Careers in STEM: Beyond Academia is a webinar series to expose students to the various career options, other than the set academic path.

Dear Students, We invite you to a new monthly webinar series titled Careers in STEM: Beyond Academia, starting May, 2022. With the goal to educate and empower you to expand your career options beyond the traditional academic track, this webinar series will feature many compelling speakers who have excelled in diverse fields outside of academia, ranging from Edtech, Entrepreneurship to Science communication. We hope that this series will inspire you and connect you to those who have made transitions to non-academic jobs.

The first lecture in this series will be held on May 4th, 2022, 4 pm. Save your dates for an exciting session with Dr. Ekta Chaudhury. Ekta, known for her very popular YouTube channel ‘Garden Up’, is an alumna of IISc. Garden Up was born out of an urge to convert a tiny hostel room into a private little sanctuary. Today, Garden Up has over a million subscribers and 900 million views. In this talk, Ekta will take you through her inspiring journey and discuss how she used her scientific training to create content that appeals to a wider audience, and her foray into edutainment and entrepreneurship. The 30-minutes talk will be followed by a 30-minutes discussion session.

Brief bio of the speaker: Ekta Chaudhury is a teacher, a gardener and an entrepreneur living in Mumbai. She started her career as a researcher spending a decade studying Ecology and sustainable farming practices among Himalayan communities. After finishing her Ph.D. in Ecology from IISc in 2018, she took to gardening full-time and started her own venture, Garden Up, a logical extension to her YouTube channel. Today, Garden Up content, services and products through social media, workshops, online courses, and home decor store cater to a young Indian and International audience, helping them find greenery, sustainability and balance in their lives. Read more about Ekta here