Sanjay Goyal: Decoding the Tech-enabled Arena

Sanjay Goyal – Business Head, TimesJobs and TechGig, interacts with Insight Success Magazine and talks about the current trends and shares his views about the TechGig Geek Goddess 2019 convention.

He has led several important portfolios in his tenure with The Times of India group including heading the CMS product, technology and backend services for the group’s media portals such as TimesofIndia.com, EconomicTimes.com, Navbharattimes.com, Maharashtratimes.com, BusinessInsider.in and HuffingtonPost.in.

He has also led product and technology for central SSO and content performance analytics teams, managed enterprise-wide SAP upgrades and implementations among a host of other functions. Prior to joining The Times of India group, Sanjay has worked with multi-national organisations such as GlobalLogic, RiverRun Software and HCL in the US and Europe. His onsite and offshore work experience with these organisations has given him a global perspective and unique ability to lead distributed teams on diverse technology platforms leveraging both outsourcing and insourcing models.

He is an Electronics & Telecommunications Engineer, and has done his Masters in Software Systems from BITS, Pilani. He has also attended Executive Management Programs from ISB, Hyderabad and IIM, Ahmedabad.

1. Being an innate tech connoisseur, what are your views on the current technological landscape of the country? For instance, where does India stand in the race of AI and Machine Learning?

Enterprise technology has evolved in the last five years and it will see an exponential leap in the coming decade. Right now, India is in the early stages of AI adoption and has an immensely large playing field for Automation.

Industry watchers estimate that India’s AI industry has grown about 30% in the last year, making it a staggering $230 million industry. However, the country is facing a talent deficit when it comes to trained AI-related professions, in turn pushing the demand for Data science professionals, Big Data store Engineers, Algorithm Experts and more.

2. Considering your profound market knowledge and professional experience, what is your take on the rise and fall of more and more tech start-ups? What according to you are the prime factors of success for any tech-oriented company?

The one thing which keeps the startups from the successful implementation of business is not focusing on the business use case. If the foundation of the business is not strong you don’t have any concrete product or service which makes your customer’s lives easier, then that startup is bound to fail. The business use case should be prerequisite and established before initiating anything.

3. Coming to the TechGig Geek Goddess 2019 convention, apart from what the name suggests, what else is in store for the participants as well as the audience?

TechGig Geek Goddess is not merely a gathering of tech-savvy people, but it is a place where we bring the spotlight on the best IT talent from all walks of life. Typically what I have seen is that more men are attracted to Technology as a choice of profession. With the TechGig Geek Goddess, we are on a mission to bring the best women technologists to the forefront, boost their participation and provide them with the opportunity to grow and rise in their career.

Our participants are revered in their companies for their competitive spirit and winners are hailed as the future leaders in technology. This year, we introduced a career fair for women technologists with an aim to connect them with companies directly, face-to-face.

4. Pertaining to the motto of the convention, what is your opinion on the current scenario of women entering, innovating and disrupting the programming niche? Do you think TechGig Geek Goddess 2020 will see a greater number of participants than this year?

Women are already making their way to the top in every field, whether it’s Banking, Finance or other aspects of management. Women are making great strides in Technology as well.

Every year we inspire more and more women technologists with Geek Goddess, so the participation numbers will certainly be more than what we have received this year. However, our greater focus is to boost innovation, new-age thinking and cutting edge ideation. In 2018, a total of 68,791 women technologists took part in the event while this year the number jumped to staggering 73,388 entries and we are expecting the number to swell next year as well.

5. What are your expectations from TechGig Geek Goddess 2019? And what is your vision for similar initiatives in the future via TechGig?

TechGig Geek Goddess is a unique initiative to celebrate the competitive spirit and innovation among women technologists. This year we hosted themes like Machine learning, Cloudify Everything, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Solution Hunters Hackathon to offer an opportunity to women technologists to try out innovation in these new-age technologies.

Other versions of TechGig are revamped with new energy and themes like TechGig Code Gladiators, TechGig Code Wizards, and more where the men coding community and college students compete on similar topics. These events are hosted every year, so we are constantly working on creating this new talent supply.