Session: Woman in Tech: Challenges in a Highly Imbalanced Gender Scenario
What do Tech companies need to thrive? And how does the structure of teams affect the results of innovations? Worldwide statistics show that gender distribution in tech jobs varies widely by region. Still, the global average indicates that there are fewer women than men in technology, particularly in Artificial Intelligence jobs. Besides, as you move up the career ladder, the trend is that fewer women reach the top positions. Several studies have shown that systems perform worse for users who are not represented in development teams. Does algorithmic bias have anything to do with the small fraction of females and other minorities working on Artificial Intelligence? In this talk, Dr. Gissel Velarde will answer these questions and present gender statistics in Tech, as well as challenges, and possible solutions to make Tech environments more diverse and, therefore, more productive.
Bio
Velarde holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from Aalborg University, an institution recognized as the best university in Europe and fourth in the world in engineering according to the US News World Ranking and the MIT 2018 ranking. She also holds a master's degree in Electronic Systems and Engineering management from the University of Applied Sciences of South Westphalia, thanks to a DAAD scholarship, and holds a Licenciatura's degree in Systems Engineering from Universidad Católica Boliviana, recognized as the third best university in Bolivia according to the Webometrics Ranking 2020. She has over 20 years of experience in engineering and computer science. She worked in industry and academia, and received several awards and recognition as an engineer and a computer scientist. Velarde developed machine learning and deep learning algorithms for classification, structural analysis, pattern discovery, and recommendation systems. In 2020, Velarde was named: Notable Woman in the field of research by the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR). She was also selected internationally as one of 120 technologists by the Top Women Tech 2019 & 2020 summit in Brussels. In 2021, Velarde received a teaching award from Universidad Privada Boliviana for her lecture on Selected Topics in Artificial Intelligence. In her latest book, she analyze the impact of intelligent technologies during what she calls the Artificial Era.