Aparna Prabhakar

How One Working Mum Is Thriving In Her Tech Career By Embracing Change

At the beginning of her career, Aparna Prabhakar asked herself a question familiar to many women: Should she plan her career around having a child, or have a child first and then plan her career?

Prabhakar, the technology innovation program manager at IBM, realized she could handle a fast-paced career at IBM while raising her son because of the support she received. And so she did — beginning as a process engineer, managing programs for clients in Japan and China, and now managing corporate technical strategy.

Raising a child and rising to constant challenges are all in a day's work for Prabhakar, a self-described army brat whose father was in the Indian army, moving the family every two years. Not only is Prabhakar used to change, but she has also learned that embracing risk and going outside your comfort zone is essential to rising in her industry. "You just have to believe in yourself," Prabhakar says. "You have to believe you can do it."

Prabhakar is just one of the women featured in IBM's "A Day in the Life" video series. In light of the tech industry's disheartening statistics about women — they're outnumbered by men by a factor of 7 to 3 and make up only 11% of engineers — IBM is campaigning to attract more women to technology. Their videos show how each woman has grown her career at IBM while achieving a better work-life integration.