Software People Stories

My guests today are Cultural engineer-anthropologist Allen Batteau, Ph.D. and design anthropologist Christine Z. Miller, Ph.D., co-authors of the book:  Tools, Totems, and Totalities: The Modern Construction of Hegemonic TechnologyChristine Miller is a professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and Allen, a retired professor from Wayne State University.They share details of their interdisciplinary backgrounds, their collaborative book project, and the implications of technology on society. They discuss the concept of sociotechnical systems, the brittleness of technology, and the ethical responsibilities of designers and software developers. They also touch upon the potential impact of AI, user-centered vs. social-centered design, and the role of speculative design in fostering innovation and hope for the future of humanity.Some specific topics that they touched upon: Introduction and Guest BackgroundsChristine's Academic JourneyAllen's Career PathThe Concept of Sociotechnical SystemsHegemonic Technology in Software DevelopmentAI: Artificial Intelligence or Artificial Ignorance?User-Centered vs. Social-Centered DesignThe Importance of Broader Perspectives in EducationThe Role of Universities in Broader EducationThe Impact of Habit-Forming ProductsProductivity and TechnologyThe Evolution and Impact of the InternetEthical Responsibilities in TechnologyThe Urgency and Maintenance in DesignBrittleness of Technological SystemsSpeculative Design and Future PerspectivesConcluding Thoughts on Technology and HopeAllen W. Batteau, a cultural anthropologist and professor at Wayne State University, is a leading authority on the intersection of technology and society. His work, funded by agencies such as NASA and the National Science Foundation, includes numerous publications on aviation, flight safety, and technology in democratic societies.  https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/ad4408Christine Miller is a design educator and researcher at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). With expertise in socio-technical systems, her research focuses on how social and cultural dynamics influence technology design and adoption. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges anthropology, design, and businesshttps://www.scad.edu/academics/faculty/christine-miller

My guest today is S Parthasarathy, better known as Spart who is the founder at CuedIn Technologies.In this episode, Spart shares his extensive journey in the software engineering field. Spart's story begins with his initial projects in COBOL programming at Tata Burroughs and the World Bank, working on critical systems in retail, logistics, and financial sectors. He recounts his impactful stint at SWIFT, contributing to the foundation of what has become modern-day financial messaging systems. Spart reflects on his decision to pivot from electrical engineering to computer science, driven by his interest in the engineering of large systems. He details his tenure at Ramco Systems, implementing document-based transactions, model-based code generation, and achieving several tech milestones, including internet integration and 32-bit upgrades. After Ramco, Spart's continued passion for software engineering led him to co-found a SaaS-based ERP solution company, targeting SMEs. Despite early challenges and market readiness issues, he gained crucial insights into cloud-native architectures.Spart's career path took another turn towards consulting and exploring AI, specifically focusing on probabilistic graph learning and the challenges of natural language processing in software engineering. He emphasizes the importance of non-functional requirements, application architecture, and the potential of tools like Generative AI (GenAI) to enhance software development processes. Spart concludes by reflecting on the ongoing evolution of software engineering and his current projects aimed at making software engineering more accessible and efficient with modern tools.Spart has 40+ years of experience in various aspects of software services area covering consultancy, business systems management, product development and Engineering management. Worked with large North American Organizations handling complex projects to implement transaction processing business solutions and data communication networks. Key interests: • Gen AI based solutioning for key business activities • Gen AI enabled SW engineering • Contextual social network driven approach for building business systems • Predictive analytics over operational databases using Bayesian causal networks • Implementing innovative platform based techno-commercial models for software solutions/services delivery. • Cloud computing and SOA based multi-tenant solution Architecturehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/spartp/

My guest today is Galvin Widjaja, founder and CEO of Lauretta.io ….In this episode he talks about:Origin story: Galvin Widjaja shares his origin story, including his background and how he got associated with the AI industry .Entrepreneurial Journey: Galvin discusses his transition from a quant finance background to becoming an entrepreneur in the AI space .AI and Computer Vision: Insights into Galvin's work in AI and computer vision, particularly in security applications .Business Challenges: Galvin talks about the challenges faced in running a restaurant chain and the importance of automation and domain expertise .Consulting Experience: Reflections on Galvin's consulting experience and the lessons learned in communication and stakeholder management .Regulation Tech Project: Details about a regulation tech project Galvin proposed and executed at DBS Bank .Family Influence: The impact of Galvin's family background on his entrepreneurial journey, including his father's and grandfather's businesses .Pivot to AI: The shift from business processing to AI and the founding of an AI security company .Technological Innovations: Discussion on technological innovations in Indonesia and the contributions of Indonesian software engineers CEO & Co-Founder, Lauretta.ioGalvin Widjaja is the founder and CEO of Lauretta AI, a privacy-first computer vision company that helps organizations understand human behavior in physical spaces without relying on identity or biometrics. Under his leadership, Lauretta has become a trusted partner to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, TSA, U.S. Air Force, and major airport and defense agencies across Asia and North America. The company’s AI platform is designed to predict intent, enable preemptive alerts, and provide real-time situational awareness — all while preserving individual privacy.Galvin’s unconventional journey into AI began not in a lab, but behind the counter of a quick-service restaurant he once ran for his father in Singapore. After early career stints in consulting, banking, and tech, a pivotal decision to reconnect with his estranged father led him to manage three migrant-serving restaurants. There, he learned that systems are only as good as the people they serve. That insight shaped his approach to AI — one built not just on precision and scale, but on empathy, equity, and lived experience.Born in Singapore and raised partly in Indonesia, Galvin grew up in entrepreneurial households that saw both massive growth and total collapse. Those early lessons in volatility, resilience, and human complexity now inform his mission to build AI that doesn’t just react — it understands. His work focuses on helping organizations move from static surveillance to dynamic understanding, and from reactive alerts to proactive decision-making — all while respecting the humanity of the people being observed.Galvin may be reached at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galvinw/

I am in conversation with Tom Elliott, founder of Ocuroot and former Engineering Productivity lead at Yext, Introduction:Tom Elliott shares his career journey, starting from his early interest in computers to his current role in Dev tooling .Career Insights:Tom discusses the challenges of entering the industry during the financial crash and his transition from contract work to a full-time role at VMware .He highlights his experience at VMware, working on early-stage projects like building login pages and authentication systems .Shift to New York:Tom talks about his move to New York and his work at a small VPN startup, focusing on user-facing applications .Experience at Yext:Tom shares his journey at Yext, starting as a mobile developer and gradually moving to backend development and Dev tooling .He emphasizes the importance of being close to the users and getting immediate feedback on the tools he built .Challenges and Solutions:Tom discusses the challenges of working in large organizations, such as resolving merge conflicts and managing long-lived branches .He explains the benefits of trunk-based development and feature flags for managing multiple features and environments .Observability and Deployment:Tom highlights the importance of observability and the use of tools like open telemetry for distributed tracing .He shares insights on managing different deployment environments and ensuring consistency across regions .Quality and CI/CD Pipelines:Tom talks about the emphasis on quality and the importance of CI/CD pipelines in ensuring reliable software releases .He shares his experience of setting up CI/CD pipelines to avoid issues like broken installers .Conclusion:Tom reflects on the importance of flexibility and prototyping in software development .He shares his thoughts on the future of AI in coding and the role of human operators in leveraging AI tools .Bio:During nearly 20 years in the tech industry, Tom has worked for companies large and small on both sides of the pond and all layers of the tech stack from user-facing mobile and desktop applications to the backest of backends: DevOps. He is currently building Ocuroot, his own take on a CI/CD solution, based on his experiences scaling large numbers of environments for B2B SaaS products.Links: * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/telliott1984/ * BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/telliott.me* Blog: https://thefridaydeploy.substack.com/* Ocuroot: https://www.ocuroot.com

My guest today is Thanos Diacakis, Software Delivery Coach & a Fractional CTO.We covered a wide range of topics that included:Insightful Experiences: Thanos shared many insightful and thought-provoking experiences and perspectives, particularly on software delivery life cycle improvements without explicitly using terms like Kanban Balancing Work and Personal Life: Thanos emphasized the importance of balancing work and personal life, recognizing that while work is important, personal relationships and leisure activities are equally significant.Fractional CTO Business: Thanos discussed the benefits of running a fractional CTO business, allowing for flexibility in managing time and delivering value to multiple clientsScaling Challenges: Thanos shared experiences with scaling projects, particularly with Uber's bikes and scooters, highlighting the importance of having systems in place to manage growthLearning from Others: Thanos emphasized the value of learning from others and cross-pollinating ideas across different clients to improve software delivery Thanos Diacakis helps startups and growing companies overcome software bottlenecks, scale engineering teams, and deliver high-quality products faster. With over 25 years in software development, his background spans both early-stage ventures and tech giants like Uber and Included Health, where he led the technical integration of the JUMP Bikes acquisition, scaling the platform to 45k vehicles and over 2 million monthly trips. He’s seen elite teams stall when outdated processes leave them too heads-down to course-correct. With lean, evidence-backed practices, he unlocks faster delivery and greater developer satisfaction, so velocity rises while burnout falls.SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:Website:  https://www.cosmicteacups.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thanosd/

In this episode of Software People Stories, Gayatri Kalyanaraman speaks with Anu Dwaraknath, Staff Technical Program Manager at Lam Research, about her dynamic journey across geographies, domains, and roles. From her early days in telecom to becoming a driving force in the semiconductor space, Anu shares stories of adaptability, continuous learning, and purpose-driven leadership. Episode Summary In this inspiring episode of Software People Stories, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Anu Dwaraknath, Staff Technical Program Manager at Lam Research — a global leader in semiconductor capital equipment.Anu walks us through her transformative journey from a telecom software engineer to a program leader in the high-stakes world of semiconductors. With warmth and clarity, she shares how each stage of her career was shaped by curiosity, grit, and a willingness to embrace new challenges.Having started in C/C++ development at Alcatel-Lucent, Anu transitioned into technical program management after earning a general management MBA in the U.S. — a shift she undertook during the 2008 recession. With no prior semiconductor experience, she joined Lam Research as an intern and steadily built her domain knowledge, moving from internal IT to core product engineering over the next decade.Now based in India, Anu leads software initiatives on tools that power the chips behind every smart device — and actively advocates for greater awareness and participation in the semiconductor industry, especially for women in tech. Key Themes & Highlights Breaking Into Semiconductors with Persistence and CuriosityJoined Lam Research during her MBA through an internship focused on business analysis.Despite being new to the domain, she took on enterprise software migrations, bridging the business and engineering teams.Faced challenges around visa sponsorship and recession-era job market, but leveraged every opportunity to gain cross-functional exposure. Learning the Domain, One Layer at a TimeStarted in IT and internal systems, then gradually moved into product-facing roles within Lam.Through subconscious learning from team meetings, leadership messages, and everyday exposure, she began to understand the complex world of semiconductor fabrication and capital equipment.Upon relocating to India, she took on a more core product role — bringing her closer to engineers and customers, leading to rapid upskilling in domain knowledge.“I knew I was coming in from a non-product background, and I said yes — I’m ready for the steep learning curve.”️ Building the Beginner’s MindsetEmphasizes the importance of staying mentally agile and open to new domains.Used every role — from unpaid internships to technical program ownership — as a learning opportunity.Believes you don’t need to know everything on Day 1, but must carry the intent to learn continuously. Growing Semiconductor Awareness in IndiaEngages actively with communities like Grace Hopper (GHCI), Lean In, and PMI, often being the only semiconductor representative in the room.Speaks at schools and conferences to demystify what semiconductors are, how fabs work, and why this field matters — especially post-COVID and in India’s Make in India drive.Helps others through referrals, career guidance, and mentorship — especially women interested in STEM and product roles Quote-worthy Moments“Your domain doesn’t have to define you — if you carry the mindset to learn, the journey takes care of itself.”“I wanted to break out of my comfort zone — not just from engineering to management, but from one industry to another.”“Being in semiconductors now feels like representing a movement — and I take that responsibility seriously.”Anu can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anu-dwarakanath-89728a15/Anu is Process innovator, critical thinker, and a corporate entrepreneur in the making! Solid program manager who adds strategic value and brings out competitive differentiation by focusing on business transformations.● 15 years of experience working in IT program management, specializing in waterfall (SDLC), agile and hybrid project management methodologies● A highly collaborative leader with a track record of building effective cross-functional teams and relationships, while delivering high scale solutions● Core competencies: structured problem solving & qualitative decision analysis, negotiation & consensus building Links & ResourcesLam ResearchGrace Hopper Conference IndiaLeanin.orgPMI.org

Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Dr. Fred Jordan, CEO and Co-Founder at AlpVision and FinalSpark - Expert anticounterfeit technologies - Expert biocomputing talks about his journey to make a difference in AI and what propelled him to do that. 1. Early Career — Curiosity, Coincidence, and CounterfeitsFred describes himself modestly as a French physicist who stumbled into entrepreneurship by "provoking luck."He and his co-founder Martin Kutter began with research in digital watermarking, creating invisible marks on media.Their startup AlfVision emerged from this — aimed at detecting counterfeit goods using image analysis.Lessons from early failures (9 out of 10 products failed) were key to refining their success. 2. Making the Mark — Patents, Passion, and Intellectual PropertyFred emphasizes building a business around passion, but insists on profitability too.He stresses the importance of understanding finance, even for technical founders.As a multi-founder and active programmer, he still codes when needed — including writing software that led to a patent and successful tech deployment in China. 3. Creating a Legacy — Bio-Neurons and a Sustainable FutureFinal Spark emerged from Fred and Martin’s desire to return to fundamental research, after years of commercial success.Their mission: dramatically reduce the energy and resources required to run AI by leveraging real neurons instead of digital simulations — achieving up to 1 million times greater energy efficiency.In their lab in Switzerland, they’ve created a testbed where biological neural tissues are grown, connected via electrodes, and streamed in real-time — with microfluidics feeding them 24/7.Fred draws a direct parallel between learning in artificial neural networks (via adjusting weights) and the biological challenge of inducing learning by reconfiguring synaptic connections. This forms the crux of building a true biological computing server. “When you have artificial neurons, learning is done by setting the right connections between them. We need to do the same in biology. That’s how humans learn — and that’s what we have to replicate in vitro.”The long-term vision is bold:Create biological servers at scale (10cm x 100m tissues) that could power AI with drastically less energy.Biological intelligence becoming mainstream — just as LED lights replaced incandescent bulbs.A future with hybrid bio-artificial objects — think of a glass that detects your mood and adjusts your drink accordingly.Breakaway quote-worthy moments “Trial and error is really precious... Being a co-founder, failures teach you very, very valuable lessons.” “I’m not building something for today — I want it to make sense even from 100 million kilometers away.”His thoughts on entrepreneurship: “You need to be not bad at many things. Everything is holistic.” “If you don't work for your dreams, you work for someone else's.”Fred Jordan is an Experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of successful and profitable businesses. Skilled in Innovation, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Programming, Marketing, Management and Entrepreneurship. Scientific education with M.Sc. in physics and Ph.D. in signal processing.Co-founder of:- AlpVision: Supplier of technologies and smartphone solutions for automatic detection of genuine and fake products.- FinalSpark: Startup using biological neural networks for the design of Artificial General Intelligence.Dr. Fred Jordan  started their journey in technology entrepreneurship after completing his PhDs at EPFL in applied mathematics. This work gave them the inspiration for their first successful start-up, AlpVision, where they excelled at overcoming engineering challenges and created an innovative solution for product authentication. The company became very profitable and is still successfully run by them.This brought the co-founders Fred and Martin to a new, even bigger challenge, to address the problem of Artificial General Intelligence. Creating a ‘Thinking Machine’ is a dream of many engineers. A machine which can reason as a human being is considered by many as a peak performance to be achieved in engineering.Although we currently observe the flourishing of the AI models which make impression of being ableto think, as they successfully ‘fake’ human thinking with advanced statistics, this has nothing to do withhuman reasoning which is capable of creating new ideas and concepts outside its own experience. Thisis what a ‘real’ thinking machine should do as well.Fred and Martin decided to address this problem by testing the state-of-the-art methods in AI models, such as in silico spiking neural networks, genetic programming and many versions of in silico neural networks.Multidisciplinary thinking and the interest to explore unknown areas lead Fred and Martin to work on living neurons as computation units. They established FinalSpark lab which is currently running fundamental research with one main question: How to make living neurons perform intended computations?How to send instructions to the living neurons using electric wires and receive results – the same wayas we send the instructions by typing on our keyboard and receive the answers from in silico computerson our screens.Fred Jordan can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-jordan-anticounterfeiting-brandprotection-authentication/

I am very happy to bring you the inspiring story of Santosh Kaveti, CEO and Founder of ProArch Technologies.In this conversation he talks about: His Origin Story: From applied mathematics to entrepreneurship, navigating challenges, risks, and business growth. AI in Cybersecurity & Infrastructure: The rapid convergence of AI, security, compliance, and enterprise tech strategies. Investing & Startup Leadership: What Santosh looks for in founders, financial planning, and scaling a business globally. Navigating AI Risks & Model Security: Addressing AI poisoning, prompt injection threats, and governance frameworks for enterprises. AI for Business & Social Good: Why AI should be seen not just as a cost-efficiency tool but as an enabler of new opportunities. Human in the Loop & AI Ethics: The need for human oversight and anomaly detection to keep AI decisions aligned with real-world values. Social Initiatives & Community Learning: How the MASTI initiative bridges music, art, science, and tech and innovation  for underprivileged children. Balancing Business & Social Impact: Santosh’s philosophy on staying grounded, mentorship, and personal growth through meaningful work.With over 18 years of experience as a technologist, entrepreneur, investor, and advisor, Santosh Kaveti is the CEO and Founder of ProArch, a purpose-driven enterprise that accelerates value and increases resilience for its clients with consulting and technology services, enabled by cloud, guided by data, fueled by apps, and secured by design.Santosh’s vision and leadership have propelled ProArch to become a dominant force in key industry verticals, such as Energy, Healthcare & Lifesciences, and Manufacturing, where he leverages his expertise in manufacturing process improvement, mentoring, and consulting.https://www.linkedin.com/in/santoshkaveti/

Her early inspiration while growing up in Goa with limited exposure to career options. Her Father’s intellectual influence despite personal hardships and shift in focus to technology.Personal tragedy sparked a resolve to become financially independent and learn deeply.Inspirational quote that shaped her mindset: “Even if your dreams haven’t come true, be grateful that so haven’t your nightmares.”Her first role at a startup with Hands-on work with networking protocols (LDAP, VPN, DNS). Learning using only RFCs and O'Reilly books—no StackOverflow! Importance of building deep expertise for long-term success.Experiences with Troubleshooting and System Thinking; Transitioned from reactive fixes to logical, structured problem-solving. Her depth of understanding helped in debugging and system optimization.Career move to Yahoo where she led Service Engineering for mobile and ads across global data centers got early exposure to big data and machine learning through ad recommendation systems and built "performance and scale muscle" through working at massive scale.Challenges of Scale and Performance Then vs. Now: Problems remain the same, but data volumes and complexity have exploded. How modern tools (like AI/ML) can help identify relevance and anomalies in large data sets.Design with Scale in Mind - Importance of flipping the design approach: think scale-first, not POC-first. Encourage starting with a big-picture view, even when building a small prototype. Highlights multiple scaling dimensions—data, compute, network, security.Getting Into ML and Data Science with early spark from MOOCs, TensorFlow experiments, and statistics; Transition into data science role at Infoblox, a cybersecurity firm with focus areas on DNS security, anomaly detection, threat intelligence.Building real-world ML model applications like supervised models for threat detection and storage forecasting; developing graph models to analyze DNS traffic patterns for anomalies and key challenges of managing and processing massive volumes of security data.Data stack and what it takes to build data lakes that support ML with emphasis on understanding the end-to-end AI pipelineShifts from “under the hood” ML to front-and-center GenAI & Barriers: Data readiness, ROI, explainability, regulatory compliance.Explainability in AI and importance of interpreting model decisions, especially in regulated industries.How Explainability Works -Trade-offs between interpretable models (e.g., decision trees) and complex ones (e.g., deep learning); Techniques for local and global model understanding.Aruna’s Book on Interpretability and Explainability in AI Using Python (by Aruna C).The world of GenAI & Transformers - Explainability in LLMs and GenAI: From attention weights to neuron activation.Challenges of scale: billions of parameters make models harder to interpret. Exciting research areas: Concept tracing, gradient analysis, neuron behavior.GenAI Agents in Action - Transition from task-specific GenAI to multi-step agents. Agents as orchestrators of business workflows using tools + reasoning.Real-world impact of agents and AI for everyday lifeAruna Chakkirala is a seasoned leader with expertise in AI, Data and Cloud. She is an AI Solutions Architect at Microsoft where she was instrumental in the early adoption of Generative AI. In prior roles as a Data Scientist she has built models in cybersecurity and holds a patent in community detection for DNS querying. Through her two-decade career, she has developed expertise in scale, security, and strategy at various organizations such as Infoblox, Yahoo, Nokia, EFI, and Verisign. Aruna has led highly successful teams and thrives on working with cutting-edge technologies. She is a frequent technical and keynote speaker, panelist, author and an active blogger. She contributes to community open groups and serves as a guest faculty member at premier academic institutes. Her book titled "Interpretability and Explainability in AI using Python" covers the taxonomy and techniques for model explanations in AI including the latest research in LLMs. She believes that the success of real-world AI applications increasingly depends on well- defined architectures across all encompassing domains. Her current interests include Generative AI, applications of LLMs and SLMs, Causality, Mechanistic Interpretability, and Explainability tools.Her recently published book linkInterpretability and Explainability in AI Using Python: Decrypt AI Decision-Making Using Interpretability and Explainability with Python to Build Reliable Machine Learning Systems  https://amzn.in/d/00dSOwAOutside of work, she is an avid reader and enjoys creative writing. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, she is actively involved in GHCI, LeanIn communities.

I am in conversation with Deepak Mittal, CEO of FFTalos Technologies. In this insightful episode, Deepak Mittal shares his career journey from coding to consultative selling, reflecting on his evolution from a tech enthusiast to a sales leader driving large-scale digital transformation. He explores solution-based selling, the importance of understanding customer needs, and why sales is more about facilitation than persuasion.More specifically, he covers: His Origin Story: From engineering and coding in the early IT days to discovering his passion for customer interactions. Tech vs. Sales: The shift from writing software to understanding business problems and shaping solutions. Consultative vs. Product-Based Selling: The difference between pitching features vs. uncovering customer pain points. Customer Empathy & Industry Knowledge: Why asking the right questions & listening is more powerful than a polished pitch. Building Relationships in Sales: The role of trust, collaboration, and stakeholder engagement in long-term success. The Modern Buyer: How the digital era has transformed customer research & purchasing behavior. Enterprise Selling Strategies: The contrast between RFP-driven sales and proactive relationship-building. Navigating Internal Trust in Sales & Delivery Teams: Why sales & delivery alignment is critical for customer success. The Human Side of Selling: Managing rejections, pressures, and the art of influencing without being pushy.Deepak has over his career, worked in IT sector focusing on Technology, Media & Telecommunication(TMT) businesses, in sales, business development & practice leadership roles. His experience across IT Services Companies, Managed Services Providers and Product Vendors, has given him a unique 360 degrees insight into IT solutions and how they fit into larger business landscape.He has worked across global markets and delivered significant results, in a period of great technological flux and business volatility within TMT sector. His experience has given him a good exposure & proficiency in the following areas–1. Understanding and managing digital transformation and its impact on business strategies as well as on the workplace.2. Understanding business drivers and their correlation with IT and Technology strategies.3. Execution of IT & Technology strategy on-ground.4. Understanding & enabling eco-systems to drive business outcomes.5. Building & motivating high performing global teamsHe has always tried to anchor his work in business fundamentals like customer experience, profitability & market share and leveraging technology into driving business outcomes.https://www.linkedin.com/in/demittal/