Meet the Speaker — Reedhima Mandlik

Reedhima Mandlik is a Technical Program Manager, Cybersecurity at Slalom Consulting. Her session at WITS Midwest is “The Rise of Deepfakes”.

• Why is speaking at WITS important to you?

The Women in Tech summit is a fantastic opportunity to connect with other women in technology. Oftentimes, we are the only women in the room when it comes to building product, and that can feel isolating. Only around 24% of the cybersecurity workforce is women. Speaking at WITS is important to me because it gives me the opportunity to bring the world of cybersecurity to more women, and show them how exciting it can be to work in the field.

• What or who inspires you?

The passion of my friends and family inspires me every single day. I’m incredibly lucky to have compassionate, kind, and wicked-smart friends, who work to push the boundaries of their careers and futures every single day. Seeing them succeed inspires me to do the same!

• Most useful article you’ve read in the last month

The Partnership on AI just released their Responsible Practices for Synthetic Media report, and its a great look into how we adjust to the new normal and how companies can be responsible with this new wave of media.

• When you were a kid what was your dream job?

I always wanted to be an author — and maybe that is still in my future. Fantasy novels hold a soft spot in my heart, and I love crafting unique worlds of my own to pour into pages.

• Tell us something about your session

What do you do when you can no longer trust your eyes and ears? How did deepfakes come to be, what are they, and what can we do to stop them before they influence us beyond repair? This presentation takes a deep dive into the technology behind deepfakes (“deep learning” and “fake”), which are media that take a person in an existing image or video and replace them with someone else’s likeness using artificial neural networks. We will look into the history of deepfakes, how they are made, and how they are being used now in social media and society as a whole.

• What other sessions or speakers are you most excited to see?

I’m super excited to see the Unleashing Social Gaming with Spatial Chat & Pixel Streaming session and the Data, AI and IOT — Disrupting Innovation session!

Come hear from Reedhima and the other amazing women in tech speaking at WITS Midwest! Information and registration at https://womenintechsummit.net/wits-midwest-2023/