Team Blitz India
LONDON: Smital Dhake, Indian origin data scientist at mobility giant Alstom, has been awarded the UK’s RailStaff Awards 2023 in the Newcomer of the Year category at a Birmingham ceremony. She was born in Jalgaon and later attended Watford Grammar School in England, followed by university at King’s College London.
The 26-year-old, based at Alstom’s Hatfield office in eastern England, says she was inspired by her grandparents to work hard and her ambition is to continue to develop and apply her skills to contribute to developing engineering technologies.
Young Smital joined Alstom’s Digital and Integrated Systems (D&IS) UK signalling business to work on the innovative Modular Advanced Route Setting (M-ARS) system at its Hertfordshire base.
“Smital is a fast learner who always finds ways to seek knowledge and grow herself in an exponential manner,” said Mifaz Miftha, Design Group Manager at Alstom.
She regularly takes on much more complex tasks above her role and delivers them with full commitment and with a high level of accuracy. Her meticulous approach to problem-solving and critical thinking on design have made Smital an asset to Alstom and the wider railway industry, he added. Smital is now being hailed as an “enormous inspiration” to young women who are thinking of pursuing a career in the science, tech, engineering and maths (STEM) category.
The RailStaff Awards began in 2007 to recognise the great work of the people who work in the rail industry and to show appreciation for the people who deliver the UK’s railways – from drivers to cleaners, and engineers to station staff. As the only national award scheme for UK rail employees, they often showcase stories of lives saved, careers turned around and adversity conquered.
The UK railway’s first M-ARS system project with machine learning techniques, of which Smital is among the leading members, uses real-time data to predict future events to enable quicker decisionmaking to resolve conflicting train movements and thereby increasing the efficiency of the railway.
