Kavita Kapoor is an award-winning technologist who creates Technology for Good, focusing on artificial intelligence and education. She is passionate about the need for creative play in technology. Her current portfolio covers; Founding Member and Strategy Director of the Federation of Humanitarian Technologists, Senior Lecturer Product Management for Emerging Technology at Code University, Trustee of Plant Heritage, and Founding Chair of the British Computing Societies Pride Specialist Group.

Kavita trained as a coder and software architect for organisations as diverse as the BBC, Channel 4 Television and ICL Fujitsu and product manager with London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Going on to lead organisations globally, she has held positions as CEO of What'sMySize, Regional Digital Operational Director working in Singapore and India and COO of the Micro:bit Educational Foundation .

Her awards include a BAFTA for Channel 4, Luvvies for London 2012 and MIT IIC for the BBC micro:bit.

She is happy to help with anything. Most people ask her about Technology, Education Strategy, Operational Strategy, Fundraising, Digital Marketing, Brand Strategy, Company Culture, diversity inclusion and career advice.

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Kavita has been focused on the entrepreneurial sector since the start of her career. She has gained the experience to drive organisations forward while ensuring a happy team and fiscal prudence. She brings together deep technology, digital and corporate knowledge combined with understanding the ESG landscape. In addition, Kavita takes an international view having worked in several different global investment markets including London, New York and Delhi. She is currently focused on learning more about EdTech organisations in Finland.

Kavita currently advises the following boards;

Prior to which Kavita has worked with boards as divserse as Tido (Music Education), CORE (Health), What'sMySize (Fast Fashion), Digital Deli (Media), and Micro:bit Educational Foundation (Digital Education).

She is currently available to join an additional Board. Contact her via Linkedin

Kavita has been at the cutting edge of technology creation since she could pick up a device aged 5. As a child, she learnt to program in basic and assembler. After focusing on games she created her first commercial software aged 16. A Bollywood films management system. Although Bollywood wasn’t called Bollywood back then.

 

While at university Kavita became fascinated with the Internet and its potential to change humanity. She learnt the newly defined HTML 2.0 and built her first website in 1994. One of the first few thousand ever built. She went on to build the first websites for a range of organisations while working with a silicon valley based content management company. Using a mix of JavaScript, CSS, Visual Basic and the newly invented Java. 

 

After completing one of the first Internet master's degrees Kavita trained as a software designer with Fujitsu. She designed the analogue to digital switchover for cable operator NTL, ran the collaboration platforms for Sega Dreamcast and rebuilt a range of BBC magazine websites (including Top of The Pops, Top Gear and Gardeners World) built in PHP using DSDM methology.

In 2001 she made the natural move in house to Channel 4 Television winning several awards including a BAFTA Interactive Award for Online Learning. There she utilsed here Java knowledge and ran a full J2EE and Oracle stack on Sun Micosystems for Channel 4's 70 domains.

 

For the next decade, she continued to work on the digital transformation of the media and retail sector. Using emerging Agile her work included set-top box software for ITV and Sky Television, paywalls for The Times newspaper and establishing big data solutions for new sectors as well as the Sun newspaper.

In 2010 Kavita was called up to join The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (London 2012). It was an incredible opportunity to help reach two billion people worldwide and push the boundaries of the digital world. Her work included using newly launched Azure cloud computing solution from Microsoft

While at London 2012 Kavita become inspired by digital communication and campaign engagement especially in schools. Going on to help the emerging EdTech sector across a range of disciplines including environment, music and programming. As the COO of BBC micro:bit and Chief of Learning at OpenUK Kavita is developing a rich understanding of creating microprocessor enabled devices and the Mbed platform and operating system for IOT devices. She also has made a study into coding IDE's designed for children

 

Still passionate about the Internet Kavita gravitates to software and robotic technology that has yet to substantially realise its full potential. In 2019 she completed a self guided MIT course on Tensor Flow and embarked on the BCS Women AI accelator program. Now serving as a mentor on the WISE program and leading research for Women Leading in AI Education committee an oppertunity to work with some of the most interesting researchers in the field of machine learning and robotics. Serving as a Trustee of SERT and Plant Heritage she is learning how the world is using AI to save our planet. As Strategy and Executive Director of Federation of Humanitarian Technology, she is co-coordinating open source projects that use machine learning techniques to help the most vulnerable in society. 

 

Kavita holds a Bsc(hons) Business Information Technology, MSc in Internet Technology by Research and awarded Fellow of the British Computing Society.

Kavita is always delighted when invited to speak, judge, attend or assist with an event. She is a "delightful speaker" who can communicate to various audiences, including technology and business alike. Kavita gives over 30 presentations and interviews a year. Agilisys recently said, "Great content, brilliantly delivered, nailed the brief and was exceptional".

Kavita is lecturing at Code University on the following topics

Leadership

Cutting edge or Bleeding edge? How to implement innovative technology

Defining, finding and creating amazing data for your next product

Choosing the right AI Tools for your product

Ensure your AI product doesn't become homophobic

Become a Leader in AI Transformation

Kavita corporate topics include;

Can robots replace teachers? AI in education - the case for creativity. Learn how machine learning and AI are both helping teach through automated adaptive learning models while also infringing on children's and teachers human rights. In conjunction with the Women Leading in AI - Education working group, Kavita presents research on how this sector has been evolving across the world. Some countries are focused on teaching ethical data skills. Others are focused on getting young people through university entrance exams while creating cyber specialists adept at hacking and attacking or protecting vulnerable systems. This talk will give you lots to ponder.

Boost your Networking skills to turbocharge your network of Mentors As we live through the "great resignation" era, Kavita's talk shows us how Networking and Mentoring can keep us engaged. You might be considering your own journey or trying to boost a team member's performance, or supporting a loved one; this inspirational talk will give you a set of tactics to help navigate the future. Kavita will walk us through Forbes research on why employees disengage at work. She will show how to overcome these obstacles by outlining four kinds of mentors and mentoring available. Using examples from her own experiences, she will round off with practical networking advice. This talk is inspired by Kavita's Ted Ex Talk about Work and Happiness. You can book Kavita directly on Linkedin or Twitter .

In the last year Kavita was commisioned by the following organisations

Kavita uses her platform to campaign for policy, political or social change that ensures equality or education equity.

Education

Kavita is well-known in the EdTech sector. She has digitally innovated solutions for a range of historic organisations and education disciplines. From music with the Music Publishing House Edition Peters, coding skills with BBC micro:bit, 21st century skills with the British Council through to promoting sports at London 2012 and homework support with Channel 4 Television.

Diversity in Technology

Having found herself as the only women in all-male technology teams Kavita now works to ensure diversified talent pools and benchmark diversity and inclusion. Most recently she contributed to a paper by the European Unions Scientix community on STEM Female Leaders. Kavita has coached Women leading in AI and robotics in Science and Engineering Edinburgh Robotics Centre and a regular speaker at conferences such a Grace Hopper, Lesbians who Tech and CodeCode. Previous to which Kavita was privlaged to lead on this work at BBC micro:bit.

Environment

As a passionate allotmenteer, Kavita is now looking to use her business leadership skills to help those working in this sector. She was a Trustee of South East River Trust where she recruited the interim CEO and board chair. Kavita is now Trustee of Plan Heritage.

LGBTQ+

As a member of this community, Kavita supports a wide range of networks. This includes sponsoring Lesbians Who Tech and helping to found British Computing Society's Pride network where she was elected Chair. Kavita also founded the first openly LGBTQAI+ Kempo club in the world.

Away from work, Kavita can be found on a (virtual) dance floor, on the tennis court or learning another language.

Allotmenteering

Kavita is dedicated to growing a wide range of vegetables and equally as dedicated to cooking what she grows. She has access to about 50 sq ft of growing space in central London. Feel free to send seeds.

Martial Arts

As a 3rd-level black belt, Kavita has trained and taught around the world (Japan, Canada, Ireland India, Spain and Finland ) but the primary location of her training has been Imperial College Shorinji Kempo where she is an assistant instructor. In January 2019 she co-founded her own Constituted Community Sports Club (CCSC). The club prides itself on being the only completely female-founded, BAME-led and openly LGBTQ+ Shorinji Kempo Club .

The best way to meet Kavita is attend an upcoming event or get involved with a campaign;

Or you can contact her directly via Linkedin

If you need a reason, here are some ideas…

– You would like her to speak at your event

– Or you need a new board member

– Or your technology business needs restructuring and transforming

– You want to invest in educational technology

– You are moving to London, opening an Indian office or want to know about Finnish technology

– You need a whole new technology team or want to increase the diversty in your team

– You’d like to buy Kavita lunch

And especially if searching for an answer brought you to this website.