Taking The Intimidation out of AI
How 2020 Emerging Leader Abie Award Winner Olga Russakovsky is Making Artificial Intelligence Accessible to All
To many, Artificial Intelligence is an intimidating buzzword from our favorite sci-fi novels. To Dr. Olga Russakovsky, artificial intelligence is her day to day. Whether it’s as an Assistant Professor at Princeton University or as a Board Member with her organization AI4ALL, Olga is sharing her passion for AI and working to make it more accessible to others. As AnitaB.org’s 2020 Emerging Leader Abie Award winner, she hopes to inspire others to give AI a chance.
Since high school, Olga knew she wanted to be involved in STEM. When she started her undergraduate studies at Stanford University, she expected to pursue a career in mathematics. As a sophomore, she couldn’t find any math-related research opportunities, so when one of the Computer Science professors welcomed her to their lab, despite her lack of experience, she took the chance. She didn’t expect that small diversion from her plan to completely shift her career path.
“I got involved in computer science work that way and thought, ‘Oh, this is great, actually, I like it so much more’ because it’s a way to apply math to real problems… I really enjoy thinking very logically. And so that led me to computer science where that still holds, but now the logical progression also gets some real-world impact and real-world applications.”
Dr. Olga Russakovsky went on to complete her Masters and Ph.D. in Computer Science at Stanford. While working on her PhD in 2015, Olga approached her advisor, Dr. Fei-Fei Li, the winner of AnitaB.org’s 2019 Technical Leadership Abie Award, to collaborate on ways to improve access to artificial intelligence education for underrepresented communities. Collaborating with Dr. Rick Sommer, Executive Director of Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies, Olga and Fei-Fei founded Stanford AI Lab OutReach Summer program (SAILORS), a summer program for high school girls to learn about human-center AI.
“The three of us launched the camp in 2015 and the rest was history, it became very clear that these high school girls have not just the enthusiasm, but also the talent and the potential, the skill. With just a little bit of training, they can actually be building these systems and applying their learning about machine learning. [They can apply] it to applications that they care about…”
Seeing the success of SAILORS empowered Olga, Rick, and Fei-Fei to found AI4ALL, a national nonprofit with the mission to make AI more diverse and inclusive. AI4ALL has now expanded to 16 universities across the country. They focus on making sure artificial intelligence is accessible to all without any restriction, such as gender, race, disability, or ethnicity.
Olga has dedicated herself to inspiring others to explore the power of AI. She is proud to have created communities that support this mission, specifically her research lab at Princeton where she’s fostered a welcoming environment where students from all levels of experience have supported and mentored one another. For Olga, winning AnitaB.org’s 2020 Emerging Leader Abie Award has been a validation of her work.
“[Winning this award is] validating that [dedicating time to mentorship and diversity instead of focusing solely on research] is okay. I mean, I, I personally believe that this is okay and good and the right thing to be doing, but there’s always a little bit of doubt in your mind, should I be doing some, some, something else? These words really mean a lot because they kind of validate that.”
Olga hopes that her work at Princeton and AI4ALL will continue to create role models for others interested in artificial intelligence. Her advice to others is to find mentors that motivate them to keep pushing themselves.
“You need to find mentors and supporters in the field… It doesn’t have to be somebody who is extremely successful. You want to find people that you can relate to, that are a couple of steps ahead of you in your field. Find those people and team up with them. Get them to mentor you, become friends with them, find your group within the space.”
She attributes a lot of her own success to the support of her academic advisor and mentor, Fei-Fei Li, who taught her about building her self-confidence, believing in her ideas, and defending herself when others may doubt her. Her work with AI4ALL instills this same confidence and sense of empowerment into diverse communities, with the hope of excelling innovation within the field of AI.
“One of the reasons [that AI is struggling to build technology that is adopted and beneficial to people] is because we actually don’t have all voices represented… We need these voices [in the field of AI]. AI4ALL is our attempt and effort to actually bring [all types of people] to the table and to encourage them, to help them see why they would want to be in this space, to help them believe that they themselves have the potential to be there. [We want to help them believe that] they have that talent to have that expertise.”
This story was written by Natalia Gutierrez, Wogrammer Journalism Fellow. Connect with Olga and learn more at our 2020 Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration. Register today! #TogetherWeBuild
