Durriya Doctor is a SW Engineering and Technology leader with a proven track record of bringing new products to the market all the way from ideation to launch in multiple domains including Telecom Service, Video Editing and Operating System Services. She has experience in working with customers to understand and translate requirements to implementable solutions and lead R&D teams to design, develop, test, deploy and support these products
Durriya was VP of R&D at Comverse technology where she lead the development of Media Server, VoIP stack and Messaging Products. She led the transition of the products and the R&D to offshore development as Comverse was acquired by Private Equity. Prior to that, she has worked at Apollo Computers, Open Software Foundation Research Institute, Avid Technology and Engage.
Durriya is currently at Mathworks, Inc.
How did you get interested in developing messaging products?
In early 2000, I started working at Comverse Technology on Voice Activated Products for the telecom providers. However, at that time we were ahead of the maturity of speech detection and voice recognition accuracy was not good enough to support a conversational speech application. My team then worked Audio and Video Conferencing and core VoIP technology. When 3G gained traction I saw an opportunity for an enhanced messaging product that was media rich with support of pictures and video exchange with groups of users. I worked with my team to develop an RCS based enhanced messaging product which we deployed in Australia and Europe. What are the opportunities in the field of messaging products? What do you see is the future of messaging?
Messaging products will continue to grow since it helps fulfill a basic human need. These products allow us to instantaneously communicate across distances and time zones. Messaging products will continue to evolve, get increasingly media rich and create new and unique ways of communicating. The line between Messaging products and Communication services will get blurred.
Also users and organizations are increasingly aware that the cost of "free" products is the loss of privacy and I believe privacy and security considerations will get more emphasis..
You have had held a variety of roles both as a technical leader and organizational leader. How do the two roles differ? Is there one that enjoy more than the other ?
I started my career as a a software engineer working on Operating Systems. Over the years I have worked hard and been fortunate to have opportunities to grow to leadership roles. I very much enjoy the organizational management role as it leverages both my technical skills and my strengths in working with and energizing teams to achieve results. Fostering innovation and collaboration in my team that was geographically dispersed between US, Israel and India to achieve our goals was challenging and engaging. Organizational leadership is about making sure that the right people are in the right roles and creating an environment where they can leverage their strengths and creating a collaborative goal-oriented culture to deliver results.
You recently ran a Kaggle Style Data Science Competition on Behalf of IIT AGNE. Could you tell us a little about the space of Data Science and why it is important for people in the field to participate in such competitions?
In the last few years numerous aspects of our day to day life is influenced by Data Analytics. From advertising to search algorithms to online shopping to what Netflix recommends for you to watch and many more aspects are driven by Data Science and this is only in its very early stages. As more and more industries rely on big data to make decisions, data science has become increasingly important across all industries beyond tech and finance. In addition, according to the August 2018 LinkedIn Workforce report "demand for data scientists is off the charts". Boston area has a large student and recent graduate population that have either studied data science or are practitioners and we saw an opportunity to provide a forum to bring this talent together. The Kaggle style competition challenged teams to compete on building the best data model in a limited amount of time and the teams were judged on the prediction results of their models along their presentation. It was an excellent opportunity for the participants to showcase their skills in this area.
You come from a traditional home where you were the first woman to go to IIT and get a master's degree. How did it feel to be the first ? Any challenges ?
Indeed I grew up in a very traditional home and was the first woman in my family to live away from home while attending college and most certainly one of the first in my Dawoodi Bohra community to go to IIT. I did however get a lot of support from my family especially my Mom to pursue my education dreams. IIT was an eye opener for me and I was a kid in a candy store. It broadened my horizon and being among brilliant students inspired me and motivated me further.
The major challenge was the extreme gender disparity in every single class but Ranjani I am sure you will agree with me that the girls from IIT are brave and resilient and have excelled and flourished.
You are the mother of two successful young woman who has completed her Phd from Harvard in Biochemistry. What is the secret to good parenting?
I am so proud of both my girls, My older daughter Zainab, recently defended her PhD thesis, while my younger one, Tahera is getting ready to start medical school in August. Our generation has given parenting a new meaning - I do not recall my parents being so actively involved in my education. On the other hand, the term "helicopter parenting" has been often used for our generation. I however firmly believe in listening to my girls and supporting them. Exposing them to a variety of opportunities, and letting them decide what they want to pursue has helped them gain the confidence to dream big and pursue those dreams successfully. Both my husband and I shared with them our joy of learning, encouraged curiosity and the value of education and emphasized the opportunities it has enabled for us. They have internalized and embraced it fully and made it their own.
What advice do you have for people who are balancing work and home?
Its not easy and there are periods when one has taken more time than the other. I have spent many afternoons taking my kids to their piano lessons and soccer games and many late nights on conference calls working with my teams in India and Israel. My advice is to leverage all the help you can get (I had my parents helping me) and simplify your life as much as possible e.g with meal preparation and house cleaning, Having a spouse or partner who shares in the home chores is a huge help. I also did not believe in having too many activities for my kids - no more than 1 sport and 1 creative activity. It is important to sit together as a family and prioritize their time to align with what's most important to them and often let go of some things.
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