Inspirational Mothers in AI & Robotics
Article written by: Dr. Teena Hassan, Maria Grandury, Bhargavi Mahesh
Contributors: Prof. Dr. Alexandra Wuttig, Dr. Eli Wortmann-Kolundžija, Dr. Isabel Hübener, Pelin Genc, Sakshi Bharti, Susanne Stix
Motherhood is a bliss! But, becoming a mother is both simultaneously an enriching as well as a challenging experience. If career dreams drove you in your pre-motherhood years, post-motherhood brings on an additional dimension to it. You now deal not only with your own dreams, but also simultaneously invest in building the lives and dreams of your children. There is a lot of variability in how mothers manage to balance and prioritise these two dimensions of their lives. Today, on the occasion of Mother’s Day, Women in AI & Robotics brings to you the stories of six inspirational mothers engaged in and contributing to different areas of AI & Robotics. Let’s see who they are and what they have to share with us.
Introducing the Mothers
What brought them to AI & Robotics?
Each of these mothers pursues different academic or career paths and had their rendezvous with AI & Robotics differently. For some, it was a conscious choice, whereas for others, it was a natural progression of their interests. Susanne, who works on “the integration of sustainability in strategy execution,” is a passionate learner and entered the field of AI out of interest, in order to “expand her horizon.”
From early on, Sakshi’s research interests lay in “personalized or tailor-made solutions in healthcare and aesthetics,” and now she has “started a journey of entrepreneurship with a mission to digitally transform the wellness and beauty sector by leveraging artificial intelligence.”
“I am obsessed with the idea that AI can help us to have a more democratic world and have also better and effective laws.” — Alex
Eli’s research broadly involves “qualitative and quantitative impact assessments and collective action research.” She develops models and tests theories “to evaluate the collective and psychological empowerment of individuals,” and she is passionate about “improving the (socio-economic) impact analyses using appropriate AI applications.”
Pelin has always loved math and science, and worked on several robotics projects while doing her mechanical engineering studies at METU in Turkey. Now, as a student of computer science in Erlangen, she focuses on using AI to make machines more empathic.
Isabel’s journey into AI was a long one. Her passion for science led her to pursue physics, and later to become an astrophysicist. Her desire to apply her knowledge “to a field with a direct impact on society” led her to make her rendezvous with AI.
Coming from such varied fields, did they have any role models or people who inspired them?
Some have found their role models amongst the world-renowned AI researches. For example, Eli is fascinated by the work of Joy Buolamwini and Milind Tambe, because she is very interested in “AI for good” and “AI for peace” (e.g. Branka Panic’s work).
Isabel thinks that “there are a lot of great minds working in this field.” For her, the work of Prof. Dr. Andrew Ng in bringing AI to anyone who is interested, is very inspiring. Prof. Dr. Rosalind Picard is another inspirational figure for her, and she admires Picard’s amazing work on the recognition of emotion and its importance and challenges.
Others have found their role models amonst their friends and fellow community members.
“I have many role models around me! Someone who shares knowledge and transfers the skills I need to develop in a specific area becomes my role model. I am extremely thankful to the mentors I’ve had and have.” — Sakshi
Pelin and Susanne agree with her. Pelin has a role model who is also a very good friend of hers: Dr. Teena Hassan, and Susanne finds a “huge set of role models successfully working towards more diversity and inclusion in this field” in everyone in Women in AI & Robotics and also in Women in AI Ethics.
These six mothers are committed to working towards closing the gender gap in AI & Robotics. Why do they find this important?
The unanimous answer: “Diversity is key!”
Susanne says: “We simply cannot afford that the future of humanity is programmed by a specific and a small group of people.”
Eli believes in the multiplying effect of cooperation and synergies and also sees how many socially relevant mistakes arise when diversity is not understood and lived. From Pelin’s perspective, “the decisions in this world are biased and are mostly taken by aggressive characters. That’s one of the main reasons why many people in our world are suffering.”
Isabel states that “women represent more than half of the population. So if we plan to have an inclusive and non-biased technology, it’s important that we include women in the process.” Alex adds, “we can’t leave such an important field to men!”
“Women should be active not only in AI & Robotics, but also in every field of life, because their wisdom is needed. They must join every decision process in order to move the bias into an equilibrium.” — Pelin
From a more technical perspective, Sakshi adds: “The robot revolution would have more impact on women than men. Due to automation and digitalization, women are at high risk of losing their jobs. Now is the perfect time to become ‘Techindulge’ by learning the programming skills and definitely women can contribute to AI & Robotics.”
Generalizing this point, Susanne states that we have seen that diversity is key in both business and research: diversity reduces bias which leads to stronger and better results. “So in business-speak: It’s a business case. For the society: It’s a prerequisite.”
To conclude, Isabel calls all of us to action:
“We are wasting a lot of talent by not motivating young women into the sciences and technology.”
Where do they see themselves in five years from now?
These mothers are ambitious and already have a vision for where they see themselves five years from now. Isabel sees herself as “having a leading position,” without having to sacrifice her family for achieving that. Eli envisions herself in a role supporting “decision-makers in using their funds in an evidence-based way.” Pelin sees herself as “working in the field of affective computing with very nice colleagues and creating technologies which enhance the well-being of all.”
Sakshi plans to keep working to fulfil “the purpose of her life” by being “a better and a more responsible human being for this planet.” Alex says that her goal is: “To make the new venture that I started with my daughters successful, so that my daughters see that entrepreneurship and tech can be fun and that if they really try hard, they can achieve everything.”
Motherhood and Career
What changed with motherhood? How do they balance childcare with their careers?
For most, motherhood brought with it higher demands on their time and they had to organize and manage time better. Susanne notes that she got better with her organizational and time management skills, which she says “was a pure necessity!”
For Isabel, the challenges began even before she gave birth to her children. She says: “From the start, I had very difficult pregnancies, which meant that I had to take a lot of time away from work. Not everybody understands the situation and you, as a future mom, feel a lot of pressure.”
Pelin notes that she chose to take a longer break from her research career in order to bring up her three children. She notes that she had to spend “many sleepless nights to catch up with the responsibilities“ that she was supposed to fulfil as a mother. As her children grew up, their kindergarten and school routines gave her some free time during the day, which she utilized to enrol herself at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg to start her second master‘s degree in Computer Science. However, she notes that the long maternity break proved to be disadvantageous in her attempts to restart her career.
Isabel returned to work sooner than Pelin, but she notes that she had to “work twice as much” in order to take care of her family and to also be productive at work. Like Susanne, she finds that excellent time management is indeed “a great asset of many working moms.”
Eli notes that her “flexibility and self-determination” in planning her schedule changed as she now takes the needs of her daughter into account. Making appointments, working overtime, and pursuing a hobby was much easier before she became a mother.
“The problem is that in our society, overtime and availability are often a prerequisite for being perceived as a top performer (if that’s what you want for yourself at all).” — Eli
Raising a child is a very difficult job, but you do not have to struggle alone. Susanne notes that she “had to learn to ask for help and that helped (her) enormously.” Isabel shares her load of childcare with her supportive husband and other family members. Eli too found support in her husband, her parents, and in a good day-care facility, and she manages to actively pursue her ambitions — contrary to the advice that she had received from other mothers that “ambitions would take a back seat after giving birth.”
“I started to work earlier in the day (at 7 am) and learned to be (more) efficient and productive at work so that I can find enough time for her kids in the afternoon.” — Isabel
For Alex and Sakshi, the story unfolds slightly differently. They note that motherhood did not really influence their careers.
Alex shares: “I was lucky to do my MBA during the first pregnancy, after which I landed a leadership role where, due to my amazing team of women, I could even take my second daughter to the office, while she was a small baby. For me it was always clear, we can have it all, it is just a bit harder for us than it is for men.” She tries to combine work and the needs of her kids, but kids get higher priority, “even if this means that I sleep only 3 hrs. per night.”
As a new mother, Sakshi notes that her “dedication to achieve goals or to meet deadlines is the same” as it was before motherhood. Although she endured two-and-a-half days of labour pain and the post-partum period affected her for a few months, her determination and energy have only grown ever since. She goes with the flow and observes that this “can bring a wonderful balance that we never could have planned.”
African wisdom tells us that „It takes a village to raise a child.“ In today‘s global world with increasingly nuclear, city lifestyles, the responsibility of childcare rests heavily on the parents. What measures could support mothers and help them as well as their children flourish?
Susanne tells us that there are several policies which employers and schools could adopt which can support mothers in balancing their work and family needs. Some of the policies that she highly appreciates include flexible working hours, the option to work from home, day care facilities for babies, after-school support for children, job sharing, and flexible parental leave for both fathers and mothers.
Eli adds: “I would like to see more company kindergartens, events for children and career planning for parents.”
“Having a day-care facility for my children very close to my home, helped me, but that is not the case for many parents, who have to commute a lot.” — Isabel
Isabel agrees with Susanne and Eli that it is fortunate that “some companies and universities offer some flexibility to parents, especially mothers, to carry on with their work, while keeping their work-family balance,” although, she too notes that “not yet enough” employers adopt such policies. She adds that in academia, many employers offer “flexible work hours, day-care facilities or parent-child rooms, but…”
“… we still need more awareness about the challenges in order to avoid women from not getting enough support and therefore quitting their jobs.” — Isabel
Susanne notes that there are already several practices that supervisors can adopt to “retain the valuable brainpower” that women bring to the workplace. She states that it is important that supervisors ensure a more “inclusive work atmosphere for all — including mums and dads.”
“Work atmosphere should be more inclusive. This means, not putting anyone in a ‘drawer’ as in ‘you as a mother’… any sentence such as these is a no-go, especially if it points to the employee not being able to master a specific project because she has kids.” — Susanne
This connects back to the point that Isabel makes that there is a need for more awareness in workplaces and that “parents would feel less pressure” if people would understand that the mothers are still working “twice as much,” even though “flexible hours and the possibility of working from home help them to get their work done.”
Regarding awareness at the workplace, Alex thinks that “sometimes women do not support each other enough.” She then goes on to narrate a personal experience:
“I have now a leadership position at the university where I work at (I am Kanzlerin, which is the person in charge for all the non-academics parts like legal, HR, finance etc.) and when I got promoted a woman was the one who asked: ‘and what do you do with your kids?’ I don’t think this is a question a man ever had to answer.” — Alex
In addition to family-friendly measures and better awareness at the workplace, Sakshi also stresses on the need for “individual action to overcome the challenges.” She notes that “keeping a positive mindset, looking at the challenges from all sides and facing the obstacles head-on” helped her to overcome the hurdles that she encountered so far. In fact, she says that at the end, “the results speak for themselves.”
How did the pandemic affect their routines and how did they cope with the challenges posed by this new global situation?
The pandemic has made the daily lives of mothers even harder and has shaken the balance that they had carefully built up! Each day is now very different from the one before, and they have to adapt to the changing demands and needs on a daily basis. But, they are doing the best they can and coping in their own ways. Let‘s hear it directly from some of them.
Alex: “To be very honest it is very hard. I always worked, even when the kids were smaller, but this time now is really challenging. My bigger daughter started school during this time, and she really needs our support because a child in the first grade is not used to “school” and not used to do school online. There is no real balance between the needs, I would say the priorities differ from day to day depending on my to-do list. I also work during the night when the kids sleep. But, I also somehow enjoy this time, when the whole family is around, since, soon the kids would be grown-ups and don’t want to spend time with us anymore.”
Sakshi: “These unprecedented times of a global pandemic has impacted everyone and has especially affected our mental health and our quality of life. Before the pandemic, it was a normal five-day workweek, flexible work timings, and two days for family/party/social gatherings. In short, there used to be a balance between professional and personal lives. Now, with this “new normal”, we have to constantly put efforts into bringing balance to our lives. But on a positive note, I am able to spend more quality time with my husband and daughter.”
Pelin: “With the pandemic, “mummy” is now accessible all day long. The interruption frequency has increased! Therefore, I find it hard to concentrate on a subject for a long time. I have to constantly switch between studying, cooking, and helping the kids with their schoolwork and online lessons. These demands keep changing and I have to switch between these states dynamically, and this sometimes drives me crazy. The best thing that helps me a lot is walking every day for an hour.”
Isabel: “The daily routine is basically the same, but before the pandemic there was a clear separation between work and private life. Usually, my husband takes care of the children in the morning and brings them to the kindergarten. I start to work early so that I can leave work at 3 pm to pick them up. Before the pandemic, the time after 3 pm was family time, but nowadays I often find myself working all the time. Especially, when the kids have to stay at home the whole day, I have to work at night because there is no other time, where I can concentrate on my work and get things done. Working from home with two children is definitely one of the most difficult things, that we as a family had to endure.”
The Mothers and Their Children
Children have curious and creative minds. It can be really fun and enriching to engage with them. We asked these six mothers about how their children view their involvement with AI & Robotics.
“My little ones find it cool that their mama has a robot at the office!” — Isabel
“My four-year old would like us to build a robot to explore if Mars is free of corona.” — Susanne
“My two-year old likes the playful part when, for example, Python Turtle draws circles, and during meetings she finds the many people on the screen fun to watch.” — Eli
“My little daughter wants to build robots, so I started to investigate this field. Together with my daughters, we looked closer into the 3D printer world and now we start a new venture together, offering to transform children’s drawings into gold jewelries by using 3 d printing.” — Alex
“My children ask me from time to time what I am doing, especially if they see something interesting on my papers or in my talks. They just want to learn generally and are now exploring new edges and corners. Yes, they give me many suggestions, but also critique.” — Pelin
“It will be interesting to have suggestions from children as young brains are more open-minded than older ones. I look forward to it, as my child grows up.” — Sakshi
What future do they envision for their children?
Eli, Sakshi and Pelin believe in fostering the curiosity of their children and letting them eventually choose their own paths.
“We just check out what she’s interested in. For example, she likes to screw things, so we have already built a few things together and she has her own screwdriver, pliers, hammer, etc.” — Eli
Isabel has a boy and a girl and would like to raise them “without making any distinction about gender.” She specially motivates her daughter “to know more about science and even computers.”
“I want my children to know that girls and boys can have the same interests and wear the same colors.” — Isabel
Susanne hopes for an inclusive society for her chilldren.
“My vision is that one day nobody has to specify that a lady-scientist did this or that, that it is completely normal that a crew of scientists/astronauts is made up of a diverse team.” — Susanne
Through their joint entrepreneurial venture, Alex wishes to show her children that “they can achieve everything, if they try hard.”
Finally, Sakshi emphasizes what every mother strives for — “to raise their children to become good human beings.”
A Note To Future Mothers
What advice do these mothers have to offer to other women in AI & Robotics who would love to become mothers sooner or later.
“Dream big!” exclaims Alex.
She continues: “It might be harder for us as women, but nothing is stronger than a mother who really wants to achieve something!”
Sakshi agrees with Alex: “Motherhood has made me mentally stronger than before.”
“You will love your child a lot more than everything. But don’t forget: always take care of yourself,” adds Pelin.
“Treat yourself as your best friend,” advises Susanne.
“Don’t try to do everything yourself, you don’t have to. You can share the load and be never afraid to ask for help.” — Isabel
“Communication is key. Be prepared to experience a high stress level, especially in the beginning, and thus it is important to be able to organize quickly AND lovingly with your partner. Plan with your partner as well how you envision your career in the short, medium and long term and how you could concretely support each other.” — Eli
“There is huge freedom in realizing that you can’t get it right by everyone — you can just go ahead and focus on you and your family first.” — Susanne
Wow! That was a lot of insightful information. Yes, there is indeed no rule book. Each of these six mothers, whom you met here, chose their own individual ways to deal with the challenges and to balance the needs and demands of both their worlds — family and career. Hats off to them! We thank them wholeheartedly for sharing their stories, which we are sure would inspire all our readers.
Women in AI & Robotics is proud to have such many such amazing and inspiring mothers in our community. Today, we celebrate you and all the other mothers in the world. Thank you for your courage, your resilience, your perseverance, your ambitions, and your dreams! Thank you for the amazing work that you are doing and the amazing children that you are bringing up, who are our hopes for a better future.
