Hello 👋 dear innovator, how are you doing today?
You: Very well, and you?
Consonance: Not bad, thanks for asking.
You: It's Saturday
Consonance: Exactly, and that means it's innovation o’clock, and today you are in for a ride like never before.
You: Be my guest.
Consonance: Great 👍, let's go!
Last week we discussed three tech Sheroes leading the way in Nigeria and in our mid-week check-in we shed more light on the Silicon Valley Bank's story and the most recent development.
Today, we are still on the issue of women.
You: Again? Another newsletter about women?
Consonance: Yes, we have decided to make this month about women and the amazing work they do. Remember we talked about it in our first newsletter this month.
You: Oh yes 👍🏽I do. It's women's history month after all 🤷🏽♀️
Consonance: Exactly, I’m glad you gerrit. Today, you'll meet some female backbones behind the leading innovative AI platforms, but not so fast 🏃.
You already know what time it is, Let's have a good laugh 😂from tech Twitter.
Can someone please 🥺 explain what's going on here? Anybody? Nobody?
Today’s issue will be short and straight to the point, to buy you enough time to go out to vote today as #Nigeriadecides once again. Just pop the wisdom pills 💊 from this newsletter before you step out, and strike up a conversation with a stranger at the polling booth. Who knows? it could be a fellow innovator.
Let's get into the business of the day, shall we?
Rana el Kaliouby
Born on the 10th of August 1978 in Cairo Eygpt, Rana is a well-rounded and recognized Computer 🤖 scientist and entrepreneur.
She is the CEO of the emotion detection and analysis software called Affectiva.
Affectiva has been widely used in automotive safety, healthcare, and other fields to analyze emotions where due.
Don’t you think 🤔 it would be a good idea to know how a self-driving car will make your target market feel before producing them? Definitely.
It has also been described by some as the world’s largest emotions database. Affectiva has now gathered 5,313,751 face videos for a total of 38,944 hours representing about 2 billion facial frames analyzed.
Now you have to admit that, that is some next-level stuff 🫡.
Next time someone tells you women are less innovative, look them in the eye, bring out your consonance email 📩 and show them Rana. Also, get them to subscribe to avoid such ignorance in the future.
Rana is an expert in emotional intelligence and facial recognition innovation and she has the degrees to prove it.
Among other notable mentions and awards, she has been named one of Fortune’s 40 under 40.
Regina Barzilay
Born in Israel in 1973, Regina is an Israeli - American computer scientist.
Barzilay has a keen interest in using computers to communicate, which is called computational linguistics. Her interests also span machine translation, the development of algorithms, and language modeling.
Her focus on all of these other incredible scopes of AI is part of her research work on a broader aspect called natural language processing (NLP).
To appreciate Regina's contribution to AI, you'll need to understand how beautiful it is for a computer to chat with you responding to your questions while not going off the topic.
Giving computers a brain 🧠 is no small job. Now the computers understand what you type in and act accordingly. Could you ever bring your grandparents to understand this? Obviously not.
The same is true about appliances because, AI doesn't start with robots, but also with your pressing iron getting hot or hotter with the control of the regulator. Now, that is the language machines speak.
In some fields the need for proof qualification is inevitable. she went on to obtain an M.sc degree in Electrical Engineering as well as a Ph.D. in Computer science. She is also a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
She is a recipient of numerous teaching awards as well as awards and honors for her research work.
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Opportunities
Bumpa is hiring a Senior Backend Engineer and a Senior Mobile Development Engineer - Remote
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TechCabal is hiring in Lagos, Nigeria
Fido is hiring a Financial Analyst in Accra, Ghana