Women in STEM - Joy Buolamwini
Known as the “Poet of Code,” Joy Adowaa Buolamwini is the driving force behind any discussions happening around bias in Artificial Intelligence or algorithms these days.
Born in Canada but raised in Mississippi, Joy taught herself XHTML, Javascript, and PHP at a very young age. She got her undergraduate degree from Georgia Institute of Technology, and then went on to get her Masters degree from MIT. Joy also became a Rhodes Scholar along the way. There’s no way around it, Joy has made an indelible mark on the field of technology and particularly, AI.
Joy currently works as a researcher at MIT, identifying bias in algorithms and developing practices to follow in order to diminish it. Her work has been regularly cited by companies like Google and Microsoft as they work to address gender and racial bias in their products.
The Founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, Joy and her team are dedicated to raising awareness of the impacts of AI. They identify discrepancies found within algorithms when attempting black and brown facial recognition, and develop processes to eliminate bias in the code which can lead to discrimination against underrepresented groups.
Joy’s groundbreaking work is featured in the documentary, “Coded Bias” which is available to stream on Netflix.
For more information on Joy and her work, check out her Wikipedia page:
And watch her Keynote from the Stanford AI conference in 2019:
