A talk with Dr Rumana Sinha Sehgal, Founder of Serendipity, Engineer, Strategist, Mentor and Global Change Maker
These FAQs are designed for ISP parents and students. They summarise the key insights from the A to Z Speaker Series interview with Dr Rumana Sinha Sehgal and include additional questions linked to the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025.
1. What is this talk about?
This episode of the A to Z Speaker Series explores what entrepreneurship really means today and why an entrepreneurial mindset matters just as much as a business plan. Through the experience of Dr Rumana Sinha Sehgal, engineer, entrepreneur, strategist and founder of Serendipity, the conversation examines how curiosity, resilience and adaptability turn ideas into impact, how engineering thinking helps solve problems across very different sectors, and how young people can start developing an entrepreneurial mindset long before they ever launch a business.
2. Who is Dr Rumana Sinha Sehgal?
Dr Rumana Sinha Sehgal is an engineer, entrepreneur, strategist, mentor and global change maker whose career spans technology, business, sustainability, aerospace, defence, education and social impact. She began her career with Fortune 500 companies including Oracle and ADP, and in 2012 founded Serendipity, the company she still leads today. She works across multiple sectors by applying an engineering mindset to problems of every kind.
3. What does entrepreneurship actually mean?
For Rumana, entrepreneurship is a loop that runs from idea to impact. It starts with “what if”, moves through “why not” and ends with “let’s go ahead and do it”. Those three segments, taken together, are what make entrepreneurship more than just a business idea: they are the full journey from spotting a possibility to turning it into something real.
4. What is the difference between having a good idea and having an entrepreneurial mindset?
A good idea, Rumana explains, is primarily something that leads to possibilities. An entrepreneurial mindset is something that leads to progress. The qualities that bridge the two are curiosity to learn, resilience and perseverance. When all of those come together, an idea stops being a thought and starts becoming a project that moves forward.
5. What does being an entrepreneur look like when you work across such different fields?
Rumana works across technology, sustainability, defence, aerospace, education and social impact, and she describes an engineering mindset as the thread that connects them. Whatever the sector, she approaches it the same way: break the problem down into smaller components, see how those components function with each other and understand how, together, they solve the problem. Problem solving broken into smaller parts, she says, happens in every sector, which is what keeps her a curious learner and thinker across all of them.
6. What prompted her to leave the corporate world and become an entrepreneur?
Rumana started her career at Oracle and ADP and took a sabbatical when motherhood happened. During that sabbatical her perspective shifted. When her eldest son had a show and tell project at school, she gathered what she had at home and built him a three-dimensional elephant that looked like one from every side. The school was impressed and asked her to create something for the annual day. At that point she did not have a team: she brought in a few carpenters working at a friend’s house, taught them what she needed and together they built the piece. Her industrial engineering background and the artist in her came together, and Serendipity was born in 2012.
7. How can young people develop an entrepreneurial mindset without starting a business?
You do not have to set up a company to be an entrepreneur. The starting point, Rumana says, is a curious mindset. As the saying goes, when you take the first step you do not have to see the entire staircase. Her advice is simple: begin with something you identify as a problem in your own surroundings. If something is bothering you and it holds your genuine interest, follow it up. Passion, curiosity, compassion and empathy are what loop an idea into something that can lead to real impact.
8. How important is it to understand technology, even if you do not want a career in tech?
As a technologist and a strategist, Rumana leans naturally toward tech systems, but her advice to someone with little or no technical background is practical: focus on the gains and takeaways technology offers in your field, decide how deep you need to go, and strike a balance. You do not have to understand the technical specifications of every segment to work with it well. Technological literacy, in other words, matters, but it does not mean becoming a specialist.
9. Which skill matters most for entrepreneurs?
Of the skills the World Economic Forum highlights as increasingly important, Rumana picks adaptability. Entrepreneurship, she says, is built on hypothesis. Nothing is guaranteed and the ground is constantly moving, so you have to be able to adapt to the changes. And adaptability does not stand alone: it is a synergy of adaptability with curious thinking, critical thinking and analytical skills, all of them coming together.
10. Why does collaboration matter in entrepreneurship?
Rumana believes collaboration is fundamental, and that nothing works in silos. Big challenges like climate change are not aligned to a single segment or just to human behaviour: they involve economics, governance, education and policymaking, and need all of those people pulling together. She calls her approach ecosystem thinking: students, government, industry experts, scientists, communities and policymakers aligning to reach a shared end result.
11. Should schools teach entrepreneurship, and what should it look like?
Definitely, Rumana says, as long as it is experimental and experiential. Textbooks still have a role: students need the basic knowledge of where entrepreneurship comes from and how a business moves from startup idea to final product. But without practical experience, that is just textual matter. Her suggestion is that schools open up the space: classrooms can become laboratories, and students should be able to walk around, identify a problem, create something, develop it, redevelop it and come up with something genuinely new.
12. What excites her most about the opportunities ahead for young people?
The convergence of disciplines. The fine line between sectors is becoming very fluid: engineers working with artists, doctors working with technologists, authors and writers moving into the virtual and meta worlds. Multiple sectors working in parallel and coming together is, in her words, a fantastic canvas for the new generation to work on, and the most exciting thing to watch.
13. What is her one piece of advice for a young person who wants to create something meaningful?
The question, Rumana reframes, is not where to start but when. The moment you see that something is a problem and you identify with it, start then. You do not need to wait for the idea to be fully formed before acting. Unless and until you take the first step and act on it, you will never know where your head is going to lead.
Additional FAQs linked to the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025
What does the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 say about adaptability and the entrepreneurial mindset?
Resilience, flexibility and agility rank among the top five core skills employers consider essential in 2025, according to the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, alongside analytical thinking, creative thinking, leadership and curiosity and lifelong learning. The report finds these skills are projected to rise further in importance by 2030 as business environments become more volatile and shaped by AI, geopolitical and economic shifts. This maps directly onto what Rumana describes: entrepreneurship is built on hypothesis, nothing is guaranteed, and adaptability is what carries you through the changes. (WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, pp. 5, 34-36)
Why is creative thinking one of the fastest-rising skills for the next five years?
The WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifies creative thinking as one of the fastest-growing skills for 2025-2030, alongside AI and big data, resilience, flexibility and agility, and curiosity and lifelong learning. The report ties this to the rise of jobs and tasks that cannot be fully automated and that require people to frame problems and generate new approaches. This is the kind of thinking Rumana describes when she talks about moving from “what if” to “why not” to “let’s go ahead and do it” – the full loop from idea to impact. (WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, pp. 5, 36)
Why is systems thinking a rising skill, and how does it connect to entrepreneurship?
The WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 highlights systems thinking as one of the top rising skills, essential for managing problems that cut across multiple disciplines and for integrating people, technology and process. This mirrors Rumana’s ecosystem thinking: climate change, inequality and access to education cannot be solved by one organisation or one industry, and need students, government, industry, scientists, communities and policymakers working in parallel. Students can start building systems thinking by looking for the connections between disciplines rather than treating them as separate subjects. (WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, pp. 39-42)
How is the WEF seeing the convergence of sectors reshape future careers?
The WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 finds that AI and information processing technologies are expected to transform the businesses of 86% of employers globally by 2030, the highest of any technology trend, and that tasks by 2030 will be split nearly evenly between humans alone, technology alone, and a combination of both. The result is a rise of hybrid roles that combine technical fluency with strategic, communication and human-centred skills, which is exactly the convergence Rumana describes when she talks about engineers working with artists and doctors working with technologists. (WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, pp. 11, 33-35)
Why do curiosity and lifelong learning matter so much to the entrepreneurs of the future?
The WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifies curiosity and lifelong learning as one of the fastest-growing skills over the next five years and lists it among the top core skills for 2025. The report ties this to the pace of change in technology, business models and skills demand: workers who stay curious and keep learning are better placed to shift direction as new tools and sectors emerge. It is the same message at the heart of Rumana’s advice: start with curiosity, treat the problem in front of you as a learning opportunity and keep moving forward one step at a time. (WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, pp. 5, 36)
