AI4ALL grows our community to offer new leadership opportunities for high schoolers
“AI has so many applications that will ultimately have the capacity to help virtually everyone, billions of people, so I’m excited to see it become more accessible and thus more impactful.” — Archika D., “Establishing a forum for the youth perspective on the future of AI”
Last week at the IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference, AI4ALL’s CEO Tess Posner shared some exciting developments in AI4ALL’s work to provide AI leadership opportunities for high school students. Watch her talk here, and read the highlights below.
IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems High School Committee
It is critical to include the voices of young people when we talk about how to shape AI ethics and development. Young people will have to live with the decisions we make about this important and far-reaching technology for years to come, so it’s important to have input from people of all ages and backgrounds at this early stage.
With that in mind, AI4ALL has joined with the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems to create the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems High School Committee. The group — made up of underrepresented high school students who are interested in AI— acts as a forum for young people to discuss and share their ideas about the impacts of AI and how AI can be developed ethically.
The group came together to produce a response to IEEE’s “Ethically Aligned Design, v2”, available to read here. The committee members’ response paper details the group’s key hopes for and concerns about AI in the next 10 years. The paper covers topics as wide-ranging as climate change and policing.
Read the paper here and learn about the committee members here.
New partners and advisors
To advance its mission and expand leadership and career opportunities like these for young people, AI4ALL is also excited to announce that we’re bringing new leaders and partners on board.
Telle Whitney, a celebrated leader on the issue of representation in technology, has joined AI4ALL’s board of directors. Telle served as the CEO of the Anita Borg Institute for 15 years and co-founded the enormously successful Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, an annual conference that now welcomes over 18,000 attendees per year.
Her expertise in scaling high-impact organizations will prove invaluable to AI4ALL as we grow our organization to expand our AI education programs, industry partnerships, and sustainable impact. “I am thrilled to be joining the AI4ALL board,” Telle shared. “I believe that AI4ALL and its work will be at the forefront of creating a sustainable, thoughtful, and positive AI future for our world, and I am happy to be part of the team.”
AI4ALL is also pleased to welcome Lili Cheng, Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft AI and Research division, to our advisory board. Lili will bring to the advisory board her considerable experience in AI leadership and products along with her focus on human-centered AI and mentorship. Advisory board members provide input to AI4ALL as we grow and create more leadership opportunities for students through programs like our recent AI Research Project Fellowship.
We’re also pleased to welcome H2O.ai as a new sponsor of AI4ALL. We appreciate their mission to democratize AI and dedication to using their technology for good. In addition to financial sponsorship, they’re providing resources and opportunities for our alumni to get involved in their work — like their upcoming H2O World in New York City, where 10th grade AI4ALL alum Amélie Buc will speak about Women and Inclusion in Data Science.
Huge thanks to our new advisors and sponsors and our wider community for coming together to support the future leaders in AI.
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