I am a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft currently working on AR/VR/MR. I am also a speaker with over six years of public speaking experience on a broad range of technical and career topics. As a woman in tech, I am a passionate advocate for Diversity & Inclusion in the tech industry and have been a part of the coveted Grace Hopper Conference Leadership for the past six years. In 2019, I was nominated to be the General Chair of this prestigious conference. I am also a trained classical singer and have performed with several bands and lent my voice for TV shows and short films.
I have been profiled by / my work has been featured on several US and International media outlets including: Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Verge, Engadget, TechRepublic, Venture Beat, GeekWire, eWeek, ZDNet, Channel 9, Huffington Post, Crosscut, Moms Can: Code, The Women in Tech show, Microsoft Research to name a few.
I have been profiled by / my work has been featured on several US and International media outlets including: Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Verge, Engadget, TechRepublic, Venture Beat, GeekWire, eWeek, ZDNet, Channel 9, Huffington Post, Crosscut, Moms Can: Code, The Women in Tech show, Microsoft Research to name a few.
Honors, Features, and Awards
General Chair, Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in ComputingOct 2019: Nominated as the General Chair for the coveted Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing. GHC is the world's largest gathering of women technologists. It is produced by AnitaB.org and presented in partnership with ACM. My General Chair role is a one year commitment from Aug 2018 to Nov 2019. As the General Chair, I am responsible for the end- to-end conference program across 20 tracks, and recruiting and working with a diverse team of technologists from academia and industry to design a conference that will inspire the 25,000+ attendees who will attend GHC19 in October.
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Crosscut: On defeating imposter syndrome to become a tech innovator and momJul 2019: Featured as one of the 21 technologists from the Pacific Northwest in the "I AM STEM" series by Crosscut, a non profit news site. From the interview, Microsoft human-computer interaction expert Vidya Srinivasan has faced the challenges of excelling in tech head-on while having children. Now she's helping other women do the same."
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Chosen as one of the six heroes at the Microsoft Global Inclusion CampaignApr 2019: The inclusion campaign shines light on the fact that Everyone owns Inclusion and shares stories of six employees, each passionate about a different cause and inspiring in their own unique way. I am so humbled to have the opportunity to share my story on motherhood in tech with 130,000+ employees! Campaign artifacts include posters across Microsoft, features and videos at aka.ms/inclusion, and graphics on compostable cups available across Microsoft campus worldwide.
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#GetInspired Series: D&I Member Spotlight at Microsoft Tech CommunityMar 2019: Interviewed and featured on the Microsoft Tech Community as part of the Get Inspired series. The interview was amplified by the Women @ Microsoft, Women @ SharePoint, and Microsoft Tech Community channels on all things social.
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Patent Count = 15Dec 2018: Filed 15 patents for my work at Microsoft so far. Currently working on SharePoint spaces with past experience including launching SharePoint Home, Sites API integration across Office 365, launching Office 365 Groups, incubating the first version of Office 365 video, and building the strategy for Enterprise Social post Yammer acquisition.
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Microsoft Ignite: Bringing Mixed Reality to your IntranetSep 2018: 45 min tech talk on SharePoint spaces and how you can bring mixed reality to your Intranet. The session was recognized as one of the top five sessions for the day.
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The Ability Hacks Book: The story of two hackathon teams embracing the transformative power of technologyJul 2018: “The Ability Hacks” shares the behind-the-scenes stories of the hackers who pioneered two innovative hacks-turned-solutions used today by people with disabilities around the world – the Ability EyeGaze Hack team and Learning Tools Hack team. We hope this book, and the journeys these teams have been on, can help spark a conversation about the transformative power of technology, and encourage engineers and developers to build the next wave of inclusive technology.
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SharePoint Spaces launch at the SharePoint Conference North America Keynote, Las VegasMay 2018: Launched SharePoint spaces, the first service to democratize the creation of Mixed Reality experiences in the enterprise. The announcement received over 33 US and international media impressions, #SharePointSpaces was trending on Twitter, and reached the top of Techmeme on announcement day.
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Moms Can Code : #WomenWhoInspireFeb 2018: Featured by Moms Can: Code- a global community of moms learning to code and training program to teach moms how to code online and in their local communities. From the article "In my opinion, moms are some of the strongest, most courageous, and hardworking people in the world. So, you already have all of the qualities to succeed - you just need to make a conscious effort and give it your best."
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Outstanding Young Alumni Award by NC State UniversityOct 2017: Recognized as one of six outstanding young alumni by the Department of Computer Science. Dr.Laurie Williams, department head, says “This is an exceptional group of individuals who have all, in some way or another, impacted our lives in a very positive way.” She adds, “By recognizing our most distinguished alumni, we hope they will serve as an inspiration for current and future students.”
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Forbes: Succeeding in the Fourth TrimesterJul 2017: Featured by Forbes for the second time. From the article, "Parenthood isn't one-size-fits-all, so everyone's experience is different. "It’s easy to get caught up by the 'perfection' standard the internet sets and fall prey to constant comparison and judgement, either by your own self or by others," she notes. "It doesn’t matter because this is not a competition."
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Microsoft Research: GHC open source code-a-thon to benefit humanitarian reliefOct 2015: Featured on the Microsoft Research blog for my efforts Co-Chairing the Open Source Day track at the Grace Hopper Conference. From the article, “It’s not always about the end result, it’s the experience that matters,” Srinivasan says, highlighting the value of collaboration in a dynamic environment along with using the latest coding techniques and best practices."
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Anita B.org on InstagramOct 2015: Anita B.org on Instagram "We are 5 engineers who have been working for the past 6 months with 8 Open Source organizations to come up with 15 projects to help 230 participants code for humanity at the Grace Hopper Open Source Day! Oh! Did we tell you that we met each other only today? 😉" - Larissa Shapiro, Aubrey Blanche, Samantha Chan, Vidya Srinivasan, Dana Dorneanu (photo by @wogrammer)
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The Fire Hose: Microsoft kicks off Oneweek hackathon and you won’t believe the hacksJul 2014: Exclusive coverage of the OneWeek hackathon- Microsoft’s first-ever companywide exercise in growth hacking. Our project Ability EyeGaze was featured which eventually ended up winning the Grand Prize at the hackathon.
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Podcasts & Interviews
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Mar 2019: The Intrazone is a fantastic podcast that talks about all things SharePoint. I was invited to speak about "SharePoint spaces" (my day-job)! We had a great time geeking out on the journey, use cases, and the underlying tech powering this new immersive dimension to your intranet. Bonus: we also did an audible expedition into mixed reality experiences with spaces, probably the first of it's kind. From the host, "This episode of The Intrazone brings two mixed reality experts to you in full surround sound. Joining us are Vidya Srinivasan, senior program manager and Bill Baer, senior product manager – your interactive tour guides ready to share and point all about SharePoint spaces.
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The Things She Does PodcastFeb 2019: The Things She Does is a podcast about women pursuing their passion and making it work. Interviewed by Nckie Snyder, a Cardiologist NP, we talk about everything I do- from tech to music to public speaking to my passion for advocating for D&I in tech. From Nickie, "We have a great conversation about Vidya's love of music, how she weaves that into speaking about tech, the importance of representation and how tech can bring us all together. After my conversation with Vidya I felt so inspired!!! She is truly incredible. Listen in today and feel inspired as well!"
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Learn To Code With Me PodcastJan 2018: Interviewed by Lawrence Bradford in the LTCWM podcast- a popular tech podcast with over a million downloads. In our conversation, we speak about balancing a tech career, side hustles, and family during pregnancy and parenthood. From the interview "According to traditional stereotypes, when a man becomes a dad he becomes a breadwinner, and when a woman becomes a mom she’s a caregiver. People need to realize men can be breadwinners and caretakers, and women can be caretakers and breadwinners."
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Channel 9: Interview with Vidya Srinivasan - Engineer, Singer, SpeakerSep 2017: Interviewed by Sowmow Atitallah from Channel 9, GALS is a popular show featuring women in tech who have interesting stories to share about their success in the industry and ideas on how to grow diversity in tech.
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The Women in Tech Show PodcastJul 2016: Invited to speak in the Women in Tech show - a popular podcast featuring prominent women in tech from a variety of backgrounds. We had some interesting conversation about my hackathon projects, diversity in tech initiatives, program management, career strategy and the Grace Hopper conference.
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iGirl Tech NewsOct 2014: Interviewed on iGirl Tech News- an organization that aims to inspire it's viewers through its videos by showing a female perspective on technology and entrepreneurship. From Amber Turner, the host of the show, "Vidya is an absolute inspiration and an all-around great person. It was a real pleasure to sit down and get her thoughts on being a technical program manager and a female in the tech industry."
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