A place where we bring all minds together
Last week marked an important chapter in the young life of Women in AI (WAI). We finally organized the Women in AI Global Summit, something we had always dreamed of doing; to gather all our worldwide community in one place, on one day and to connect, share, and learn.
We organized this summit to show the world what amazing female AI experts are out there and provide them a stage to demonstrate their incredible talent and expertise. We also wanted to have conversations around pertinent issues within the field of AI. This was an opportunity for experts, professionals, and researchers to discuss ideas, share experiences, and help us in finding solutions to the challenges we face in the industry. In all this, we sought to amplify the views of women working in AI.
When we organized the first WAI Summit last year with a small group of 20 people, little did we know what awaited us in 2020, just a few months later. The pandemic hit and like many event organizers forced us to bring this event online. This however allowed us to think differently and transform it into an even bigger event. This year’s event was the largest that we had ever organized. Over 4000 participants from across the world joined us. We hosted +160 speakers with 90% of them being women from 40 countries. For over 18 hours, we listened to and took part in some of the most inspiring conversations led by the best AI experts around the world. We started from Australia and Asia, and then moved on to the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and ending in the Americas.
We did what we believe is the core of our values: Bringing all minds together.
Almost 4 years ago, we created WAI for a simple reason that every child is born with: curiosity.
We created Women in AI to be part of the future. To create a platform where we could spread equal opportunities to everyone, regardless of their gender;
to create an avenue for the other 50% of the world to be equally known, seen, heard, taught, hired, and taken seriously. We were optimistic that this is the way to go, we need to take part in creating our own future, be the change we want to see in the world. Our mission is to close the gender gap in AI. We want to empower other women and minorities to sit at the table and lead.
We all had our doubts and vulnerabilities, “Where should we start? We’re too young with no experience, can we do this? What if we fail?”. Brene Brown says “Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage. it’s what gives us the power.”
I believe that the real power is in using it to serve others. The true reward is in the lives that we touch. And this is why I and all our volunteer community of Women in AI (WAI) are doing what we do every day.
Our legacy is every person who had been felt by us, every life that had been touched by us.
To reach complete equality in not only the field of AI but in any field, we need to do this together, to bring all minds together; men and women, other genders, all backgrounds, cultures, and religions. We have to help each other. We can’t do it alone.
Sadly, the numbers haven’t changed so much over the past years. The participation of women and other minorities in senior levels in any industry is still staggeringly low. And this won’t change if we don’t join forces and help the next generation to grow better and stronger than us. We need to create new opportunities for them while guiding them towards existing ones through education, mentorship, etc.
Education has huge power and that’s what we’re doing at WAI. Education is at the core of our activities.
We have many educational programs for young girls to encourage them in the tech and AI fields, such as WAI2GO. We support female founders with our entrepreneurial programs such as WAI Awards and WAI Accelerate. Almost all our events have an educational aspect especially for the general public to know more about this fast-growing field of AI.
Oprah says: “Your life is better when you find a way to share what you know with others”. This is what we are doing at WAI: finding ways to share, learn, and grow all together.
WAI’s community today is a beautiful global network of +20K with +5000 members from 130 countries across the globe. We have over 40 chapters being run by volunteers in different cities.
All this is thanks to the great job of our dedicated team of volunteers, leads, and ambassadors who have been working tirelessly to shape and strengthen this beautiful community. A lot of preparation went into organizing the WAI Summit over the course of the past four months and I am so grateful for the work that our teams put into making this happen.
Our core team of +20 amazing women was so diverse in terms of background, age, and country that I was fascinated for anyone to watch our weekly meetings. From Australia, Taiwan, India, Turkey, South Africa, Ethiopia to France, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Canada, and the USA.
Despite the different timezones, we hardly encountered any major operational glitches planning the summit. We managed to work seamlessly by augmenting ourselves with online tools and use technology to help us work as a complete decentralized team. Our top three tools were Google Meet, Trello, and Slack!
Like all projects, a lot of things didn’t go as we wished with some of the sessions posing multiple technical issues. We had speakers who couldn’t connect, some had network issues, and others dropped out during their session. Even myself, 5 min before the closing words, my laptop got restarted and couldn’t connect! We didn’t take any of these issues as setbacks. We knew that things could go wrong and we were prepared to face them.
Our sponsors and partners showed their faith in us and in our cause by standing by us and lending a helping hand when we most needed one. We have had incredible support from numerous organizations across the world, from big multinational companies to local startups looking to be part of this journey of change. They include; AltaML, Orange Polska, Smart Health Amsterdam, Startup Amsterdam, Next AI Silver, Microsoft, Institute For Education, University of Alberta Faculty of Science, Szostek Bar, AXA, Alicia Dara, and Data Science Salon. Thank you so much for your help. We hope this is the beginning of a mutually beneficial collaboration.
The media have been mighty helpful too in creating awareness not only about the event but also about its core message. Various media outlets from across the world, lent us their platforms to have the much-needed conversation about the need for gender diversity in AI.
Special thanks to B-Smart and BBC Farsi for granting us TV interviews, and Tech.eu for featuring us in this article.
People always talk about how hard it is to run non-profit organizations since you don’t pay people and therefore it’s hard to ask them for commitment. Like all non-profit organizations, we depend heavily on the generosity of our community, but ownership and the sense of belonging change everything. When you give ownership of something to people, they will move mountains for it to reach the glory. They will surpass their limits. The courage from being part of a big cause is what makes us do things that we couldn’t imagine before. And that’s what makes the difference!
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Special thanks to all the +100 organizing members of the WAI Summit and our core team: Sheila Namrata Ashwini Bhuva Davar Sarah Ekram Angela Linien Paula Akhila Chloé Kenni Sara Camilla Stuti Sude Tawakalitu Yasmine Yashika Seynabou Anshika Harshil Ania Niousha Maud Neira Swathi Khansa Sabrina Christine
