Willdan Benefits from AI Lapping Up Electricity

The intelligence may be artificial, but the growing electricity needs are very real. Just ask Willdan Group, Anaheim’s most valuable publicly traded company.

The environmental engineering services firm on Aug. 1 reported second-quarter results that surpassed analysts’ estimates, boosting the share price by 12%.

“The electric load growth macrotrend strengthened over the quarter, fueled by growth in electricity demand at data centers from artificial intelligence,” Chief Executive Mike Bieber said in a statement announcing the results.

Business Intelligence Roadmap PowerPoint Template Nulivo Market

The increased demand for AI has benefited companies with local ties like Broadcom, whose co-founder Henry Samueli is now the second richest man in Orange County (see the July 29 issue for more details).

160% Increase

While AI’s electric thirst may come as a surprise to some, experts have had their eyes on it for a long time.

“On average, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search. In that difference lies a coming sea change in how the U.S., Europe and the world at large will consume power —and how much that will cost,” Goldman Sachs said in a report in May.

Business Intelligence PowerPoint Template PPT Templates

The financial giant added: “Now, as the pace of efficiency gains in electricity use slows and the AI revolution gathers steam, Goldman Sachs Research estimates that data center power demand will grow 160% by 2030.”

CNBC reported in late July that “concerns are mounting about whether the U.S. can generate enough electricity for the widespread adoption of AI, and whether our aging grid will be able to handle the load.”

As the demand grows, Willdan’s goal is to help companies, utilities and government agencies control their electricity use, including “efficiency and sustainability.”

For example, Willdan said in July it had reduced the energy used annually at a large data center in the Pacific Northwest by more than 4.1 million kilowatt hours.

Business Intelligence PowerPoint Template and Google Slides

For perspective, the average American home buys about 899 kilowatt hours of energy per month, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Energy Efficiency

“Artificial intelligence and other new technologies have the potential to significantly increase energy consumed by data centers,” CEO Bieber said last month. “By using energy efficiency strategies, data center owners can reduce cooling loads and increase reliability.”Recent contract wins for Willdan include Meta (Facebook) to study emissions related to voluntary clean energy procurement; the State of Virginia to perform analysis on grid impact from increased energy demand and the City of Paramount for solar, storage and EV charging infrastructure.

Willdan Group’s shares have gained more than 80% in the past year, as companies increasingly seek ways to hold down energy costs. The shares were trading at $36.42 apiece as of Aug. 7, for a market cap of $509.6 million.

The company has boosted its annual forecast to a profit of $2 to $2.10 a share on sales of $280 million to $290 million. Analysts had expected $1.85 a share in sales of $280.1 million.

Best free presentation software of 2024

The best free presentation software makes it simple and easy to create professional presentations without a Microsoft subscription.

While PowerPoint is the market leader when it comes to presentation software, some people may be unwilling to subscribe to a Microsoft 365 subscription, especially if they don’t expect to need to use it very often.

However, there are plenty of great alternatives to PowerPoint available for free that you can use. While these won’t have the same advanced features as PowerPoint, they still offer a very competent platform to design most any presentation that you need.

To help you choose, we’ve listed below the best free presentation software currently available.

Add images to your presentations using the best free photo editor.

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Best free presentation software overall

(Image credit: Prezi)

Make stylish presentations online, for free

Reasons to buy+

Animated presentations

Easy to use

Allows collaborative editing

Reasons to avoid-

Some trial and error required

Prezi turns the traditional approach to presentations on its head. Instead of creating slide after slide, this presentation software gives you a single giant canvas. You can add blocks of text or images, or even create miniature slides. During your presentation, you can seamlessly fly around the canvas and zoom in to look at individual chunks of content.

For how complex Prezi seems, it’s impressively simple to use the platform. The only major divergence from Microsoft PowerPoint is that you need to add animated paths from one part of the canvas to another. The tools for this are fairly straightforward, especially if you’ve ever used an animation or video editing software.

Of course, this type of presentation structure isn’t always ideal. Prezi makes it hard to visualize structured data like financials, which can make it difficult to use in business applications. Some viewers also might not appreciate the fly-around animation style that’s inherent to the presentation software.

Read our full Prezi review.

Best free presentation software for functionality

(Image credit: LibreOffice)

Free presentation software that’s a dead ringer for PowerPoint

Reasons to buy+

Most of Powerpoint’s functionality

Works with Keynote for Mac

Hundreds of free templates

Reasons to avoid-

No built-in collaboration tools

LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and it includes a Powerpoint equivalent called Impress with nearly all of the same functionality. The only big difference you’ll find between the two slideshow creation tools is the LibreOffice lacks some modern features like built-in collaboration and integration with Microsoft OneDrive.

However, Impress does have a few advantages of its own. The software can import files from Keynote, the default presentation software on Mac computers. Plus, there are hundreds of free templates that you can download for free. Even better, there’s no limit on what fonts you can use with Impress, so it’s easy to change the look of your presentation from what Powerpoint typically allows.

On the whole, LibreOffice Impress is about as close as it gets to simply replicating Microsoft Powerpoint for free.

Read our full LibreOffice review.

Best free presentation software for collaboration

(Image credit: Google)

Free presentation software for all Google account holders

Reasons to buy+

Supports importing new templates

Built-in chat for collaboration

Presentation mode for rehearing

Reasons to avoid-

Initial template selection limited

–

Import issues

Google Slides is part of Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), and it does a nice job of matching a number of PowerPoint’s capabilities. This free presentation software supports embedding videos, creating diagrams, and adding animations to your slides. While the selection of templates is somewhat limited, you can easily import hundreds of additional templates for free or create your own.

Even better, Google Slides supports the collaboration tools users have come to expect from Google. Multiple people can work on a slideshow simultaneously, and there’s a built-in group chat so you can keep track of what everyone is doing. It’s also nice that you can play your presentation in presenter mode, which allows you to preview how it will look to your audience and rehearse timing.

The only downside to Google Slides is that bloated slideshows can experience some loading delays. Also beware that while you can move between Slides and Powerpoint, the conversion often messes with the layout of your slides.

Read our full Google Slides review.

Best free presentation software for speed

(Image credit: Canva)

Create stylish presentations and share them easily online

Reasons to buy+

Free layouts available

Searchable image library

Seamless online sharing

Reasons to avoid-

Not PowerPoint compatible

Canva is perfect for making speedy presentations right in your web browser. This software offers a handful of free layouts to help you get your slideshow started, and it’s easy to customize the templates to fit your needs. There isn’t a huge variety of content elements to add to your presentation, but Canva makes up for this with a searchable library of more than 1 million images you can use.

Your Canva presentations live online, which makes it extremely easy to collaborate. You can invite colleagues to edit your slideshow (although simultaneous editing is not supported) or seamlessly share your finished presentation. However, beware that Canva can’t import presentations from Microsoft Powerpoint or export finished work to a Powerpoint-editable format.

Read our full Canva review.

Best free presentation software for user interface

(Image credit: WPS Office)

An extremely impressive Microsoft Powerpoint alternative

Reasons to buy+

Lots of templates included

Familiar user interface

Plenty of animations

WPS Office Free is a Microsoft Office look-alike that fully support PowerPoint files without any layout issues during import. The WPS Presentation tool has all of the same capabilities of PowerPoint, including tons of animations, slide transitions, content effects, and video embedding. The selection of included presentation templates is also very impressive for a free software.

One of the best things about this presentation software is that the user interface will feel incredibly familiar if you’re coming from Microsoft. All of the tools are displayed in a top ribbon, with your slides shown on the left side of the screen for easy navigation. It’s simple to display your presentation right from WPS Presentation, which means there’s no unexpected troubleshooting when it’s time to show off your work.

There’s not much to dislike about WPS Presentation. However, keep in mind that the software is supported by ads. Some users find the ads annoying, but they’re not overly in the way.

Read our full WPS Office Free review.

We’ve also featured the best free office software.

Best free presentation software FAQsWhich alternative to PowerPoint is best for you?

When deciding which alternative to PowerPoint to download and use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free platforms may only provide basic options, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. Additionally, free and budget software options can sometimes prove limited when it comes to the variety of tools available, while higher-end software can really cater for every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require.

How we test the best free presentation software

To test for the best free presentation software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

Get in touchYou’ve reached the end of the page. Jump back up to the top ^
Best free presentation software of 2024

The best free presentation software makes it simple and easy to create professional presentations without a Microsoft subscription.

To help you choose, we’ve listed below the best free presentation software currently available.

Add images to your presentations using the best free photo editor.

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Best free presentation software overall

(Image credit: Prezi)

Make stylish presentations online, for free

Reasons to buy+

Animated presentations

Easy to use

Allows collaborative editing

Reasons to avoid-

Some trial and error required

Read our full Prezi review.

Best free presentation software for functionality

(Image credit: LibreOffice)

Free presentation software that’s a dead ringer for PowerPoint

Reasons to buy+

Most of Powerpoint’s functionality

Works with Keynote for Mac

Hundreds of free templates

Reasons to avoid-

No built-in collaboration tools

On the whole, LibreOffice Impress is about as close as it gets to simply replicating Microsoft Powerpoint for free.

Read our full LibreOffice review.

Best free presentation software for collaboration

(Image credit: Google)

Free presentation software for all Google account holders

Reasons to buy+

Supports importing new templates

Built-in chat for collaboration

Presentation mode for rehearing

Reasons to avoid-

Initial template selection limited

–

Import issues

Read our full Google Slides review.

Best free presentation software for speed

(Image credit: Canva)

Create stylish presentations and share them easily online

Reasons to buy+

Free layouts available

Searchable image library

Seamless online sharing

Reasons to avoid-

Not PowerPoint compatible

Read our full Canva review.

Best free presentation software for user interface

(Image credit: WPS Office)

An extremely impressive Microsoft Powerpoint alternative

Reasons to buy+

Lots of templates included

Familiar user interface

Plenty of animations

There’s not much to dislike about WPS Presentation. However, keep in mind that the software is supported by ads. Some users find the ads annoying, but they’re not overly in the way.

Read our full WPS Office Free review.

We’ve also featured the best free office software.

Best free presentation software FAQsWhich alternative to PowerPoint is best for you?

How we test the best free presentation software

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

Get in touchYou’ve reached the end of the page. Jump back up to the top ^
What if College is Not Right For You?

When Aaron Abramov was accepted into the University of Miami in 2018, he was ready to pack his bags and move from Los Angeles to Florida, envisioning a college experience enhanced by pristine beaches and colorful nightlife. Then he and his family looked at what it would cost: about $80,000 a year.

Abramov grew up in Beverly Hills and attended Beverly Hills High School, a well-regarded public school less than a mile from Rodeo Drive. But despite his address, Abramov says, “My family doesn’t come from money.” Thus $80,000 a year in tuition was not an option unless Abramov took out loans, which he was loath to do.

Instead he enrolled at Santa Monica Community College and then transferred to the University of California Santa Barbara—where annual in-state tuition is $14,881—lasting a year before he dropped out. He found himself “going through the motions” in school, focusing instead on a side hustle business: a streetwear brand called Beverly Hills Club that he started with a friend. (In high school he had worked on a sneaker resale business with his uncle.) When he started giving Beverly Hills Club hoodies and trucker hats to TikTok influencers like Addison Rae and Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, who posted selfies modeling the merch, the line took off. The first clothing drop netted $100,000. He was 19.

Getty Images

Abramov knew in his gut that college wasn’t the best route for him. Even if he had been able to afford the University of Miami, he says, he didn’t feel committed to a particular major and would have been “messing around, having fun” instead of working toward a career. He believes that that uncertainty, and the exorbitant bill, would have resulted in huge debt and not much else.

Plus: “I always had an entrepreneurial mind, and I thought, What can I do with $80,000 a year myself?” he says.

Skepticism about higher education has reached a fever pitch in the United States, to the point that “College is a scam” is a popular meme on TikTok and YouTube. A whole genre of books, newsletters, and podcasts has sprung up (with titles like Better than College and A New U) that question whether a four-year degree is worth it and that offer alternatives, such as gap years, apprenticeships, and the trade industry route.

Cost is by far the biggest cause for frustration. Vanderbilt University recently became the first school to hit $100,000 a year for some students. And even though most families receive some form of aid, particularly at elite, private institutions, Americans typically feel a squeeze when paying college bills. Throw in multiple children and grad school, and it’s more like a choke hold. The question of ROI is also on parents’ minds, as artificial intelligence starts to encroach on entry-level jobs, which are already hard to come by even for college grads. According to a recent report by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Institute for the Future of Work, 52 percent of graduates are underemployed a year after graduation. A decade down the road, that number dips only slightly, to 45 percent. Then there are the dishearteningly low acceptance rates at schools themselves, particularly elite ones, meaning that the joyous milestone of going off to college often means settling for a second or third choice.

PM Images//Getty Images

This year more fuel was added to the fire by two events: the FAFSA debacle (in which technical glitches in the new federal student aid form meant that many families had to choose a college without knowing how much aid they were eligible for) and the student protests and free speech battles related to the Hamas-Israel conflict. Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania became the poster children for top universities gone chaotic with warring factions of students and faculty. College presidents toppled after giving weak defenses before Congress, and there were donor revolts.

Questioning college has been in the ether ever since libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel launched his fellowship program in 2011, which awards a two-year $100,000 grant to some 20 budding entrepreneurs each year. The idea is: skip college and start a dream company. But whereas Thiel’s notion was initially seen as “kind of a sacrilegious thing,” according to Jeffrey Young, who hosts the podcast Doubting College, today the idea that higher education is a dubious—or even controversial—venture has gained steam. The Covid pandemic, when families were paying full freight for Zoom school and young people’s mental health significantly declined, further fueled the fervor.

It’s too early to say there’s a full-fledged revolution afoot. Ingrained attitudes and pressures (such as college sweatshirt days at high schools) have kept the no-college movement at a low boil. After all, degrees from top schools remain the route to high-paying jobs in finance, law, and, to some extent, tech. And data supports the idea that students with college degrees earn higher incomes. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2022 the median income of people with a bachelor’s degree was 59 percent higher than that of people with just a high school diploma. But according to Young, “there’s far more talk from all kinds of students—even those who have parents who can afford to pay. They’re hearing that it might not be worth it.”

Westend61//Getty Images

Indeed, the frustrations surrounding higher ed are prompting families to think harder and more creatively about life after high school; some of them make the bold decision to forge a new path. “You don’t have to stay on the college-or-else hamster wheel that this country is on to be successful,” says Seth Kessler, co-founder of GapWell, a consultancy that helps families plan gap years, internships, and work opportunities. “It’s reaching a tipping point where people are saying, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’ ”

That’s precisely what single mom Natalie Gagnon was thinking when her twin daughters Vivian and Josephine were in high school and starting to think about college. Gagnon graduated from Brandeis University in the mid-1990s and recalls the experience as “a luxury.” “It was like going to sleep-away camp,” she says. “Brandeis was a very comfortable place to be. I felt extremely fortunate and privileged, but I didn’t feel that it translated into success. I just ended up with a lot of debt with no direction.”

Gagnon’s daughters both attended highly ranked public schools in Jacksonville, Florida. When it came time to apply to college they targeted a handful of schools, both public and private, but they were never obsessed about college the way some of their friends were. They had grown up with a lot of freedom and independence and so weren’t champing at the bit to leave home. Also, the summer before their senior year they had started interning at the insurance company where their mother works.

phototechno//Getty Images

And then Covid hit. It was the spring of 2020, and as the sisters were receiving acceptance letters, schools went online. Tuition wasn’t a factor. In Florida state colleges are relatively inexpensive for residents, and both young women received grant money. Their mom had also saved some money. But the thought of Zoom school, when they were already advancing at the insurance company with a steady paycheck and 401k, led them to decline acceptance offers.

“What else could you do with that $300,000 to launch your kids into a really good life?”

Natalie Gagnon also was doing the math. “For parents who are very conscientious and capable of saving for their kids’ education and are able to pay out of pocket—imagine, a good liberal arts school is maybe $300,000” after four years, she says. “What else could you do with that $300,000 to launch your kids into a really good life? Is the value really there?”

So her daughters continued to work, earning close to $50,000 a year as agents by the time they turned 20. They rented a two-bedroom apartment and were “grocery shopping and going to workout classes, and paying our electric bills,” Vivian says. Their lives were dramatically different from their peers’, something they felt when they rented an Airbnb in Asheville, North Carolina, with friends for a birthday weekend. The cabin cost about $2,000, and it was expected that the sisters would pay for it. Their friends “didn’t question it. It was like, Oh, you’re making money,” Josephine says. “It was almost the way they were programmed to behave with their parents. There was some entitlement.

Maryna Terletska//Getty Images

“We didn’t mind, because we were having fun. But in hindsight we’ve been living this real, adult life for four years. They’re all graduating now and are about to start their own real lives. There’s just been some disconnect.”

Covid also accelerated the gap year phenomenon, which traditionally has been thought of as its own kind of luxury for families who can pay for their kid to spend a year in Costa Rica building houses. There has also been an implication that the types of students who take gap years are the ones who can’t hack it in college. But Covid “lifted the veil on college,” says Ivey Patton, who runs Gap Year Base Camp, a company that helps families plan gap years. As parents watched their children stuck in front of computers, frustrated and demoralized, Patton’s phone started ringing off the hook. “Everyone was like, ‘Where will you send them?’ ”

Choices abound. Scandinavian folk school, anyone? Organized by Nordic governments, the post–high school “schools” offer programs that specialize in almost anything—film, spear fishing, boat building—and include courses in the country’s language. Or perhaps a tall ship program, sailing with international students—think Pirates of the Caribbean meets The Breakfast Club. Most of these programs are subsidized by European governments and so are not prohibitively expensive, and Patton does all the legwork, such as translating websites and guiding families through visa procedures and language requirements.

She says many of the students she works with simply need a break: “the kids who do really well in high school and are just burned out.”

AlexSecret//Getty Images

Then there are those who didn’t get into their first choice college or are accepted for the second semester. That was the case for Eli Reisman, who was accepted to Boston University for the semester that began last January. To avoid “lazing around on the couch” all fall, as he puts it, he worked with Seth Kessler, of GapWell, who helped him arrange a paid internship at a sports nonprofit in Washington, DC. Kessler identified internships that were likely to hire him and helped Reisman prep for his interviews. This kind of concierge service, much like independent college counseling, is a luxury not everyone can afford. But Kessler insists he works within a family’s budget and finds options that don’t “break the bank.”

“You can create an awesome, thoughtful existence and spend parts of it with elements you need to pay for, others you can work for. You can do it in a smart way, but you have to put the effort in,” he says. Harder than designing an experience is reassuring families that taking time off isn’t a life-ending move. “Lots of families are afraid of what will happen if their son or daughter stops on the path they’re on, that they’ll never come back, they’ll just be a ski bum for the rest of their lives,” Kessler says. “College is not a bad thing, but college right now for every kid isn’t necessarily the answer to every question.”

Blake Boles, the author of books such as Better than College, echoes this. “It might be bad to never go to college at all. You might be closing some doors or making things harder for yourself in the world of the economy,” he says. “But what’s worse is to go to college for three years, accrue debt, and then drop out. Or even to finish the degree, accrue debt, and then realize you were checking more boxes, the way you did all through high school. It’s this shocking lack of self-knowledge and awareness of other options.

“It can be self-employment, independent travel, service work,” he goes on. “I was recently mentoring an 18-year-old who grew up in a homeschooling family in Pennsylvania. They raised $19,000 through Kickstarter to do a yearlong road trip and an investigative documentary series on the alternative education scene in the U.S. That’s the stuff I’m a big promoter of.”

Ryan Craig, a Yale alum and the author of Apprentice Nation: How the Earn and Learn Alternative to Higher Education Will Create a Stronger and Fairer America, isn’t critical of colleges per se. He’s critical of the growing gap between what employers are seeking from entry-level workers and how they’re being prepared.

ExperienceInteriors//Getty Images

“Employers are expecting more than they used to,” he says. They want all the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that college provides, “but they also want specific combinations of tech or digital platform skills, business knowledge. Then there’s the experience gap. Good, entry-level jobs that used to be accessible to college grads are either explicitly or implicitly demanding six, 12, 18, 24 months of relevant work experience, which is transforming a lot of entry-level jobs into oxymorons.”

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is accelerating this process, Craig says, pointing to investment banking as a case study. Investment banking analysts “spend 80 percent of their time building PowerPoint presentations for pitch decks, and they work 80 hours a week,” he says. “AI is going to be doing that pitch deck development work, so an analyst won’t be spending 60 hours a week doing it. They’ll spend the majority of their time doing higher-value client work. The rub is that analysts are not going to be able to do that without relevant work experience.”

Craig is an advocate for building the type of infrastructure that many European countries have, in which high school students can readily enter apprenticeship programs—in the UK they do this via the equivalent of the Common App—in industries such as healthcare, tech, and finance. “Other developed countries are way ahead of this, where you can graduate from high school and the options that are in front of you aren’t just college or Chipotle.”

As the managing director of Achieve Partners, a company that builds apprentice programs in companies in various sectors for both high school and college grads, Craig is working to help catapult students into careers. “Every time one of our companies launches an apprentice cohort, we put the word out. We have something like 300 applicants for every seat. It’s a paid pathway to a career that would otherwise be inaccessible, and you’ll be making six figures within five years, almost guaranteed. That sounds pretty good to lots of young people.”

But do kids who eschew the traditional American higher ed system really wind up in a better place? Former Lehman Brothers equity analyst Angel Gonzalez-Sanfeliu sent all five of his sons to the University of Navarra in Barcelona after the financial crisis of 2009 caused “my net worth to disappear on me,” as he puts it. His sons attended a top-ranked international university for what he calls “community college pricing”: $20,000 a year per kid, including air travel. But the catch was that his sons were all interested in finance, and, upon graduation, they found themselves outside the Wall Street recruiting system that exists at top U.S. universities. “They had to hustle” for jobs, he says.

“I used to help recruit at Lehman and Barclays, and there are basically 25 schools that investment banks recruit from… Think of how few top caliber jobs there are. So to land a job at Barclays, it’s really tough.”

The Gagnon sisters recently moved to New York City to pursue more creative paths. After a few weeks of job hunting, Josephine found a job at a Japanese retail company, where she’s becoming a manager. “There’s a lot of potential for growth,” she says. Her sister has been taking odd jobs as she tries to “tap into my creativity,” she says. “I’m really interested in the fashion world, and I’m investing in a sewing machine.”

They have been able to make the leap “because they didn’t have any debt. They had savings and they had some real life experiences,” their mother says proudly.

As for Aaron Abramov, he moved to the Bay Area two years ago and is now working as a project manager for a luxury residential construction company. Last year he earned more than $300,000 and this year is on pace to make substantially more.

“What I’m doing now is more serious” than fashion, he says. “I’m selling $800,000 projects, and there’s a lot of responsibility when it comes down to it. I’m getting paid, and I’ll eventually be able to get my contractor’s license. I’m learning a trade that’s needed. Everyone needs a roof over their head.”

Related Stories
What if College is Not Right For You?

Getty Images

Plus: “I always had an entrepreneurial mind, and I thought, What can I do with $80,000 a year myself?” he says.

PM Images//Getty Images

Westend61//Getty Images

phototechno//Getty Images

“What else could you do with that $300,000 to launch your kids into a really good life?”

Maryna Terletska//Getty Images

She says many of the students she works with simply need a break: “the kids who do really well in high school and are just burned out.”

AlexSecret//Getty Images

ExperienceInteriors//Getty Images

They have been able to make the leap “because they didn’t have any debt. They had savings and they had some real life experiences,” their mother says proudly.

Related Stories
Meet The Entrepreneur Bringing Fashion In Technology

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Published: Thu 1 Aug 2024, 6:12 PM

Last year, as Vu Televisions forayed into the Middle East market, Devita Saraf decided to speak at a press meet which had the crème de la crème of retail sector and media. Working herself to the bone in the anticipation of the launch, Devita fell sick. Her immunity had already been low and she did not even possess the energy to get up from the bed. Over the next 24 hours, a group of doctors, headed by Dr Zainab Al-Hashimy, administered IV drips and nebulisers, ensuring she was in a position to speak at the press meet.

“We had a massive turnout of 150 people. I had cough syrups kept on the back of TV screens just in case I needed them. As soon as the press conference was over, I was rushed to the hospital where I received top notch healthcare. Dubai’s healthcare system is fabulous,” recalls the founder of Vu Televisions.“It not only saved my life, it also saved my Middle Eastern business.”

This small anecdote offers a robust glimpse of what Devita Saraf truly is – a resilient leader. As the daughter of Rajkumar Saraf, who founded Zenith Computers, Devita understands privilege and the power that comes with it. It’s just that she has refused to take either for granted, rather using them as a stepping stone to preside over a high-end television brand with an annual turnover of INR 1000 crore.

“Born and raised in South Bombay family, I always felt that the power and respect was with the men. I wanted to be the star of my own show because I knew I had the drive for it,” says Devita. It only helped that she was born into a family where gender divide wasn’t as steep. She was given the same opportunities as her elder brother, who now works in the artificial intelligence business.“However, as I grew up I felt the world outside was not woke enough to accept a daughter as an heir in the business or a founder of a business.”

This, despite her having an early start, being taken for press conferences, dealer meetings, trade shows and office openings from the time when she was 16. By the time she decided to plunge into business at the age of 22, she had already had a 7-8 years of training. No surprises then by the time she prepared her business plan and presented it to the top leadership, she sounded like anything but a novice. Devita credits it to a combination of self-belief and experience.

AN ENTREPRENEUR IS BORN

Creating her own template of success at an early age, Devita founded Vu Televisions when she was only 24, a time when luxury and electronics weren’t being spoken of in the same breath in India. The challenge, she reiterates, was not as much about understanding the domain, but grasping the complexities that come with leadership. She doesn’t mince her words when she says it is possible to“figure out” the machinations of an industry, but no one really prepares you for leadership.“One thing that impacted me is how much responsibility, constant effort and risk-taking goes into being in that ‘boss’ role. I don’t think people often give enough credit to leaders for how much they willingly take on. I have now run this business for 18 years now and have learnt so much. That learning, to be fair, is not gender-specific. You either like and love leadership or you don’t.”

Even if women like Devita are natural leaders, their journey to the top is no walk in the park. For one, tech, during the time when Devita started out, was still seen as a male bastion, as was entrepreneurship. An outlier, she found herself navigating these challenges by using them to her advantage. How?

“My brother often compares me to Seabiscuit in the eponymous film. It is the story of a tiny horse that runs alongside big horses,” she says. The rationale of this example is to use the perceptions and stereotypes to one’s advantage.“Often, even if women have self-belief, the world tends to perceive us differently,” she says.“If you ask me, it is an advantage to be a young woman in business because people do not have any expectations from you. As a result, you don’t have much competition that’s checking on you all the time. You can go unnoticed before someone realises the scale of operations. When you are considered a dark horse, you can use it to gather information and take time to build your business, and not actually look threatening to your competitors.”

THE MAKING OF A LEADER

There is considerable wisdom in that observation. Breaking the glass ceiling need not always mean standing apart, but also using the stereotypes to your advantage. Once it’s broken, not only will the external entities take not of you, but your own team views you differently. It’s often contended that it’s difficult for women to be leaders inside an outside an organisation. But Devita does not mince her words when she says that the power always lies with the person writing the cheques, and women need not undermine that agency they have in a business.

“When I started the business, if I saw someone being disrespectful towards my team or other women or younger people, I immediately knew this person would not last very long. But if I liked the character of a person, I would personally coach them. As a result, I have had people who were once janitors and are now store managers, engineers who have now become CTOs,” she says.“As a leader, I do not get carried away by fancy resumes. You really have to assess the person and get a hunch from them about whether they’d be able to work with you. That has been my hiring principle, and we have had some people who’ve been with us forever.”

Devita’s evolution as an entrepreneur has coincided with a time in India when the country is eyeing a space for itself in manufacturing.“I don’t think India being a China Plus One strategy brand offering reduced labour costs is a good idea because we don’t have a history of electronic manufacturing. What Indians do possess is an ingenuity that leads them to prominent places in Silicon Valley where every CEO or CTO is an Indian. The idea, for me, was to build my own lab. We have to think in terms of building labs for innovation so that we can work with contract manufacturers of the world like Foxconn, who can then get things made for you. My business model is actually very similar to that of Apple. We have a strong team that does its R&D, and then the pieces are manufactured through a global supply chain,” she says.“I didn’t want to do cheap electronics. I was the one who coined the term luxury in technology when I made my business plan all those years ago. I wanted to bring these two worlds together because when it came to electronics, the idea always was to get things cheaper. I want to see electronics being sold at the Fashion Avenue of The Dubai Mall. And having a more Gen-Z approach to the selling of electronics will help because that will influence our design. That’s what helped us as entities like Sharaf DG, Grand Safari began to see us as a good competitor to Samsung, LG and Sony because we were more woke and high-end.”

SPEAKING TO THE WORLD THROUGH FASHION

This ethos is evident in Devita’s personal style that is often carefully observed and scrutinised in the top glossies in India. She enjoys her fashion and celebrates it.“Growing up in schools in India, you are either the smart one, or the pretty one, or the sporty one. I don’t understand why women need to be put in silos. Women, by their very nature, are multitaskers, so why can we not have it all? In India, we often hear a phrase ‘beauty with brains’, why should the two things have to be separate? Why can I not look good and also run a successful business? For people like us, dressing is an extension of our personalities. And even if fashion does become a talking point about me, I know I will always be known as the founder of Vu Televisions first. You have to have a fabulous exterior that is complemented by a sharper interior,” she says.

Her eloquence is adequately matched with an excitement as she talks about the careful curation of her looks by Devita’s Dubai-based stylist. For more than half a decade now, every year she flies too Dubai to meet Aarya Mathai, her stylist, who creates a trend report based on all fashion runway and magazine trends.“She then makes a powerpoint presentation on what she thinks will look good on me, and I select the trends. We then head to a Harvey Nichols or Galeries Lafayette, where we sit in the VIP room and try on the clothes shortlisted for me. I love that Middle Eastern women have so much in common with Indian women, and this whole colour explosion that’s happening in the fashion of this region. We try different looks for 3-4 days, and then she photographs me. We see what looks good in pictures and accessorise accordingly,” says Devita, adding that she makes it a point to buy everything even though as a fashion icon she does get offered to wear outfits for free.

“I love dressing up. I have always been proud of my femininity. I’ve been into design and also learnt dance. So not only am I confident in my skin, I have a good sense of what works for me. If my style has resonated with women, it is also because unlike previous generations, women today do not feel they have to lose their femininity or change their personalities in order to be taken seriously at work. When I built Vu, I was clear that I’d have one foot in luxury and other in technology. Fashion has been a great way for me to bring these worlds together.”

In a world that puts expiry dates on a woman’s dream, Devita’s refusal to be boxed in is indeed refreshing. Starting out at 24, she is now commanding respect as a techpreneur in her 40s, and is ready to thrive.“I did not care about society when I was 10, 20, 30 or 40,” she asserts.“Leadership is not given to you, you have to choose it. As an entrepreneur I think of these societal conventions from a returns on investment (RoI) perspective. What is my RoI in listening to society? Are they going to give me a better life? If not, why should I pay any heed to it? Also, I don’t think 50 is a stopping point,” she says.“Women are told to stop all their lives. We have to choose who we listen to.” How about starting with the heart?

…

Willdan Benefits from AI Lapping Up Electricity

Related Posts:

Leave a Comment Cancel reply