The Women in Industry awards are an "opportunity to recognize the women who are driving change in their industry, and in doing so, breaking down barriers and creating new possibilities for the next generation."
Dr Gita Pendharkar is a Senior Educator at the School of Engineering, Health & Science, at RMIT.
She has an adjunct faculty position at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Monash University. She also collaborates with faculty at the Electrical department at IIT Bombay for PhD projects.
Dr Pendharkar has researched and developed prototypes for innovative systems for the healthcare sector, to improve mobility, and provide health care professionals with diagnostic tools for assessing and monitoring medical conditions in patients.
Engineers Australia makes a mention of Dr Pendharkar,
"Gita Pendharkar has designed and developed a number of innovative prototypes for monitoring and assessing the gait in stroke, Parkinson’s and diabetic patients. The compact gait monitoring device can be embedded in the heel of a shoe or attached near the laces, which can then be linked to a wireless attachment on the person’s wrist."
"The system can track a person’s gait in real time and give out auditory or vibratory feedback if an abnormal gait is detected so patients can correct it accordingly."
At RMIT, Dr Pendharkar has introduced practices in teaching and learning and is currently working on developing an innovative technology for the “Self Driven Car”.
Dr Pendharkar has won several awards over the years including the International Specialised Skills Institute Fellowship Award, Manufacturing Skills Australia Innovative Program Award, and the prestigious Sir Keith Murdoch Fellowship. She has also received the TAFE Initiative of the Year teaching award by RMIT University and Monash's King College London Award.
Dr Pendharkar completed her B.Tech in India after which she obtained a post-doctorate from the University of Delaware, USA. She completed her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Monash University, Melbourne.
Dr Pehdharkar told SBS Hindi,
"I am very happy to get this award. I could never imagine that I will win this award. When I was selected as a finalist that itself was a surprise and when I was announced as the winner I was even more surprised. So I am very very happy."
"My father was my inspiration", says Dr Pendharkar, "he told me that this area was quite good. Electronic Engineering was a fairly new area so I thought I will take up the challenge and that’s how I started studying in this field. After this, my particular area of interest was biomedical engineering."
Dr Pendharkar says that Engineering is a male-dominated field but that slowly change is coming.
"Even today if you ask girls they say they don’t want to get into engineering as they see it as being a male-dominated field. I would like to tell other girls that these are the upcoming areas, this is where technology is, this is where fun is. Girls and women should take a bit of interest and do science, maths, and engineering kind of courses."
Dr Pendharkar strongly feels that girls should be motivated from a young age.
"We are working on a few projects on how to motivate girls at school (to take up these subjects) because the mind block starts from primary school," she says.
As a first generation, woman immigrant, in Australia Dr Pendharkar says,
"Whichever field women are in, they should continue doing what they like, they should not think that they are in a different country and their hands are tied. In fact, this is a country of opportunities and they should try and take advantage of that…don't undermine yourself, whatever skills you have, keep going, never give up, you can work as per your wish and you will achieve it
