Shampa Bagchi comes from a family of entrepreneurs who all value living life to the fullest as well as helping to improve our world. Shampa, born in India, moved to the United States after getting a Masters's degree in computers.
In the mid-1990s she saw a need to improve the way companies worked with customers and developed one of the first easy-to-use and inexpensive customer Resource management systems, CRM. Throughout her career, as she tells us in our episode, she has worked throughout her work life to improve processes and make products and systems to simplify systems.
Shampa's stories are fascinating and insightful. I believe you will come away from this episode realizing more than ever that being unstoppable is really something that is available to all of us if we choose the path to drive ourselves just a bit harder to accomplish goals.
About the Guest:
Shampa Bagchi is the Founder and CEO of ConvergeHub (www.convergehub.com), a Customer Lifecycle Management CRM software that powers business growth. Shampa specializes in taking ideas from concept to reality and is passionate about helping businesses grow by utilizing the power of technology to solve complex business challenges.
She also founded Corelynx (www.corelynx.com), a boutique software development and strategy agency providing innovative business solutions to growing organizations.
Shampa holds a Master's degree in Computer Science and has been at the forefront of the technology revolution in Silicon Valley for more than two decades. She has worked with large enterprises such as Cisco Systems, Siemens, etc. as well as hundreds of small and medium businesses to build software products and applications that empower businesses and change lives.
Being a ‘woman in tech' long before #womenintech became a movement, Shampa is passionate about technology education for women. She has founded Onward Academy (www.onwardacademy.in), a software training institute in India, with the goal to increase the participation of women in the tech industry.
Shampa writes a blog called ‘The Spark' (www.thespark.work) where she explores the intersection between business, technology, and people… and the power of little things to make a massive difference in any of these areas.
She also writes and posts videos on a regular basis on LinkedIn and can be followed on https://www.linkedin.com/in/shampabagchi/
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.
Michael Hingson 01:20
Yep, it is that time again. Welcome to unstoppable mindset. I am Michael Hingson, your host glad to be here. Hope you are happy to be here probably are because you're here, right. So wherever you are welcome. And we really appreciate you and hope that you enjoy the next hour. We have a fascinating guest. We're actually starting the recording of this podcast 10 minutes late because we've just been sitting here chatting Shampa Bagchi is a woman very involved in tech, she has formed a company called convergehub. And she, and actually convergehub is a software. Well, not a software product specifically, but it is a customer resource management tool. And she'll tell us about that. So I don't want to mess up my description more than I have. But she's also formed a company called core links, which is a system by which she helps other customers write software and do things that they need to do to make their company work the way it should. And she has a great amount of experience in the world of computer science. She's been involved in Silicon Valley Tech for a while. She has a master's degree in computer science. We're jealous, and lots of other things. So Shampa Welcome to unstoppable mindset after all of that. And
Shampa Bagchi 02:42
Michael, thank you. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Michael Hingson 02:46
And you notice that I didn't use queen to the world, which I said I could use. And
Shampa Bagchi 02:51
then thank you for that too.
Michael Hingson 02:53
You're safe? Well, I really am fascinated to learn. Let's start with more about you and what you did growing up and how you got to the point of being so interested in involved in tech.
Shampa Bagchi 03:04
Yeah, of course, I actually started software programming in college. And like, Well, initially, I always had an interest in science and my initial interest, I wanted to go into nuclear physics. So physics was my first love. And then. And then
Michael Hingson 03:27
my master's degree is in physics. Oh, wow.
Shampa Bagchi 03:30
So I have a bachelor's in physics. And then I went on to do a master's in computer science. So wonderful. Yeah, it's a really great subject. That's
Michael Hingson 03:40
fair. Yeah.
Shampa Bagchi 03:42
And but then in a while, I know when I just started taking some computer courses. And once I wrote my first software program, I was totally hooked. And the main reason I really liked it is because it gave me this ability to take a complex problem. And then kind of, you know, break it down into little bits, and then solve it and kind of put the solution back together again. So I really, really was interested in that. And then that was a time when computers as a career, it was just opening up, it was just beginning. And I wasn't thinking so much as career itself. But more in terms of it was really because in that time when you go into a career, most of the time, you could only influence a certain amount of people, right? Only the people around you. But what I realized is using computers, you could build a program with somebody sitting on the other corner of the world use to solve this problem, which you probably won't even think about. And just that idea of being able to touch people whom you don't even know you know, whom you haven't heard of. It was so fascinating to me that I had to get into that, and I had really to do it so so and even today, even though I don't write software code anymore, but just that idea of building software products, which people all over the world use to solve their problems, it's, it's really interesting to me, I feel like I'm touching their lives.
Michael Hingson 05:14
There you go, Well, what do you do specifically today,
Shampa Bagchi 05:19
but today, I'm the CEO of convergehub. So I check of all trades, really in the company. So I'm handling the product development. I do oversee that I do some marketing, and even the other financial stuff that I have to do on a daily basis. So
Michael Hingson 05:39
not boring stuff. Yeah,
Shampa Bagchi 05:41
exactly. My very necessity.
Michael Hingson 05:44
Yes, yeah. It is part of what has to be done. And at least you Well, I don't know whether you have the patience or not. But you certainly seem to be able to, to put up with it all. Not always. But I tried, Does, does your coding experience help you in doing all the other things that that you have to do in the company? Or maybe a better question would be how does that past experience help you?
Shampa Bagchi 06:14
That's actually very interesting. Now that I think about it, it really does. Because when you are coding, you are taught to kind of look at a problem, I kind of step away from it, and just look at it as a problem and then start breaking it down or tinkering with it, you know that as a challenge itself, you cannot solve the whole thing. But when you break it down, and we address it one by one, you are able to solve it and you without really getting too involved with with taking a step back. So if you take that approach to any other work that you have to do any other experience or challenge that you're going through, I think that really helps you solve it in a better way.
Michael Hingson 06:58
Yeah, that's that's kind of what I was thinking that you would say I remember when I was in undergraduate physics, and of course it it then followed on but an undergraduate physics, oftentimes, professors would say, pay attention to the details. It's all about the details. It isn't just the math, for example, it's the units. And if the units don't work out, right, then you probably are doing something wrong. So you really need to look at the details. And I've always felt that that background in physics, even though I am not doing anything specifically in physics, the background has helped a great deal for me in everything that I do, because I've learned to pay attention to a lot of the details and appreciate the value in doing that.
Shampa Bagchi 07:47
Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's what it is. And I had, I had read somewhere that no education is what survives after what you learned has been forgotten. So I guess that what it is it kind of builds into you and then you know, you keep using it and other experiences in your life.
Michael Hingson 08:05
Yeah, I've talked to a number of people on this podcast who say, the reoccurring theme is you should never stop learning.
Shampa Bagchi 08:14
Absolutely. I totally agree. But yeah, it's
Michael Hingson 08:17
kind of one of those things that that one needs to do. Well, you went off and where do you get your Masters from? By the way?
Shampa Bagchi 08:24
Well, I did my masters from India. Okay. Yeah. And
Michael Hingson 08:28
then you then you came over here at some point. And, and you you started working now, did you code when you first came over? How did what brought you over here?
Shampa Bagchi 08:39
Yeah. So in India, after I did my masters, I started working in a company and that company was then I know, deploying some, you know, software programmers here. So I came as a part of that. And I literally landed in us with what, less than $150 or so. And a job of course, and went from there. So I know after I worked. Initially, I started working with a large enterprises like Cisco Systems, pyramid technologies, which was a part of Siemens. And yes, I was doing programming in Cisco Systems, I was part of the sales, the customer facing side of the software, really, you know, the sales, customer service. And in those days, there was no such thing as customer relationship management software, it didn't even exist. So what we were doing is we were taking Oracle Applications, the ERP package, and we were customizing it to build those pieces in and Cisco eventually, you know, it came it became the first company who did the online ordering the entire online ordering, where an order from a customer would go in and to be fulfilled without the touch of human hands. So and this was Very, very early days, and I was really fortunate to be a part of that big hole team.
Michael Hingson 10:05
What kind of what timeframe was that?
Shampa Bagchi 10:07
So this was kind of mid to late 90s, actually 9099 kind of timeframe. Yeah. So and then after that, I started working on a few startups, but then always wanted to open my own company. So that's when I launched core links. And well as part of callings, what we do is we build custom software. We are a software strategy firm. So we provide like a fractional CTO services, strategy services, software development for both products as well as software applications. So and we did that, and even while we were doing that kind of note, notice that a lot of the requests that we were getting for building the software center around the same thing about New Customer Relationship Management, how do I handle my customers war? How do I support my customers? How do I do lead management? So we were building constantly, we were building software for that for all our clients, and it began to occur to me, you know, I started digging in and found out that really, you know, there was no product in the market which suffice that need for customers, there were really two types of customer relationship products in the market at that time. One was really huge, big blood scale software, you need a PhD to implement that. And other than that, there was these no small little contact management systems really no dumbed down products, which really didn't suffice the need of, you know, small and medium businesses, because they had their complex processes, but at the same time, they can spend that kind of money, you know, to, to implement such a large scale software. So that's why we decided to build convergehub, which would service these kinds of customers. And yeah, so we started building convergehub, and which is right now, complete customer lifecycle management system, it serve right from the beginning of the customer journey, till the end is supported within convergehub.
Michael Hingson 12:18
So is it is a web based system then? Or?
Shampa Bagchi 12:21
Yes, it is. SAS product software as a service product? And yes, it's completely online.
Michael Hingson 12:28
Cool. How does it? Well, so now we have other things like Salesforce and so on, how does it compare with those kinds of products? Which of course didn't exist back in the early days?
Shampa Bagchi 12:40
Yes, no, when I was working in those, Cisco and those other large enterprises, Salesforce didn't exist. By the time I had to know founded convergehub, Salesforce did start up. But Salesforce was in that category of large scale software, which needs a lot of effort to implement, which small businesses didn't necessarily have. So yeah, so convergehub is kind of isn't the same space does similar things, but in a much more simpler way. So that you can get that you are able to, you know, establish you are able to serve your complex business processes, but you really didn't have to put in so much effort to implement them. The implementation is much simpler.
Michael Hingson 13:26
I remember when selling tape backup products for quantum Corporation and others before it, and so on, working with Wall Street, of course, they used both Oracle and Sybase and Sybase was very unformatted fields and so on. But those firms essentially created their own software within those database structures, to do the same kind of work in terms of managing customers, managing orders, managing all of the things related to that. And the Securities Exchange Commission required it of course of Wall Street, because they needed you to have a way where you track all your orders, which Wall Street firms would want to do anyway. And then to keep them for seven years off site. So we provided the tape backup products, and they would work with products like Elgato and other kinds of tools that would communicate between their systems and the backup products that we provided. So a lot of moving parts.
Shampa Bagchi 14:26
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, it's come a long way since then, but it's always fun to think back to how quickly we've changed how much
Michael Hingson 14:37
yeah, as I was saying to somebody not too long ago, I remember when a disk crash was a real disk crash. Yes. Where you had a 16 inch platter and they had was micro centimeters above it, and if it fell, it was a very noisy situation and all your data was lost. was pretty amazing. We've come a long way. And we'll continue to that's what kind of makes this technology era fun. On the other hand, even with you starting in India, and so on, tell me a little bit about how women were viewed in tech. And I would think that you were kind of a breakthrough person to deal with some of that.
Shampa Bagchi 15:19
Yeah, actually, when I started, in college, when I went into software, we didn't have that many, you know, women in technology at that time, but it's not like I faced a lot of resistance to it. But there just weren't that many software, it was a very new subject at the time. And, but then I was so fascinated with it, I wasn't really looking at the gender, I just wanted to build software. So I wasn't really looking at, you know, how many you know how easy or hard it would be for me to get in? But yeah, since then, even after coming, you'd be surprised, or even after coming into Silicon Valley, I did face some challenges. There. It's not so much as I don't think people really resist you, because you're a woman. It's not that people say that, okay, you know, she's a woman, I'm not going to listen to what it what she does, I'm not going to give credit or and I'm going to cause resistance, not really, but it's more sort of a mindset, you, there's this assumption kind of a thing, and that you probably aren't as good, you know, you probably won't be able to do it. And then you know, you have to keep proving yourself all the time. So and then, you know, it's when you prove yourself, it's not that people won't accept it, you know, people do. So I would think it's more a matter of just education and getting used to it, rather than you're actively making sure. Women don't get the chance.
Michael Hingson 16:47
But I think that's true of people who are, are different than what is viewed as the norm in general. I mean, in terms of blindness, for example. There's, there's resistance. And the general assumption is that if you're blind, you can't succeed nearly as well as sighted people can. And that that view has been around for a while, it does take a lot of educating. And you do have to continuously prove yourself to be able to accomplish tasks and and grow in the industry. It isn't that you can't, but it certainly tends to be harder, because, as you said, it's the mindset of what people believe you can and can't do. And unfortunately, in the case of well, and in some ways with women, too. But in the case of blind people, for example, the unemployment rate among employable blind people is still in the area around 70%. And it's not because people who are blind, who happen to be blind can't work. It said, others think they can't work in that prejudice still exists.
Shampa Bagchi 17:58
Oh, I totally don't get that. And, you know, interestingly, I had had an encounter, which this was, this was a while ago, I was in college at the time, and I was kind of, you know, I think I had gone down for some internship returning home, got down from the bus. And there was this blind person who had traveled with us who also kind of got on from the past, and there was this road to cross. And He was looking around and he asked for help. He said, Can somebody please help me cross the road? And the house was full of people. So so many people had not on boarded the bus, but it was kind of really strange that although he was asking, and he was asking confidently, but nobody, it's people were hearing it, obviously, they were hearing it, they were sort of pretending not to hear it and going their own way. And it took me by surprise, not just the people's reaction, but even that person's reaction because he was very confident he was not he, there was no kind of he was not submissive. He was not even if although he was asking for help. He was doing it so confidently. I thought it was the other side. The people who should have been more confident probably weren't not confident. They didn't even have the confidence to step forward and just helping him cross the road. So I watched that for a little while. And then I decided to step up. So I went to him. I said, Okay, come on. I took his hand, and I just had to cross the road I want I asked if he wanted help just getting home. And he said, Oh no, I live close by I can manage from here. I just needed help crossing the road and he just went about his way confidently. You couldn't even tell that he was blind unless you actually looked at his stake. So that experience really stayed with me that really, you know, this person was so confident why he was all he needed was a little bit of help, you know, why wouldn't I know anybody do that?
Michael Hingson 19:56
Chris, the other thing that would be helpful is he could You're out how to cross the road. I mean, I used to live in Winthrop, Massachusetts, and every day, both going to the bus and getting off the bus coming home. We had a bus stop that was across the road from the entrance to my apartment complex. And it was just in the middle of the road, right. So there wasn't like a major street that the bus stopped at, there was a bus stop, and it was right in the middle of the street. And there are tools to use it, it was a little bit daunting until I figured out that, hey, one thing I can do to cross the road is to follow other people and listen to them as they are crossing. And the other is to wait until the bus leaves so it's quieter, and then listen to traffic. And when I don't hear traffic coming across in front of me for at least a little bit a period of time, and I don't hear anything that sounds like it's close then to go across the road. But it it is a it is a process. And it can be it can. It can be scary. But it can be daunting if you really don't learn to you know, to do that. So I'm I'm a little bit curious why he had some issues with being able to cross the road. And perhaps he didn't have enough hearing to be able to do that. Who knows?
Shampa Bagchi 21:26
Oh, actually, I think I know, it's probably because of this. Was it India? Yeah, it's so loud and so noisy and so much traffic.
Michael Hingson 21:35
And there was no, no low in the noise.
Shampa Bagchi 21:39
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that was very, very chaotic and very, very noisy the entire time. So he couldn't use noise as a as a market news
Michael Hingson 21:46
noises. Yeah. So the only thing he could possibly do if he could hear it is to just listen to other people. And as they're going across, stay right behind them. But still it's an issue. Did he use a cane or anything like that? Yeah, he
Shampa Bagchi 21:58
used a cane.
Michael Hingson 22:00
Good that because that would would certainly help. But you know, everyone is different. And certainly the noise factor is a big issue. I've been in New York, on street corners where there are well defined crosswalks and well defined ways to go. But it's so noisy, that it's even here hard to hear the traffic going the way I want to go. And you know, what we do is we listen, and when the traffic is going the way we want to go, then we cross. But sometimes the noise can be so loud around us. And even that's hard to hear. So there are always challenges. But it doesn't mean that we can and that's part of the problem is that sometimes people would go well, you just could never do that. Because you're lying. Well, I can but let's let's talk about the sun being in your eyes, and how well you're able to see when the sun's coming right at you. You know, we all have challenges, of course. So good for you for helping. Thank you. But it is an issue and it is a challenge that we have. Well, so you went off and you got your your master's degree in computer science and you came over to the US. That must have been maybe the the way I would put it is quite an adventure. Just getting here at all. Oh, yes. It was totally new for you.
Shampa Bagchi 23:20
Yes, it was absolutely new for me. And then yeah, getting into tech industry and immigrant brown woman starting to work in the tech industry. It wasn't easy. But then you learn as you go, it was you know, there are challenges, you know, you start looking at? Yeah, and then there are there are challenges. And then there are solutions. And it's, you know, people to help out. And it's just, I think a lot of it is also about how much you like the subject and how hard you're willing to work. And if you have that, I think all other challenges, you know, you're you're proud to be able to work out.
Michael Hingson 23:58
But you had a mindset that you were going to work it out you were going to try to do that as opposed to letting it all overwhelm you.
Shampa Bagchi 24:06
Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's, I think it's also a little bit about being able to know that yes, you will be able to do it. And ultimately, it's going to work out it maybe you can just try to look a little bit into the future and say, you know, here I am going to do it. This is just a process, you know, just a few challenges, which I will have to go through. Everybody has their own challenges. These are mine.
Michael Hingson 24:30
Yeah. And that's the real point, isn't it? Everyone has their own challenges and, and challenges aren't the same for everyone.
Shampa Bagchi 24:40
Absolutely. Yeah. Totally agree.
Michael Hingson 24:42
So you, you made it over you started and you started doing doing technology stuff and, and all that. So how how long was it before you started working essentially for yourself?
Shampa Bagchi 24:56
Oh, I started working for myself or Round, let's say 2000 to 2003, I think timeframe. So that's when I started kind of consulting, no going solo started working on smaller size project and a year or so after that I launched callings. So that's when, yeah, so slowly that grew. And we started getting more projects. And then I started having a team. We formed a team in India too. So, and I started off loading some of my work to them. And slowly the team grew. And yeah, so that's how things took off.
Michael Hingson 25:39
What were some of the early projects like that you started? And that you use core links to develop?
Shampa Bagchi 25:46
Well, we were always working in the beginning, we were mostly working on software applications or so yeah, one of the interesting one was in the insurance industry, I remember this was this was way back. But in a we were kind of, you know, comparing different insurance products. And this was for car insurance, if I remember correctly. And and it was really advanced for its time, too. And we were kind of, you know, giving there was some hundreds of points on which, you know, you could compare insurances. So usually, when you're reading an insurance, you don't even know you don't even look at the fine print. And this was kind of a technology where, which would help you compare insurance without really having to look at the fine print. So. So there's that that was one, there was another one for the FinTech industry that we were building the entire end to end process for fintech. So yeah, some for some very interesting projects. But in the beginning,
Michael Hingson 26:41
what kind of language or coding did you use to develop those?
Shampa Bagchi 26:45
At that time? We were using PHP, and we use MySQL, as a database,
Michael Hingson 26:52
SQL servers and all that. Yeah. What do you use now? How's it evolved over the years?
Shampa Bagchi 26:59
Yeah, now, I'm not coding anymore. But my team user uses Node we use young Angular. So yeah, there's MongoDB, we use. So a lot, it's changed significantly, even the way you code has significantly changed significantly, it's a lot more modular. And at that time used to write 1000s of line, of course, a lot of very, very monolithic kind of code. Now, it's so much more modular, it's a distributed, so things have changed completely. But it's kind of fun to watch my team, although, you know, I don't get fat involved into the day to day process anymore.
Michael Hingson 27:39
You do you have enough and you keep up with it. So you could if you needed to be involved in the process, I would assume?
Shampa Bagchi 27:45
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I still have my, you know, kind of, you know, and in there, I'm have daily meetings with the team. But right now, my perspective is more from that of a user from that offer no customer how the customer experience, what will an user go through. So that's my perspective, rather than Wow, this is cool. You know, this is nice bit of technology, let's use it. I don't think of thinking of it like that anymore.
Michael Hingson 28:10
But it's good to be able to take the user perspective, and it's good to have that in a company, because then you, you really get to understand it from the standpoint of those who are going to be directly involved with an encounter of your products, as opposed to just creating them and pushing them out the door without having that understanding, I would think, Oh, yeah,
Shampa Bagchi 28:29
absolutely. And that's somehow you mature, because, in the beginning, that's how you kind of know, especially from from a tech background, you can do you not think, no, take a school, and, yeah, so just try to use anything, and I see my team, still trying to do that I have to push back on it, just because it's the user who is the most important person here, and you know, whatever that takes, technology is good, as long as it's serving the customer. And really, I would say, you know, we are we are coming up with a new release of convergehub. And what we are trying to do here, you know, I'm really trying to put in the human perspective into it more than anything else, because from my experience in the software industry from a very long time, what I'm seeing is there is really no b2b or b2c, or you know, anything like that anymore. It's really a matter of a human being using a product, it's a person using a product, you know, whatever else, you know, from whomever, to whomever, it's still ultimately your person using it. So that kind of knowledge really comes with experience. And that's what how we are building convergehub. So our idea is that using convergehub, you know, sales and marketing and customer service, all that is wonderful. And our users will be doing all of that the features are there, but more so what we would like our user to do is to be able to use the product to make a difference. So he is able to make a difference right Ah, where he is at, you know, whatever he or she is doing, he should be able to do it better do it in such a way that no maybe do it quicker and do it to build better businesses and I hope, better communities, ultimately,
Michael Hingson 30:13
one would hope. Yes. So when did you if you will graduate from quarter links, and so on to convergehub, although you do both, but when did when did converge on first come into existence?
Shampa Bagchi 30:29
converge jobs release was the first release was somewhere around I think we started getting customers around 2017 or so although it was released a little bit earlier in the market around 2015 2016. But that's when we were it was the very first release, we started ironing out all the bugs, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I didn't really wanted to push and sell the product until the bugs burning out the or the features were built in. So then we started getting customers in the 2016 2017 timeframe, and it went from there. And now we are getting into the next release the next version of convergehub.
Michael Hingson 31:06
I will bet however, that no matter how much you did to perfect it, and ironed out all the bugs, that once you actually released it, your users started finding things that you guys didn't discover.
Shampa Bagchi 31:20
Oh, yeah. You would have been that better. So yes, there was our software is basically a work in progress. You know, you can never have 100% Perfect software by the time you have the bugs and there are more features, you're building it and those new features will have some bugs. It's always work in progress. No, no company, no software ever built as an IT person. Everything all bugs ironed out. But you try. And what you really do really hope is that the bugs that you do still have aren't hampering the main activities of your users. So if it's, you know, really hampering their productivity with not letting them do what they would like to do in the software, that's that's when it takes priority. And that's how we prioritize bugs to know which ones to fix versus which ones to kind of put on the backburner.
Michael Hingson 32:14
You're now you're in California, right? You're in the Silicon Valley? Yes. So you watch some of the same TV commercials that I do if you watch TV at all. And actually, I saw it again this morning. There is someone who has been putting out some commercials that are just slamming Tesla, because they say that the autonomous vehicle software in Tesla is dangerous, and Congress should stop it and so on. And he's made that his primary focus in his Senate campaign. It's It's fascinating, not withstanding the fact that Tesla hasn't, as I understand it, at least the last time I checked, released a totally autonomous vehicle version of the software. But the reality is, it's always going to be a work in progress to do what Tesla has already done so much of to make their vehicle work in, in a way to greatly assist drivers. And it's just fascinating to see that kind of a mindset that just wants to put a stop to all of that kind of stuff, when that makes no sense at all.
Shampa Bagchi 33:20
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you there. Because if it's a software, there's always going to be bugs. So that's for sure. But it is true that in certain industries, those bugs have a bigger impact. Because if you are not careful, you know, when you're driving a car about code, you know, injure somebody, or worse. But at the same time, not similar to that is medical profession. And so anything, any software in the medical profession, you have to test very, very thoroughly because there are human lives involved. But at the same time, you at some point, you have to do your best, and you have to completely test thoroughly. And I think incrementally you do have to release the software, otherwise, it just doesn't happen. Right. So and knowing that it is software and there will be bugs, and we just do our level best to make sure that that bug doesn't have the worst kind of impact.
Michael Hingson 34:17
While being an equal opportunity abuser. Of course, my immediate reaction is if we're going to talk about what goes on with Tesla, let's talk about people driving in general, and there's some value in replacing them. Exactly. You know, the I don't know, my I'm amazed at my wife. Now my wife uses a wheelchair. She uses hand controls and she drives really well. We have had one accident in the almost 40 years that well. We've had a couple but there was one accident that we were probably more responsible for than anything else. We had one where we were actually going to anniversary dinner, and we came over a hill and there was a place where a car should not have been stopped on the road and there was no way to see it ahead of time. But this young lady who was a teenage driver had just stopped in the middle of the road. And we we bumped her before we could stop. So it was a brand new car and a dent in the car. But we had a time where we were driving, and actually, we, a gust of wind kind of blew us over. And we brushed against a piece of heavy equipment and then went back across the road. But partly she was also trying to avoid a trailer that had come up on us. We had we had, she saw the truck that was pulling the trailer but didn't see the trailer was in her blind spot. Well, anyway, but she but she dealt with it. But there are so many people on the road that are so impatient drive so aggressively. And I don't know how they survived because they they don't do anything to recognize the courtesy and that what we used to call in the world defensive driving, you know, we don't do that anymore. No. Yeah, yeah. So I'm all for taking the driving away from drivers. And in as soon as we can, putting it into a much more autonomous vehicle kind of environment, because too many crazy people are out there driving on the road.
Shampa Bagchi 36:14
Yeah. And I think you're absolutely right. So when once you know we get into that autonomous driving becomes the main thing. You know, what, what I see here, what kind of the research says that they are way safer than just these crazy people or drunk people is not driving a car, at least the machine want to drive drunk driving? You know,
Michael Hingson 36:35
we are kind of in the forefront of it. And we're new into it. But it's going to happen. It has to absolutely it has to happen. So in so there's a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning that goes into all that. And speaking of that, how does that play into both you and convergehub, and quarter lengths and so on? Do you use much artificial intelligence to help in the development or testing of your software and so on?
Shampa Bagchi 37:03
Yes, it's not so much in the development itself. But we are planning the new version of convergehub, we are planning to put artificial intelligence in there and have this AI to do a lot of automated stuff, which initially would have to be manual. And then of course, now there is so much data, data analytics, and all of that is going to be built into the new version of convergehub. So all the definite features are not ironed out yet. And what we are going to give, but there is no one thing for sure is that we are going to have a completely channel, less conversations. So regardless of you know, like like today's users, they could be using one channel at one point of times, and you know, completely switch channels, the other point of time. So you know, from email, to phone, to Twitter, to, you know, to texting. So all of these channels should appear as if it's still a conversation as if it's a one conversation thread the whole time. So that's and there is so much insights that you can figure out from those conversations, and you know, many other companies have started working in it on it. It's not perfect, nobody has perfected it. But you know, we are definitely not going to work on that and see, you know, where that leads us. So, for me as a tech person, it's like both ways. And one is, of course, no, this is the latest technology, this is where we are going to be we have to be there. But that ain't the model remain the same, you know. So it's ultimately it's about how the technology will help you do a better job at whatever it is that you're doing. So as long as we can do that, we balance that, you know that that's the ideal way to go. I would say,
Michael Hingson 38:48
again, we're in a bleeding age environment, where so many of these things are new, and we're just learning about the minute you're in 100 years, it's gonna be a totally different world. And then we'll have other things that are new, but But what we're talking about today, as kind of in the formative era will all change. Yeah, yeah.
Shampa Bagchi 39:09
And it's, and the change is coming faster and faster. You know, it's exciting to see a little bit scary, too. But as time goes by, it's just it's the pace is accelerating. You know, you don't even know I mean, why 100 years, we don't really even know what's coming up in the next five or 10 years from now. So that's exciting and scary at the same time.
Michael Hingson 39:30
Sometime in the next 100 years. Somebody's going to probably develop antigravity and maybe we'll even get Star Trek transporters.
Shampa Bagchi 39:38
You know, I'm just waiting for that, you know, beat me up, Scotty.
Michael Hingson 39:42
Yeah, I'm waiting for that. That would certainly take care of a lot of the driving issues.
Shampa Bagchi 39:48
That's it. That's it. No more driving. I'd love that.
Michael Hingson 39:53
Oh, yeah. Well, we could use the roads for other things. Robert Heinlein wrote, a short story called The roads must roll back In the early 1950s, and instead of driving, roads all moved, and were long, almost like conveyor belts and even going from one end of California to the other. It was a it was a fascinating story. It's a it's a really interesting story to read, because everyone used rolling roads to go anywhere and off of the main roads. There were other roles that took you roads that road that took you where you needed to go. It's a fascinating story.
Shampa Bagchi 40:25
Yeah. Wow. That's an interesting concept. So cars don't need to drive. It's the roads that are doing the driving for you.
Michael Hingson 40:32
Right. Yeah. To go hunting. It's called the roads must roll by Robert Heinlein
Shampa Bagchi 40:37
definitely look at it. Yes.
Michael Hingson 40:39
It's a short story. You can read it in 15 minutes.
Shampa Bagchi 40:41
Oh, look it up. Yeah. I was reading about another fascinating concept to somewhere is that you know, a car start charging themselves as they drive. So you know, you have some sort of, you know, I don't even know if that's the real roads are going to be built such that in the cars while they're driving, they get charged. So you really don't need to charge the cars anymore.
Michael Hingson 41:02
I think? Well, I know, somewhere in this area around San Diego, I think it is there was a road that had some sort of cable going through it that helped provide guidance for the car. But I don't remember whether it charged or not. I think it was pre a lot of the electric vehicles. But I wouldn't be surprised if there wouldn't be a way coming along that charge cars could charge themselves. Of course, there's always solar, but you probably need more than what we can do with solar today on a small car.
Shampa Bagchi 41:34
Right, exactly. So yeah, I would say the technology problem getting it out into the world in a more cost effective way building the infrastructure, that would be the challenging part.
Michael Hingson 41:44
That's going to be a lot of what happens with software is it's all about making it more efficient, making a cost efficient and getting things out in an efficient way, isn't it?
Shampa Bagchi 41:53
Yes, yes. That's a hands on. Yeah, how how cost effective we can make it and in callings when our clients come in, that's what we tell them to, you know, we can do it very fast. We can you can build a huge, I don't know, aeroplane for you. But do you really need that? And how much budget do you have? So we have to build according to your needs and your budget, we do our best work, you know, otherwise, everything is possible.
Michael Hingson 42:17
You talk a lot both about convergehub and quarterlies. about efficiency, and the importance of that and what you do and what you're bringing to your customers.
Shampa Bagchi 42:29
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think efficiency is, especially you know, both in converge I've been calling so although you know, in different ways. But for convergehub, it's a matter of, I would say productivity. So it's it's how it's not just about what you can do, it's, I would say it's a matter of how well you can do it, how quickly you can do it, and what results you can get doing it. You know, that's what I would say no makes the software special. Otherwise, it's not about building a lot of features, a lot of new wonderful tools that nobody uses.
Michael Hingson 43:08
Where do you see, we talked about artificial intelligence? But where do you see that? And what other kinds of things do you see coming along in the next five or 10 years that you can look at and talk about in terms of how some of the ways we think of software, and some of the ways software will interact with our lives are going?
Shampa Bagchi 43:30
Yeah, that's that's an interesting question. I would say, software slowly will stop becoming something that you're kind of, you know, sitting at your desk or even you know, looking at it on the mobile phone, it's going to become everywhere, it's everything is going to be software. So your your and right now we do have that you know, your your TV has software, your Frasier software, but it's just going to become such that, and especially not you are going to be able to like not talk to it and redo it again, it's all there right now. But it's going to become ubiquitous, it's going to be you know, your car, your home, your, your washing machine, and every single thing that you do is going to become software, it's you, we won't call it software anymore, I think you'll just call it Life. So it's just there. And so, in terms of technology, if you will, I think voice as a technology, voice activation talking to your machines, you know, that's going to become you know, more and more important, the insights that it gives you in terms of, you know, sales software, or no customer software that we're looking at, even now, next conversion, that's our aim to, you know, bring about is that looking at your past data or whatever work that you're doing, it's telling you a future direction, and again, that is that efficiency that you talk about the productivity you talk about so there are this hunt 100 200 things that you could do today, but which 10 that you do will bring an impact which 10 of those should you focus on to get the maximum impact the maximum out of your day, so that those kinds of insights are going to become important and are right now, again, you know, everybody's trying to do it. I wouldn't say, you know, we are where we, you know, at where we should be. But we're getting there. And those are the kinds of things that I foresee, you know, happening other than the fact that, you know, we are going to probably have humanoid kind of, you know, robots and we are going to interact with then. Yeah, who knows? So those are on the rise and coming up soon.
Michael Hingson 45:40
We should have Ray Kurzweil who talks about the singularity, the time when computers, if you will, and humans merge, and we through our brains can access all of it directly. Yes.
Shampa Bagchi 45:56
The thought interface that sometimes we don't talk about, and yet those are, I don't know, it's exciting and scary at the same time, right? Just something we can't even think about. But it's slowly creeping upon us. It's happening so slowly, probably, that we are not even noticing. But we are getting there. And we just have to figure out ways and probably even laws to deal with it.
Michael Hingson 46:20
Well, and that's going to be part of it is, is the laws and trying to definitely put a standard to it, do you. But I but it seems to me and I mentioned the senator campaign, and so on, it strikes me that those kinds of, of commercials, and that kind of discussion really represents a fear of change and a fear of what these products are really bringing to us, which shouldn't be there, but it still is.
Shampa Bagchi 46:49
Yeah, absolutely. I would totally agree on that. I think it's more about the fear of the unknown in another form. So you don't really know where this is going, which is true. I mean, it's scary. But at the same time, you cannot ignore the enormous amount of value that is adding to our lives. So I would say that the way to get through this is to you know, not really ignore it, and not to shy away from it and say, hey, you know, Tesla software is buggy, so we never go autonomous, driving way. But to kind of look at it right now and say, what standards should we set to what law should we set? What is it that we need to do to make sure all of this works out? Well, for us, it doesn't end in disaster, it works out such that, you know, rather than, you know, being seen as a flaw it it's seen as something that saves lives? Because autonomous driving ultimately will save lives? If done, right.
Michael Hingson 47:48
How do we get people to go from where they are to recognizing what you just said, which is the value of a lot of these kinds of improvements? It seems like it's an ongoing battle, but how do we get people to move past? No to? Yes, if you will? Yeah, that's
Shampa Bagchi 48:06
an interesting question. I would say the only way to do it is with education, right? So it's always the fear of unknown and education is what's going to make that unknown unknown to you. So the more we can educate people, the more we kind of bring it a little more to the masses. And say that, you know, you bring it such that we can, you know, touch and feel it and see, there's really nothing to be afraid of. I think the more it works, I remember when I was in Cisco, I had, they had this big lab where they were testing out all these different things. And this was very, very initial days of, but I remember they were testing out things like technology, like you could order milk, you could ask your refrigerator to order milk for you. You know, you could turn on the oven while you're driving home, in your car, you could switch on your oven. At that time, that seems like Oh, my goodness, you know, what if my house burns down? Now, it doesn't seem so absurd anymore. So it's just a matter of education, how much we have accepted it. And it's a matter of time and education. I think it's a factor of both of them.
Michael Hingson 49:17
Yeah, and how we can get people educated more quickly, to be more adventurous. And that's what it really is, right? You You came over from India, into a pretty unknown situation. And I've experienced some of those things in my life, going from one side of the country to the other with no family and no support system and developing a whole new thing. But life is an adventure. And all too often we don't we don't think about the fact that it's an adventure and a great learning experience. And if we could get more people to view it that way, we probably would also have a lot less fear. Or at least we would be open to exploring new things even though the fear might be there. You know, again, it would be something that we can start to work to control.
Shampa Bagchi 50:03
Yeah, I would, I would totally agree with that. Because there is always risk. I mean, even in life, I mean, you don't know, you go out of the home, there is stress, you know, there's always a risk of facing. But how do you, it's just that somehow, you know, people think there is more risk in the unknown. But you know, maybe the rewards are greater in the unknown to, you just don't know that you just have to take that risk to find out what it is all about. And, to me, again, I think that's a lot about I call that the entrepreneurial mindset. And I've recently started talking about this too, because I think the entrepreneur mindset has that that thing to, you know, that spark where you can step up, you can take a little bit of risk, you can look at any challenges and say that, I'm going to solve this. It's not just about entrepreneurs, it's not that it's just in entrepreneurs, I think it's in it, regardless of what life situation isn't, whether you're in a business or whether you have are going solo or not, you know, whatever it is that you are doing right now you can bring that mindset into it. And, you know, experiment a little bit, you know, step up into it, take a little bit of risk and learn a little bit more. And that would, I think, would help, like, become a lot more interesting.
Michael Hingson 51:21
Well, tell me more about that you you are an entrepreneur, obviously by kind of any standard. But tell me more about your your thoughts about being an entrepreneur? How do we get more people to do that? How do we get more people to accept that they can possibly do the same sort of thing?
Shampa Bagchi 51:37
Yes, sure, yes, I have always been an entrepreneur, I think because I come from a family of entrepreneurs. And I always wanted to have my own company. And so it's, to me, it's more so because I love to build things, you know, whether it's a product, whether it's a company, I like to kind of you know, see the little bits coming together to form a hole, and then impacting, getting bigger than yourself. It becomes you know, initially when you're looking at it, you know, it's a vision, it's completely within you, and nobody else can see it. But slowly, when it comes out into the world, and then goes out into the world, it becomes so much so many other people get involved in this, start sharing your vision, and it becomes so much bigger than yourself. So I think it's just a matter of if somebody would like to become entrepreneur, and I think they're everyday entrepreneurs who don't necessarily have to, or have a company, they don't necessarily have to have, you know, go solo, or have their own startups raise venture capital, I think entrepreneurs are whoever are willing to step up. I think in there's this book, called I think, if I'm not mistaken, the name is daring, greatly by brainy Brown. And she said, she does really well, where you are kind of into the arena where you're willing to go into the arena, and, you know, face off your challenges. So that thought process I would think is more about becoming an entrepreneur than anything else. So if I think you are ready to take on responsibility, take ready to learn new things. That mindset is what we know people need to bring in
Michael Hingson 53:22
what excites you about going to work every day?
Shampa Bagchi 53:26
That's that's a really nice question. I think, I think what really excites me is that I have the tools to make a difference, that I can structure my day in such a way and build things that someday will probably, you know, touch somebody's life, with an especially probably will touch with somebody's life, even when I don't know about it. So that's why I often love hearing about, you know, convergehub from users, when users reach out to me saying, yeah, how do I solve this problem? Or, Hey, I used it, you know, in this particular case, and it worked for even saying that, you know, if you just improve this thing a little bit, it will help do this. So it's just kind of know people have taken something that we envision visualized, which was this small and they're using it in their own doing their own thing, which is completely different from what we visualized, and it still works. So that's really exciting. You know, how I'm able to touch people's life and improve their livelihood in whatever little bit
Michael Hingson 54:30
you know, a lot of people say, well, it's all about making money, we got to be more very successful because we make more money, but I'm not hearing you say that's the biggest priority. It's really
Shampa Bagchi 54:40
never been that really it's never been that because if so I would probably go out I'm here in the Silicon Valley. We started our company pretty early in the day would have gone out raised a lot of capital, you know, gone IDI pure road and not done that and made a lot of money, but it's a little more are in a complex than that to me. So I would like to go in my own pace, do my own thing and make my own mark in the
Michael Hingson 55:06
world view. You mentioned Brene Brown and her book, have you thought about writing a book?
Shampa Bagchi 55:11
I actually have Yes. I have thought about it. A lot of times haven't found the time yet. But someday, I'm going to read a book,
Michael Hingson 55:23
you have a lot of insights that I think people would like to hear, and which is one of the reasons I thought it would be great to have you on this podcast. But you do have a lot of insights that I think would inspire people and motivate people and the lessons that you have learned. And the things that you teach to your employees and your customers are all valuable insights that I would think, would make a fascinating book. And of course, I have written two books and working on our third now talking about fear. But I am a firm believer in something that you said, which is it's all about telling stories to. So it isn't just preaching at people, it's it's using stories to illustrate what you talked about. And you've done, you've told a number of those stories in what we're doing here, which I think is great, because it really shows in real life examples. What's happening.
Shampa Bagchi 56:20
Great. Yeah, thank you, Michael, I really, really appreciated that. And I'm so thankful you said that, because it's been on my mind for a long time, I would love to share my experiences in a book, I love writing to. So it's one of my passions. And if I find the time when I find the time, I don't have a blog, though. So I write very short blogs, whatever I can manage. But someday, hopefully, I'll be able to sit down and you know, you narrate these experiences,
Michael Hingson 56:48
and do you do videos or any other ways of communicating with people outside?
Shampa Bagchi 56:53
I recently started doing that. I actually yesterday, I put out my first video on LinkedIn. And I'm planning to do that and more and more, because what I'm seeing is, that's another really another different medium for somebody who was not that fond of reading to still be able to go out and, you know, put your ideas forward in front of that person. So I intend to do that more and more.
Michael Hingson 57:17
What was your first video about
Shampa Bagchi 57:18
entrepreneurship? Course I was actually talking about what it means to be an entrepreneur, believe it or not. So that was one topic very fresh. On my mind, when I started talking about Italy, well, it
Michael Hingson 57:29
makes makes perfect sense. And again, I think is you work toward a book, and you can always get people to, to help do some of the writing. But just just to save time, or free up some of yours. But in the books that I've written, I've worked with two writers and I'm working with the third professional writer in the book that we're writing now. And the working title of it is a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, because we're talking about controlling fear, which is of course what happened to me on September 11, being in the World Trade Center in escaping, it was all about for me be knowing in advance what to do in the case of an emergency and being as prepared as one could be, which kept the fear away. I was certainly always concerned about what might happen while we were going down the stairs because there was fire above us. And we had no idea it was an airplane or anything that hit the building at the time. None of us did. It wasn't a blindness issue. But clearly something was very seriously wrong. And at the same time, the preparation that I had made in advance was very helpful until we finally decided during the pandemic to write about that. And so I'm working with a writer Carrie, why can't and we're putting the book together. And what I find is that she does a lot of the writing, I do a lot of the writing. But I also because we want to put it in my story, even then take what she writes in and tweak it some, but it's still a whole lot less time than if if I did it all. So it's another another way to go. But for me, it does help to get the message out there to put it in a book form. And people have appreciated what we've written so far. So I guess it's a good thing.
Shampa Bagchi 59:15
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And your story is is so so inspiring. I read about it and your website, I do plan to get your book and read all about it, you know, in more detail. But you know what you went through and how not with your dog, it's very, very inspiring story.
Michael Hingson 59:33
Yeah, what people often miss is that it's a team effort. The dog has a job to do, and I have a job to do that. The dog doesn't leave the dog guides and there's a big distinct difference between those two. But thunder dog is the title of the book and it it is out there and I think that it helps to teach people a lot about what blindness is really like as opposed to what we think it is. And it's the usual myth that people have Ms. conceptions, whether it's about blindness or technology or whatever, it is all about education and getting people to, to move forward and recognize that maybe we have the wrong idea about what this is about.
Shampa Bagchi 1:00:11
Yeah, I absolutely am going to read your book. And do you know, when your new book is coming out? Did you set a date yet?
Michael Hingson 1:00:20
The tentative date is, by the time all is done, we get it edited, and everything else is going to it's, it's a while away as a way yet, probably in the first, well, probably in the second quarter of 2024. So it's not going to be soon.
Shampa Bagchi 1:00:36
It's been a while. Yeah, it's going to be a while, but I'm looking forward to it already. Definitely going to read that one too.
Michael Hingson 1:00:42
Well, we were blessed to get a contract signed with a publisher. And so we're working with their timeframe. We've we've talked about when to publish it, and why to publish it then. So I think it'll be kind of fun. But we at this point where there's thunder dog and running with Roselle, so definitely get them and running Anthony center dog especially is also available in audio format, which is an easy way to get it if you do much driving here. Yeah, sure. Yeah, in an autonomous vehicle.
Shampa Bagchi 1:01:10
I was very good for that. But I just love reading. So I'm definitely going to get that and your book was bestseller too, right?
Michael Hingson 1:01:19
Yeah, it was the number one New York Times bestseller. Again, we were very blessed with that. So that's impressive. We like that. Well, Shamp, I'm going to let you go back to doing some of the creative things that you do. We've been talking for an hour, and it's been fun. already. I know. Isn't that fun? You are welcome. You are welcome to come back. Anytime. If you want to talk further. I would love to do that. And definitely I want to stay in touch. I love what you had to say about artificial intelligence and so on. And I'm glad that you did check out excessively we talked about that very briefly briefly. It's it's also a bleeding edge type of technology.
Shampa Bagchi 1:01:57
It is it is yes, it was I was very impressed with it. I did take a look at it. And I look forward to talking to them again. Well, we'll
Michael Hingson 1:02:04
help facilitate that and, and anytime that we can be of help them. And if you want to talk more to folks here, don't hesitate. We can even use some of these podcasts to help with your book.
Shampa Bagchi 1:02:17
Oh, yeah, that would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Michael, thank you for that idea. It's been a pleasure talking to you. It's been a lot of fun.
Michael Hingson 1:02:24
I've enjoyed it very much. And I hope all of you who are listening, have enjoyed it. Wherever you are, I hope that you enjoyed the last hour. If you would like I want to hear from you. But before I give you my contact information Shampo how can people find you and maybe learn more about what you're doing and about convergehub and so on?
Shampa Bagchi 1:02:44
Yeah, I have a bl
