CyberWire Daily - Aarti Borkar: Make your own choices. [Product} [Career Notes]

Episode Date: February 28, 2021

Head of Product for IBM Security Aarti Borkar shares her journey which included going after her lifelong love of math rather than following in her parents' footsteps in the medical field. In following her passions, Aarti found herself studying computer engineering and computer science, and upon taking a pause from her studies, she found a niche working at IBM in a mix of databases and networking. In her current position, Aarti describes her favorite discussion topics very often involve being around the use of AI for converting security into predictive domains. Aarti reminds us that you should pause and see if you are on the right path. Staying on a path just because you started there can be a bad idea. And, we thank Aarti for sharing her story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. of you, I was concerned about my data being sold by data brokers. So I decided to try Delete.me. I have to say, Delete.me is a game changer. Within days of signing up, they started removing my personal information from hundreds of data brokers. I finally have peace of mind knowing my data privacy is protected. Delete.me's team does all the work for you with detailed reports so you know exactly what's been done. Take control of your data and keep your private life Thank you. JoinDeleteMe.com slash N2K and use promo code N2K at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com slash N2K and enter code N2K at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com slash N2K, code N2K. My name is Arati Borkar. I am the head of product for IBM Security.

I grew up with doctor parents, which meant there was always this hope in the house that I would end up becoming one. But my passion lay in math. It was just my thing. You know, I finally sat down with my dad and said, yeah, not going to cut people open for a living. What I'd like to be is an engineer. for a living. What I'd like to be is an engineer. And then I moved around a bit between, I love chemistry. So I toggled between computer science and chemical engineering as where I wanted to be for a little bit. But I just landed on computer science, driven by my love for math and logic.

science driven by my love for math and logic. So my bachelor's degree was in computer engineering, and that included both the hardware and software elements of things. My favorite space in that time frame was databases. I thought it was the perfect combination of human problems and computer science kind of pulled into one. I then have a master's degree in computer science, which was a combination of my two very complicated choices. One was databases and the other was computer networks. And at the time I got it at the turn of the millennium, I think it might have felt weird for someone to think of networks and databases in one degree. Now, when you think of cloud and AI,

it sounds like the smartest thing I could have done. But there was no thought behind it. It was the two things I loved. And that's what I went off and did. I decided I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. So I took a sabbatical. As part of that sabbatical, I ended up joining IBM with the intent of going back. And I spent that nine month sabbatical working on a pervasive computing database, which meant it was a little database.

It was supposed to sit on mobile devices. At that point, it was like Palm Pilots and Sony had some phones that it would sit on. And it was just really intriguing. It was a mix of databases and networks for me. So I love doing it. And one of the VPs at IBM said, well, if you're so intrigued by that, we should send you to business school. And I had this conversation with my professor back at USC and he goes, to be honest, you know, your heart seems to lie somewhere at the intersection of tech and business. And you might be better served going to business school because you already have a master's in computer science. And at some point I went into product management that my engineering friends call the dark side. But for me, it was the ability to call BS on my engineering colleagues when they give me,

you know, weird assumptions of what the tech would do, but at the same time, take that tech and make it viable for a market. viable for a market. I have responsibilities around the vision, the products, and design across, you know, three plus billion dollar business that IBM has around security. So makes for a fun day. No one day looks like another. Get to traverse between deep technical discussions. My favorite topics very often being around use of AI for converting security into predictive domains. And then sometimes it's just, how do we get into a new business relationship?

Or how do we go into a new country that we're not doing as much business in? So the gamut is pretty wide. I love to say follow your heart because the reason I get up every morning is because I want to do this. Don't make a decision because someone else thought that was a good one for you. Choose your own career.

Make your own choices versus letting someone else make them. Take the time once in a while to see if you are on the right path. Because people change. Their loves change. Their wants change. So staying on a path because you started there is also an equally bad idea. Being willing to change needs to be part of one's thought process. Thank you. With Domo, you can channel AI and data into innovative uses that deliver measurable impact. Secure AI agents connect, prepare, and automate your data workflows,

helping you gain insights, receive alerts, and act with ease through guided apps tailored to your role. Data is hard. Domo is easy. Learn more at ai.domo.com. That's ai.domo.com. That's ai.domo.com.