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Dr. Asha Goyal is the 2004 Technologist of the Year.

Months after signing on to lead the Quality team at IBM's Global Services India in 1999, the software designer propelled her division to become the first IBM unit to achieve recognition as a Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model Level 5 organization.

The institute developed the metric to assess the performance of organizations developing complex commercial software. The fifth level of the Capability Maturity Model is the highest rating.

Dr. Goyal's team also won a Level 5 rating under the People Capability Maturity Model. Continuing that winning trend pushed onto a Level 5 rating under the more involved Capability Maturity Model integrated standard. Dr. Goyal, a Six Sigma Blackbelt in quality control, led the team to reach that standard, too.

'Mountains are just obstacles to climb'

Asha was attacked by poliomyelitis at age two, but she refused to be prevented from chasing her goals. Brooking no obstacles, she rolled through elementary and secondary school.

She enrolled at the Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee, where she became the highest-scoring female student on the engineering entrance examination.

Getting around campus had its share of problems, and athletic activities might have seemed out of the question. But she persevered, finishing with a “Best Student Gold Medal” and a bachelor's degree in electronics.

“If you can't do something, at least you can enjoy seeing others do it,” she said. “Just like someone who can't sing can at least enjoy others singing well.”

That can-do attitude manifested in graduate school at the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, where she pursued a master's degree in electrical engineering and then a PhD. in computer science.

Faced with the need to learn to swim, she took classes and mastered three strokes in 15 days, becoming skilled at diving too. Dr. Goyal was so good she became an instructor, teaching others her techniques.

Campus mobility still presented challenges, so Dr. Goyal, undaunted, set out to develop her wheeled transport, trying a bicycle, rickshaws, contraptions made out of hospital equipment, and finally, a moped she called Luna.

Adding an extra wheel for mobility, the young Dr-to-be Goyal raced around campus, switching to “cycle mode” and dragging it to her destination if engine trouble shut it down en route.

Two mechanics on constant call for emergencies fashioned a “knife-like” spark plug cleaner and an adapter that let her use campus compressors to inflate the tires.

Later, she discovered automatic transmissions in America and fell in love with cars. Unable to take an American car to England on assignment, she hunted up an older transmission from a Morris Mini and had it shipped to India for installation in one of the readily available Fiats.

Corporate assignments took Dr. Goyal to many countries, and she has vacationed in many others. Eighteen, all told. She's gone up the Swiss Alps by cable car and ridden the rides at Disneyland.

“Just go ahead and do what you want,” she said.

At Tata Consultancy, she was a senior consultant from 1971 to 1994. She quickly established herself as a leader and innovator in software development for the Indian domestic and export markets.

Among other projects, she led an initiative to design and build a countrywide counterpart to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations' Criminal Information Center. It was the first of its kind in India.

In 1994, she moved to Fujitsu ICIM India. Over two and a half years, she set up a development facility at Software Technology Park in Noida, India.

She also led software experts for the healthcare line of the business.

She engineered a legacy of healthcare information systems with a graphical user interface. From April 1994 to October 1996, she led a team servicing large healthcare clients in the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia.

In October 1996, Dr. Goyal joined HCL Perot Systems as executive vice president for software development, continuing her rigorous drive to create the best possible software for clients.

In 1999, she joined IBM. She became active with the Institute of Informatics and Communication, Delhi University, and a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Telecom Engineers, a half-century-old organization awarding government-recognized engineering degrees and taking up educational activities in technical areas.

Goyal retired as vice president of quality from IBM Global Services India in 2006.

“I would like to share a quotation,” Dr. Goyal told Women of Color magazine in 2007. “It's part of a Sanskrit shloka (a Hindu prayer) from the Gita: 'Karmanyeva dhikaraste, ma faleshu kadachanam.' This means we have a right to our work and duty but do not have a total claim on the results and achievements.”

Dr. Goyal has served as president of the Lioness Club in Roshni. Her specialties are CMMI, PCMM, and Process Models. Roshni works alongside the International Association of Lions Clubs and is a part of Lioness Club India in social work and charity.

Prior, she was vice president for quality at the Nucleus Software Exports Ltd between 2007 and 2010 and served the software company in its banking products in the international arena.