---
title: "Astronomy Geek to Oktanaut: Landing as a Dev Advocate at Okta"
description: "Akanksha Bhasin joins Okta as an “Oktanaut” in Developer Relations after more than six years building developer communities and four years focused on Developer Relations. Her path began with experiments in Arduino, programming, and AI applications, then shifted toward Voice AI after Google Assistant launched in 2018; she built applications for Google Assistant and Alexa and was later featured at Google I/O. She taught these technologies at meetups and colleges across India, founded Women in Voice, India, led Google Developer Groups, and helped organize events including DevFests that gathered more than 3,000 developers. At Okta, she wants to help independent software vendors and developers secure user identities, treating identity security and access management as foundational to enterprise applications rather than a checklist item."
---

# Astronomy Geek to Oktanaut: Landing as a Dev Advocate at Okta

[Okta](https://yomu.fyi/company/okta) · Akanksha Bhasin · Apr 21, 2025

**Type:** Announcement

## Summary

Akanksha Bhasin joins Okta as an “Oktanaut” in Developer Relations after more than six years building developer communities and four years focused on Developer Relations. Her path began with experiments in Arduino, programming, and AI applications, then shifted toward Voice AI after Google Assistant launched in 2018; she built applications for Google Assistant and Alexa and was later featured at Google I/O. She taught these technologies at meetups and colleges across India, founded Women in Voice, India, led Google Developer Groups, and helped organize events including DevFests that gathered more than 3,000 developers. At Okta, she wants to help independent software vendors and developers secure user identities, treating identity security and access management as foundational to enterprise applications rather than a checklist item.

## Context

Bhasin describes a background spanning Arduino, programming, AI applications, Voice AI education, developer community leadership, event organization, partnerships, and open-source support. Her community work includes founding Women in Voice, India, and helping organize DevFests that gathered more than 3,000 developers.

## Approach / What changed

Bhasin is joining Okta as an Oktanaut in Developer Relations and aims to support independent software vendors and developers with securing user identities in their applications. She frames identity security and access management as a foundational layer around APIs, CLIs, and SaaS workloads.

## Takeaways

- Bhasin built Voice AI applications for Google Assistant and Alexa, taught what she learned at meetups and colleges across India, and was featured at Google I/O for her work.
- Her community-building work includes founding Women in Voice, India, leading Google Developer Groups on campus, and helping organize DevFests attended by more than 3,000 developers.
- At Okta, Bhasin argues that identity security and access management should be foundational to enterprise applications, not treated as a checklist item.

## FAQ

### What led Bhasin from Voice AI into developer advocacy?

She built Voice AI applications for Google Assistant and Alexa after becoming interested in voice interfaces. Teaching what she learned at meetups and colleges across India led into broader developer community work.

### Why does Bhasin consider identity security foundational?

She describes identity security and access management as shields and the first line of defense for software. In her analogy, a compromised credential can topple an entire software system, so security should not remain a checklist item.

**Tags:** [Authentication](https://yomu.fyi/topic/authentication), [Okta](https://yomu.fyi/topic/okta), [Security](https://yomu.fyi/topic/security)

- Source: [Okta](https://developer.okta.com/blog/2025/04/21/akanksha-bhasin-intro)
- Source URL: https://developer.okta.com/blog/2025/04/21/akanksha-bhasin-intro
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-09-17T14:06:17.602Z

[Read original post](https://developer.okta.com/blog/2025/04/21/akanksha-bhasin-intro)