i do i think it's important um i think you know sustainability and profitability can co-exist and i think having said that um you know for me my personal cause even before i started space basic is for women and education you know i think there are a lot of especially in india there are a lot of girls who would like to study but probably don't have the resources to uh progress and i think um you know for me um when i hire i always try to make sure that if if i have women you know who coders or if i have you know sales women who want to do sales i i would i would give them probably you can say more opportunity for why not because these are not conventional roles women with troops would opt for but if they are i think we need to be able to kind of make that way and if you're not if it's a part of your hiring process i think it's okay to take a chance and give them that opportunity and i think that's a conscious decision okay terrific um final question around How can we leverage technology to achieve better social justice justice outcomes this area unless we get some questions from the audience um i mean looking at your advocacy and entrepreneurial work you're very passionate about women's quality and education and that comes through uh the screen motherly it's it's it's refreshing and wonderful to hear how can we leverage technology and innovation to achieve better social justice justice outcomes so um i think you know today as i said we don't necessarily have to every company today every startup can incorporate a part of um you know um sustainability in a way with their processes and i'll give you an example so with space basic what we do is you know with the communication and task management um aspect that we have via our our platform we also have because we have all these students and we have students from you know top tier universities all the way to universities you know students who are in government universities or you know who are not from necessarily um great economic backgrounds so what we did is we got a couple of um companies on board and you know these companies um provide internships scholarships uh resume services so on and so forth so now students have all students have equal access to these kind of services via our platform so i think that was now you know it doesn't matter whether you're from um you know bangalore you're from could be from a small little village you know both students have equal access to that particular opportunity provided to them so i think it's mostly to do with having access and you know because most students don't even have that or most people don't even have that and i'm speaking very uh you know india based at this point probably not uh you know uh it probably wouldn't um not not so much for australia but um over here i think it's important to really pick uh a social cause that you know you could put uh it to be a part of your startup it doesn't necessarily have to be um you know your mainstream business but i think it could also be uh one of the things you could focus on um you know and it doesn't take a lot of effort and that's terrific and in fact it aligns perfectly to one of our audience questions which is is the Ambition to be highly successful eventual ambition of space basic to be highly successful just in india or is there update to other countries where educating women also requires attention um yes um you know the goal always is to go global and educating women is all is is one of the things we do um out of passion the product remains to be um you know focused on problem solving a problem for a particular sector which is student housing and manual tasks that i've done today but um you know um women education and that is something that we focus as a byproduct out of passion and what we're doing today is we're trying to find different ways where we can see that we can incorporate that within our our business framework okay um How to ensure a smooth customer journey that's terrific um so another audience question and i guess kind of just shifting a little bit from anycat how do you ensure a smooth customer journey what are the key challenges in the indian market and how do you manage them so um smooth customer journey i think it begins with listening to the customer versus you know force feeding them with the solution that you have i think most of the case and most of the times that's what happens when you're forcing somebody to buy something versus listening to their um you know what they need and um i think um that's something that companies in general do so what we practice in terms of sales cycle here in my company is we first when we reach the when we reach out the customer we hear them out we gather we have a form where we write down all their you know what they ask for and then we kind of uh you know kind of then show them what we have and so on and so forth so empathy basically is an important aspect of the entire sales cycle i don't think typical sales uh processes work anymore today i think mostly uh it's very personalized people are looking for personalized interactions personalized solutions and that's what's going to get you into doors i'm going to keep you there especially for sas businesses that need to be renewed year on year you know a customer experience is an extremely important part of that cycle awesome and you know you operate and the Challenges in the Indian market question there was about globally and i guess you know everybody wants to go global right it's it's a it's a great story india increasingly as we move into the next next decade is is shaping up to be a very economic significant country right with this population with this with its with this growing economy etc so what challenges do you see operating in the indian market that might be unique to the indian market right um i think definitely i think technology adoption is increasing in india we see that happen i think in 2018 when we i'm sorry 17 when we started um the the cell phone penetration was about 18 and that's when and then you know with that a lot of technology adoption we could we could see that um you know carry out so with technology adoption um you know uh at this point what happens is there will be certain set of customers who are um early adopters and some who will probably wait it out much later on to kind of adopt technology and i think it's important for us to identify uh you know based on which service or which uh sector and uh product that we we are um you know delivering um we need we need to be able to identify that ecosystem and really identify the challenges that you may face up front and um for for us in space basic i think it was we were a little early to the curve when we started in terms of digitizing student housing and today i think technology is quick more quickly accepted than it used to be but i think the major problem is because we work with um we work with management or we work with um people who are used to a particular process for many many years change management it's it's because it's habitual you know change management is probably the hardest kind of uh problem that we would face from going uh from manual processes to technology so it has to be extremely efficient and um you know the the roi has to be delivered then and there for them to say yes this is going to solve my problem uh this is 100 going to make my work much lesser than it already um you know than i have and if you were able to show definitive outcomes to them i think adoption is that much more quicker but i believe change management is definitely um you can say one of the challenges or one of the key challenges here in terms of adoption i don't think we see that so much in um you know developed countries versus developing countries and a follow-on question i guess in How do you manage risk in the Indian market terms of india's role and you know the kind of global nature of what you do isn't an inherent threat for a platform like yours always that somebody sees your idea and replicates it somewhere else uh and you know has the kind of first entrant market value into that market how do you how do you work with that how do you manage that is it just an inherent risk or are there things that you can put in place that make it make it more difficult for that to happen so i think you know i think with that that i think that's a universal problem really you know um to build a platform it's really not that hard to build a facebook or to build a linkedin it's really you know it's it's not so much the technology that builds it more than it is the entire kind of experience a user has and the community that builds with it so i think with us yes that definitely is a risk factor but uh having said that i think being able to have more users being able to focus on customer experience being able to um you know kind of um have more adoption and have more rigorous sales cycles will help you give that early advantage um you know when you enter the market and of course you know you have uh ips and patterns and all of that that's a technical process but i think the major part is not so much technical but more about the the experience and the ecosystem you build around it yeah i think the biggest challenges we're seeing around around that in australia is being played out in the hamburger market believe it or not around plans and stuff so it happens everywhere right um look it would be silly for me to um sit here Impact of COVID on the startup city and not talk about covert right we're sitting in we've got not even a once in a generational right maybe once in a century type situation now where everything that we've known has either been challenged or changed in terms of global dynamics travel industry commerce so that's obviously an impact on the startup city as well right so how do you see the postcode role in terms of the style of space both across india and also globally i think with um kovid in terms of just businesses i think that with covet the question that you know most businesses ask today is are we crisis proof um you know we never thought about this pre covert and it kind of forced us to think about this and i think the businesses that that have survived today startups let me talk about startups right the startups that have survived today are pretty much the companies that have pivoted a little bit compared to their original or initial offerings are companies that have been able to kind of um you know optimize i can say um you know with providing a solution to the current situation and i think um you know in india uh startups it's look it's it's global where companies have to have have laid off people they've shut down and you know they've um you know kind of let's say deferred operations onto a better times but i think survival mode is what is um this period is survival mode you know for startups that's what i think and especially for us because um you know we work with universities we work with colleges which have been shot over the last seven months and um in india and um you know we don't know when that's going to um kind of open open up and you know i don't it's never going to be business as usual at least not for the immediate next six seven months and what we have seen is we've been able to pivot our structure a little bit our offerings a little bit so it's not only student housing but now communication can happen throughout the university with all of the students and with all of the management and parents etc so we've kind of you know opened that up and we were also able to leverage our solution to um you know the government of karnataka over here so they can convert student housing or private accommodations into covet care centers so it's really important to kind of you know at this period try to find ways to still have uh you know your product up up um are pivoted a little bit so that you know your your your services is not tampered or you're still able to survive during times of crisis and are you seeing you know tightening Riskaverse VCs of venture capital funds are you seeing um you know the whole kind of startup scene going more into a risk-averse type uh behavior towards the startup scene are there things that you're actually seeing that's tangibly changing i think i think you know that's a good question um with with vc's i think now i don't think there are tightening funds but i think they're really looking at sectors you know what sectors to invest in um what are i think this is kind of as i said right it's it's kind of been a point where um today like for example will vc invest in a travel company at this particular moment probably not but would he invest in let's say a communication tool or let's say um you know like let's say a video conference tool perhaps because um you know at this point um it's kind of certain sectors have been kind of you know under the microscope in terms of uh funding but some have actually blown up to show potential and acquire more users and i think the shift is more now based on which sector um you know to fund and i also think uh vcs are looking at how businesses are managing this covet period right if you are if you come out of it successful or are you of raising money just for cash to sustain or survive so i think the the way you come out of the corporate situation also will be a key factor for investment today which probably was not pre-covered okay and um two like two two questions before we finish unless anything more comes in from the audience members um so look i still have nightmares about band or traffic right i mean it's a horrible place anywhere in so have you have you used over to the covert experience to change your operations the way you work how do you keep connected with your staff because clearly i think face time with you and time with you will be a driver of cultural um kind of energy in your business right so how have you mother we kind of personally at your business internal operations i think the one on the bright side of covet is um not having to travel in traffic um you know so there's more time and um with with um covid and with the current situation i think mostly for tech companies um you know uh we don't necessarily need a lot of face time especially with the the tech team per se however you know sales could be a bit of a challenge because in india at least sales is very face time driven it's very human interactive driven today um you know people are forced to kind of adopt technology for almost all of the activities one would perform typically um at work and i think we've seen that shift in terms of sales to be um the most kind of um what do i say the most amount of r d that has happened is around sales and how do we manage sales and still have sales and still sell but online you know um we so we have to train our our sales team where to train our typical team that would heavily focus on going and meeting them to close a deal to kind of re-trade that process and do it um you know on the internet while a video call so i think um that aspect has been something that we have shifted and kind of paid a lot of attention to but in terms of the rest of the team um you know we still we used to have a weekly check-in we have daily five minutes stand up all of that is just moved instead of uh you know in person it's moved to um online but i think working from home has been uh productive uh productive too so you know you cut down on a lot of um time you would usually spend uh traveling etc okay perfect so mother last question uh and i know we've covered some of it but Advice for young entrepreneurs i guess um in terms of summing it up right uh this is this you're talking to a bunch of university alumni and and people are interested in the startup scene so what would your advice be for current students and young budding entrepreneurs and you know you can go as broad as you like i would say solve a real problem i would say find something that you're passionate about it could be in that particular space that's okay too it's okay not to kind of you know get it right the first time you know if you if you do end up let's say building something and you're starting something and you see that there's no traction it's okay because the goal at the end of the day you know we nobody get i'm i mean i haven't met anybody who got it right the first time and it took a lot of doodle it took about a year on you know before i got my first customer and uh and i think that's a part of the process and we need to be patient and we the biggest thing about entrepreneurship i believe is the ability not to give up and the ability to trust your gut because sometimes they're just not enough data touch points available um you know at least when you start off and i also believe that it's important to find a mentor and i think i would like to credit most of you know my learnings to my to my mentor because i believe you know she's walked this path and i was every day able to kind of brainstorm and really gain knowledge and visibility um you know from her and also my other mentors who i have met through the process so it's very important i think find a mentor solve a real problem don't give up i think these three uh have really helped me and i think these will be um you know helpful kind of um i think to keep in the back of your head that's really powerful those those three simple statements but my god they are they are what drive um that's learning it's it's it's resilience it's um so look i've learned a lot from this session thank you i've really enjoyed talking thank you thank you so much sanjay i thank you on behalf of the participants as well but to formally do that um let me bring tim lawrence back onto the screen thanks malib thank you sanjay thanks very much madali and sanjay for such an engaging discussion that really was um such a an excellent dialogue between the two of you it's been wonderful hearing about your work uh and uh thank you tim your your advocacy i particularly enjoyed your advice to budding entrepreneurs which you finished with but you also covered it earlier in the piece uh that entrepreneurship is not about a quick buck and i think that's such an important lesson and that sometimes the first your first you know your first couple of times you get it wrong but you just keep on trying and finding something you're passionate about and that there is a market for and building a solution validating it and acquiring help i think that was a really nice touch to call for help when you need it and not don't think that you can actually do it all yourself which is a huge pitfall and finally quite early on in your conversation you mentioned the your best practice approach to use your experience design the importance of customer feedback driven product development and piloting through the involvement of customers which i think is really important lessons for developing um any product as a young entrepreneur or an old one so thank you so much that was a great thing thank you thank you so much tim my pleasure you

My name is uh Pio Sanen and I graduated from UTS in 2013. I got my PhD uh with a specialization in AI and machine learning. I feel very proud about getting this international award. It g me a moment to pause and thinking about my journey from my home country to Singapore until Australia where I am now. I had learned a lot of lesson in UTS. I got more confident when I have to work with people from different cultural background. After I graduated from UTS, I feel like the world is very welcoming to me. I was trained not only to concentrate on my research experience but also I got opportunity to learn soft skills as well. This experience actually helped shape me and allow me to contribute in my work community. To my fellow UTS international alumni, don't be afraid uh to take a new challenge. It is a great opportunity for you. At the same time, they will get a kind of full energy like to push yourself beyond the limit and I think this is all the way to the success. [Music]