Tiny Tweet Heard by Many
When Isis Wegner, a full-stack engineer at OneLogin, published a blog on 1st August 2015 on her experience as a woman working in the technology industry with the #ILookLikeAnEngineer, little did she know that it would make a day for someone sitting in Bangalore, India. This hashtag, #ILookLikeAnEngineer, got lot of attention and thousands of women engineers joined the Twitter campaign to break down the gender stereotypes in the tech industry.
I had read about this campaign and saw it in the twitter trends too. But I was double-minded whether I should post a tweet supporting the campaign. Never the less, I got busy and forgot about it. On 5th August, my friend George Paul, shared this link. I told him that I knew about it and how I was planning on posting a tweet myself but didnt really do it. To that he replied that I should post a tweet and encouraged me to do it. In 10minutes, I posted one.
This happened in the evening at around 6:30. In about 5-10minutes, I received a reply to my tweet by a person named Jon Wilshire from BBC radio London with this request.
As any initial response, I thought this was fake and didnt bother to reply to this. After reaching back home, I opened his profile to look if he was legit and after doing some background check, I confirmed he was legit. Following this I sent him a direct message and after some talks I sent him my number. He called me and asked about what I did. He then asked for my mail ID and said that I might have to talk for the BBC radio London the next day (which was on 6th August) and this would be live. He would send more details on the mail.
I was definitely excited (only if I could express how excited I was that night). Within an hour, I received an email from Jon saying that the interview would be sometime between 0900 - 0930 for 10 minutes. Also that the interview would be better at Skype and requesting for my Skype ID. He also wrote that I would be on air with 2 other women engineers from Shanghai and Brazil. This sounded great to me and I shared my Skype ID. But like any average Joe, I had my confusion and fears of goofing up.
Next day I woke up at 7AM and after my morning chores, I saw that I had 3 missed calls from a foreign number. I knew it was from the BBC. In a minute the phone rang again. This time it was a woman’s voice. She said that she was from the BBC and that I would have to be ready online in half hour. I literally freaked out!
I stay 5 minutes away from work and I had left my laptop in my workplace the previous day. I hurried to the office to see that the office was not yet open. In 2minutes I lost patience and with no balance in my phone for a call, I went to ESPN office (which is right beside TiE Bangalore’s office) to call Naveen (he opens the office and takes care of facilities at TiE). When I left the ESPN office and walked to TiE office, I saw Naveen there standing. I was so relieved to see him. Quickly I ran in, took my laptop out and logged into Skype. I saw that I had received a request from BBC and the moment I accepted the request, I got an audio call from them.
The reporter there talked to me for 5minutes and gave me instructions for the interview. He told me that I was the first one to get connected and that I should be live on air in 15minutes. He put me on hold then. I could hear the radio jockey talking and in between the advertisement saying, “And in sometime we will have women engineers talk about the twitter campaign #ILookLikeAnEngineer”. I heard this a couple of times and each time I heard this my heart would jump with excitement. Then I heard the 1 minute news and finally after 15minutes I heard the radio jockey call out my name and the other woman engineer’s who joined in from Shanghai. The RJ asked us about the twitter trend and what we thought as women engineers. He also asked us how difficult was it for us to be engineers in our respective countries. The interview went on for 10minutes. After the interview, the RJ thanked us and bid good-bye.
After the line was disconnected, I jumped from my seat and walked across the empty office with pride and happiness. I just couldn’t stop smiling. I had to call George and tell him what happened. I realized that he had just then woken up from sleep (it was probably 8:30am) and I was here talking to him with all excitement and happiness and joy! I had to thank George (though I am sure he didnt see the BBC thingy coming too)!
This indeed made my day!
When I posted the tweet, I hadn’t imagined that it would reach even my handful of followers but the social media is such a strong and powerful platform that my tiny tweet got picked up and gave an opportunity to share my views to thousands of people.