AI4ALL is growing! Launching a new program and welcoming our first executive director
Accelerating an already exciting summer — kicked off with our 2017 SAILORS program (now called Stanford AI4ALL), alumni successes, and our funding news — we’re proud to share two big pieces of news.
Tess Posner joins as AI4ALL’s Executive Director
We’re excited announce that Tess Posner has joined AI4ALL as our inaugural executive director.
Tess comes to AI4ALL with deep expertise and a network supporting equity and inclusion in tech. Before joining AI4ALL, she was Managing Director of TechHire at Opportunity@Work — a national initiative launched out of the White House to increase diversity and inclusion in the tech economy — where she oversaw the network of 72 cities, states, and rural areas and 1300+ companies implementing the TechHire model. Before that, Tess built and ran Samaschool, a social enterprise part of the SamaGroup that equips low-income people to find work in the digital economy. Starting in San Francisco, Tess grew Samaschool to serve urban and rural areas in the US and internationally. Before that, Tess — who holds a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Columbia University — focused on increasing access and opportunity in education, and developing and managing career pathway programs for youth.
Tess will be working to build AI4ALL’s organization, team, partnerships, and programs to advance our mission of increasing diversity and inclusion in AI education, research, development, and policy.
“I’m thrilled to join AI4ALL at this pivotal moment. By diversifying the artificial intelligence field and reframing the AI discussion to focus on how AI can benefit people and the planet, we’re helping to make AI more inclusive, creative, and approachable,” Tess said. “It’s a tremendous honor to have the opportunity to lead the organization through this phase of growth and I am excited to work with the Board, team, partners, donors, and community to empower the next generation of leaders in AI.”
AI4ALL BAIR Camp is coming in July
Building on the success of our SAILORS education program (now called Stanford AI4ALL) at Stanford University, we’re launching our second education program at UC Berkeley, AI4ALL BAIR Camp. Like Stanford AI4ALL, BAIR Camp is a summer education program for high school students, designed to introduce them to artificial intelligence, to spark their interest in using AI for social good, and to introduce them to role models in AI. BAIR Camp will run at the end of July and will primarily serve Bay Area 10th and 11th graders from lower-income backgrounds — a group that is historically underrepresented in the AI field.
Students will get hands-on experience with a robotics project, working alongside peers and AI grad students and researchers. They’ll also see AI demos, learn about different career pathways in AI, and meet UC Berkeley undergraduates who come from backgrounds similar to the participants’ and who are also interested in AI.
AI4ALL BAIR Camp is being led by Dr. Anca Dragan, an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at UC Berkeley. Anca runs the InterACT Lab at Berkeley, where researchers focus on creating algorithms that support human-computer interaction. Learn more about Anca’s research and goals for BAIR Camp here.
Please join us in welcoming both Tess and BAIR Camp to the AI4ALL family!
