Data, AI & the New Engineering Era: Where Do Women Stand?

By: Veena Venugopal, Head of Aircraft Data Analytics, Airbus

Veena Venugopal is a gold-medalist in data science, an award-winning transformative leader, recognized AI influencer, diversity advocate and mentor. In her current role she drives data analytics for flight operations, improving engineering design and services. She has trained over 100 professionals by bridging industry-academia intervals.

Veena Venugopal shares her insights with Women Entrepreneurs Review Magazine on the fast-approaching AI era and women’s positioning in the AI first business world. She highlights the challenges that women face, need for inclusive data strategies and more. Veena also sheds light on the leadership shifts required for women to thrive in the AI era.

How are Data and AI reshaping engineering roles? What challenges impede women’s foray into the said industry?

Data & AI is rapidly transforming the way we look and do engineering. Once sought after coding roles are much debated now with the onset of these technologies.

Efficiency increase is anticipated after the adoption and more reliance on data driven decision making is expected. Human Centric adoption is on focus.

A report from the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023, shows that women comprise 29.2% of the STEM workforce across 146 nations. We speak about bias in designs being created by a male dominated sector and AI is expected to be trained on this existing biased data. Further lack of adequate number of role models can also be a demotivating factor slowing down women from entering the space.

How can organizations design inclusive data strategies that leverage diverse perspectives?

Organizations can design inclusive data strategies, actively promoting a culture where every voice is valued, particularly those of women and sub -reported groups.

By integrating this information about the data strategy, organizations can challenge conventional assumptions, discover unique opportunities, and boost advances. Inclusive participation not only increases creativity, but also leads to solutions that reflect broader needs, pressuring aviation innovation beyond traditional limits.

What complex ethical dilemmas emerge when integrating AI into aviation engineering?

Safety of every individual who is connected to this space is of paramount importance. Being conscious of the level of automation to be included, ensuring a human-in-loop always and adopting technologies in ways that critical competencies are included are essential decision drivers. This goes beyond gender

What leadership shifts are necessary for women to thrive in the AI era?

Establish trust in new technologies by demystifying myths, clear demonstrations, with a collaborative mindset are key to truly reap benefits from AI. The perseverance to go through this journey again and again is essential to ensure we don’t work with a mindset to adopt AI first but rather with a mindset to adopt AI right.

How is the evolving data analytics ecosystem creating new pathways for women engineers to ascend into strategic AI leadership?

Data analytics roles are generally transversal or hybrid roles which go beyond a traditional one topic mindset. This opens the opportunity to understand new domains and also apply your math/stats understanding on it. So, it is an era of new learning and a lot of bridge or hybrid profile creation. So, it is important for women to step up and demand to be in such roles.

Message for Women Leaders: Aim to fly high always.