Elise Smith is leading the way in developing more conscious leaders in the workplace. She is the co-founder of Praxis Labs, a company that has created a virtual-reality-based platform that allows users to take on identities of different racial and gender backgrounds. Their mission, to help employees and leaders to change their perspectives over time by virtually stepping into the shoes of others. Elise joins the small list of Black women in the U.S to have raised more than $1 million for a venture-backed business. We had the pleasure of
In the tech industry, less than 5% of the workforce is African-American, and we know the tech sector has a long way to go in fixing diversity issues. The following list is a short intro to just some of the Black Product Designers who are flourishing in Silicon Valley, the corporate world and beyond. They are creating incredible experiences, invaluable products, and are supporting the next generation of designers. Mariam Braimah Mariam is a Product Designer at Netflix. She is also the founder of Kimoyo Fellowship, a design program teaching the skills
Technology is increasingly integrating into our daily lives at a breakneck pace. Although we love the latest apps and enjoy the ability to freely express ourselves online, we must also contend with companies using discriminatory algorithms against the vulnerable, “super spreaders” threatening our democracy with misinformation, and broadband providers charging outrageous prices and fees (even data caps, and yes, even during a pandemic). These enormous challenges have already sparked a debate about what role technology, and therefore Big Tech, should have in our communities. We’ve also seen how the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacts people of color
Cummins is hiring on pocitjobs.com “I realize that I am one of the highest-ranking African Americans in a Fortune 200 company across all of North America,” David Ojo confesses. “That is a very scary proposition for me.” As Cummins’ Director of Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, David shares his career journey, the important guidance and mentorship he’s received to rise through the ranks, and his next initiatives to improve the company’s pipeline for Black hires. He understands his important role in not only affirming the self-beliefs of many Black employees and
The year 2020 sprung the coronavirus surprise on the whole world, a surprise it is yet to recover from. After a year without a cure, two clinically tested and globally approved vaccines were released early in December 2020. One is manufactured by American pharmaceutical firm — Pfizer — and German BioNTech SE, while American biotech company, Moderna, is responsible for the other. However, two African countries had taken steps to provide a cure before the release of the vaccines in December. Madagascar’s President, Andry Rajoelina, unveiled Covid-Organics — a herbal remedy for
In the 1930s Dr Gertrude Blanch led the important Mathematical Tables Project, a nearly 450-person effort to compute logarithmic, exponential, and other calculation results essential to the American government, military, finance, and science. After earning her doctorate in mathematics at Cornell, she led new approaches to computation and published volumes of tables and calculations in scientific journals. Despite her contributions, Blanch did not appear as the author of the papers she wrote. For the majority of her time on the project, her male supervisor Arnold Lowan instead received credit. This is a lasting
It’s no secret that artificial intelligence, algorithms, and big data have a problem with gender and racial bias. These systems can be biased based on who builds them, how they’re developed, and how they’re ultimately used. Trying to solve the problem is a community of Black data scientists, researchers, and organizations. This article highlights the Black women amongst their ranks, who are exposing algorithmic biases, empowering communities of color with data, and arguing for more diverse representation. Fighting racial and gender bias in algorithms Joy Buolamwini is a Ghanaian-American computer scientist
Subscribe To The Techish Podcast On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, And Other Platforms. In this episode of Techish Abadesi and Michael discuss: 😱 Why GPT-3 has us shook!🤦🏾♀️ Break down of the recent Twitter hack!🐻 Is Kanye okay?💰 Silicon Valley has money for African startups – if you’re not African Extras: Techish on Patreon: Advertise with Techish: Please rate and review the Techish podcast
Across the board, facial/human recognition tools have proven to be erroneous when it comes to accurately identifying dark skin colors. These errors show up in two ways: I. The product mistakes people with dark skin for something/someone else. II. The product is unable to detect dark skin I. Product Mistakes People with Dark Skin for Something / Someone Else Google Photos Google Photos is a platform that provides users with a place to organize, manage and back up their personal photographs. It uses machine-learning technology to categorize photos with similar
The detention of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border [in every single case presented], the wrongful deportation of 7,000 foreign students accused of cheating on a language test, racist or sexist discrimination based on social media profile or appearance – what do these seemingly disparate examples have in common? In every case, an algorithm made a decision with serious consequences for people’s lives. Algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) are starting to augment human decision-making in Canada’s immigration and refugee system, with significant implications for the fundamental human rights of those subjected to
