鈥淏usiness leaders increasingly understand the critical importance of diverse teams in driving innovation and growth,鈥� says Koolen. 鈥淣eurodiverse individuals possess unique strengths, from processing information in unconventional ways to thinking creatively to hyper-focused attention to detail, all of which can offer invaluable contributions to the workplace. For companies to fully benefit from neurodiverse talent, it鈥檚 essential to build systems, processes and cultures that support and celebrate a diversity of thought and perspectives.鈥�

Challenging stereotypes

March 17-23 is , a worldwide initiative that challenges stereotypes and misconceptions about neurological differences. The initiative was founded to change the narrative around neurodiversity and create a balanced view that focuses equally on the talents and strengths of neurodiverse individuals.

Although all people exist somewhere on the spectrum of neurodiversity, the term is mostly used to describe individuals with distinct neurological or developmental differences, including autism, dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

鈥淢any workplaces have struggled to accommodate employees who think or process information in ways that differ from the norm,鈥� says Koolen. 鈥淭his has led to employees with conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, dyslexia and other forms of neurodivergence to be excluded or misunderstood. However, we are in the midst of a shift in how companies embrace neurodiversity and unlock the value of unique perspectives and contributions.鈥�

A study cited in found that neurodiverse employees at one organisation were 30% more productive than their colleagues.

A also cited a statistic that up to a quarter of CEOs believe they are dyslexic, although few feel confident enough to declare this publicly.

Building inclusive workplaces

Koolen says companies have a responsibility to foster environments where neurodiverse employees can thrive. 鈥淏y redesigning recruitment practices, creating flexible workspaces, fostering inclusive communication, and building a culture of psychological safety, we can unlock the full potential of neurodiverse talent. When combined with the growing capabilities of AI to support these initiatives, we can create workplaces that not only accommodate diverse thinkers but actively celebrate and empower them.鈥�

She provides practical tips for companies on how they can support neurodiversity:

• Redesigning hiring and recruitment practices: Many traditional hiring processes exclude neurodiverse candidates by focusing on standard interview techniques that don鈥檛 align with the candidate鈥檚 strengths. 鈥淐ompanies should consider alternative interview formats – for example skills-based assessments or task simulations – to allow neurodiverse candidates to demonstrate their abilities. Clear and structured job descriptions that emphasise essential skills and tasks over vague or ambiguous language can also help. Hiring managers should also be trained to recognise the unique strengths of neurodiverse candidates.鈥�
• Creating more flexible work environments: It is vital to create workplaces where neurodiverse employees can thrive. Koolen notes that systems and processes offering greater flexibility can support individual working styles. 鈥淣eurodiverse employees may have sensory sensitivities that require quiet rooms, adjustable lighting or modular seating options that create a more comfortable workspace. Adaptable work schedules including remote work allows employees to work during their peak energy levels and productivity periods. In addition, AI-driven support tools may help HR teams improve their support to neurodiverse employees through personalised task management, reminders, and communication support.鈥�
• Build a culture of safety and support: Cultivating an inclusive workplace culture goes beyond systems and processes鈥攊t鈥檚 about creating a psychologically safe environment where all employees feel valued for their contributions. 鈥淓mployers can normalise conversations about neurodiversity by encouraging open dialogue, breaking down stigmas and fostering greater understanding within teams,鈥� explains Koolen. 鈥淓mployee resource groups for neurodiverse employees can also offer peer support and create a sense of community, while mentorship programs can bridge the gap between neurodiverse employees and their colleagues.鈥�
• Measure – and celebrate – success: Koolen says it is essential to measure the impact of these initiatives, both on employee satisfaction and on business outcomes. 鈥淐ompanies that succeed in building inclusive environments for neurodiverse talent will often see improvements in innovation, problem-solving, and team dynamics. Recognising and celebrating these successes publicly is key to reinforcing the value of neurodiversity.鈥� In addition, says Koolen, HR teams should use metrics such as employee retention, productivity and innovation to show company leadership how neurodiversity is delivering tangible benefits to the organisation.

Koolen adds: 鈥淚n a future where diverse perspectives drive technological innovation, companies that prioritise neurodiversity today will be best positioned to lead tomorrow.鈥�

The post Celebrating Neurodiversity: How Companies can Foster a Culture of Diverse Thought appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

This is according to , HR director at 麻豆原创 Africa, who says: 鈥淚ntroducing neurodiverse individuals into the business allows organisations to access unique skills and abilities that can bring immense value to the organisation.

鈥淏ut this requires a rethink of hiring programs, recruitment processes, team management and greater flexibility to empower neurodiverse employees with career pathways that allow them to apply their unique skills and perspectives to tasks and opportunities.鈥�

According to the , autistic professionals can be up to 140% more productive than a typical employee if they are properly matched to their job. However, studies have shown that up to 85% of adults with a college degree are unemployed, with companies鈥� hiring practices shouldering part of the blame.

Workplace program unlocks neurodiversity potential

To raise awareness and create work opportunities, 麻豆原创 launched an in 2013 to support candidates who fall into the various neurodiverse categories. Candidates are encouraged to apply to open roles of interest for which they are qualified.

Managers with open positions can then contact the Autism at Work local lead in their country to connect with candidates in the Autism at Work pipeline. Hiring opportunities are promoted through the local partner network in addition to traditional recruiting channels.

鈥淎s a business we believe that creating a diverse, inclusive and bias-free culture makes us a better company,鈥� says Koolen. 鈥淗aving a program that embraces neurodiversity enables us to find great talent that we鈥檇 otherwise potentially miss. It also enables us to leverage the unique abilities and perspectives of people on the spectrum to foster innovation.鈥�

Koolen cites the example of Nico Neumann, an 麻豆原创 employee based in Buenos Aires in Argentina. Nico joined 麻豆原创鈥檚 finance team through the 麻豆原创 Autism at Work program in 2016 and designed a tool that automates the posting of complex invoices with multiple cost allocations.

鈥淧rior to the development of this tool, accounts payable needed two to three days to manually process large credit card statements such as American Express with over 20 000 accounting lines,鈥� explains Koolen. 鈥淭hanks to Nico鈥檚 innovation, that processing time has reduced to 20 minutes.鈥�

Neumann鈥檚 solution won the , 麻豆原创鈥檚 highest internal award and accolade, and the highest honour or recognition an 麻豆原创 employee can receive.

鈥淭oday, our workforce has 215 colleagues diagnosed with autism across 15 countries, who all contribute to the success of the business. In line with our ambition to be the most inclusive software company in the world, 麻豆原创 aims to be an employer of choice for people who are neurodiverse and increase the number of colleagues with autism while maintaining our high retention rate of 90%.鈥�

Two key actions for empowering neurodiversity at work

While stories such as Neumann鈥檚 are still rare, Koolen believes this is changing. 鈥淐ompanies are far more aware of the importance of building cultures that allow diverse employees to thrive, and have made significant changes to their systems and processes. While these efforts are not perfect, things are improving rapidly, in part thanks to greater understanding of neurodiversity.鈥�

Koolen says companies seeking to build more inclusive workplaces where neurodiverse employees can thrive should focus efforts on two key areas.

Firstly, companies should train every employee 鈥� from top management to juniors 鈥� to understand and accept individual differences. 鈥淩egular awareness sessions help employees develop a deeper understanding of neurodiversity and encourage empathy with those who may view the world differently,鈥� says Koolen. 鈥淓mployees should also be encouraged to provide ongoing support to their colleagues to make it a company-wide effort, not just something driven by the HR department.鈥�

Secondly, Koolen recommends companies relook their hiring practices to remove some of pressure that neurodiverse candidates experience during typical recruitment processes. 鈥淭he traditional interview process can introduce immense stress to neurodiverse candidates and undermine their ability to convey their unique skills, competencies and aptitudes. By finding ways to relieve stressful situations, companies can easily allow neurodiverse candidates to display their full potential during the hiring process.鈥�

Some of the ways companies can reduce stress during hiring efforts include training for interviewers to ensure they minimise unconscious bias. 鈥淪pecialised skills assessments can also take the place of interviews, allowing companies to evaluate a candidate鈥檚 competence for specific tasks or roles,鈥� says Koolen.

鈥溌槎乖粹�檚 Autism at Work program also offers do-the-work try-outs instead of interviews, where neurodiverse candidates get to perform job-related tasks instead of face a barrage of interview questions. This has allowed us to identify individuals with the skills that will make our business successful while creating an environment in which unique individuals can bring their skills to bear.鈥�

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In fact, professionals are more likely to engage in a quick game of Snake than manage a full productivity suite via their AI-enabled smartphones. Conference calls involve groups huddled around a speaker in a boardroom, instead of teams having discussions in full high-definition via their company-issued laptops.

Sound far-fetched? This was the office of the early 2000s, a mere twenty years ago, when the world of work looked vastly different to the high-tech one we enjoy today.

Radical changes at work

According to Shiraz Khota, Sales Director at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors, the past twenty years of work hold valuable lessons for what we can expect from our future work lives.

“The proliferation of technologies and innovation, combined with the rise of the Experience Economy continue to radically change modern workplaces, with far-reaching consequences for organisations, their HR teams, and the talented employees they hope to attract and retain. While it is true that we live in a time of ongoing uncertainty, there are important insights we can gain from the past twenty years that could help organisations and professionals alike better plan for the immediate future.”

Many of the technologies we take for granted in our day-to-day work lives were developed over the past 10 to 20 years, including Skype in 2003, Gmail and Facebook in 2004, Twitter in 2006 and the iPhone, the world’s first true mainstream smartphone, in 2007.

“The pace of technological change is accelerating to the extent that, in a few years’ time, we may look back at today in much the same way as we now look back at the early 2000s,” says Khota. “As the pandemic continues to disrupt normal notions of work and team management, organisations are increasingly looking to technology to help them adapt to near-constant change in how they manage, support and motivate their most important asset: their employees.”

Predictions for the (near) future of work

So what can organisations – and their employees – expect from the near-future of work? According to Khota, the following four trends may be commonplace before the end of this decade:

1. Offices without borders

Perhaps an obvious one considering the pandemic-forced switch to remote and hybrid work models, but all indications are that the borders between work and life will continue to disappear.

“The digitisation of work processes is continuing at a rapid pace , with a key focus of enabling their workforce to operate remotely. The mass adoption of online collaboration and productivity tools means more people than ever are able to perform their work duties outside the confines of the office.”

According to the WEF, . “Managing a hybrid workforce effectively will require new processes and technologies to support those processes,” explains Khota.

“As the lines between personal and professional lives continue to be blurred, and increasing numbers of highly skilled workers operate from remote locations, organisations will be challenged to implement appropriate tools and technologies to support their workers while ensuring alignment with corporate culture.”

2. Greater diversity

With the rise of borderless offices also comes the concept of borderless talent pools. “Despite the halt on global business travel due to the pandemic, we continue to work and live in a global village, with organisations able to tap into a global talent pool of skills to fill key positions. High-performance teams are increasingly diverse – in fact, studies have shown that .”

Enabling greater diversity within organisational teams is also key to driving productivity and performance within the organisation. “Belonging – a key component of inclusion – and engagement at work are highly correlated,” says Khota. “Studies have found that , compared to only 20% of those that don’t feel they belong.”

In addition to implementing appropriate policies and processes to encourage greater diversity and inclusion at the workplace, organisations will need to invest in appropriate technologies to ensure they stay abreast of the multitude of expectations and needs of their diverse workforce.

3. Focus on experience

The concept of employee experience came to the fore in recent years, as the Experience Economy truly took hold of personal and professional lives around the world.

“Experience management is arguably one of the most powerful tools for building relationships with customers and employees of the past decade. As the digitisation of every aspect of our personal and professional lives continues unabated, being able to track, measure and make adjustments to that experience will be invaluable to businesses’ success.”

Modern employee experience management tools will become standard in our future workplaces – and for good reason, according to Khota. “Studies have shown that organisations that invest most heavily in employee experience are more than twice as likely to be on the Forbes list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, and appear more than eleven times for often in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work. In fact, companies that invest in employee experience are four times more profitable than those that don’t.”

As organisations become intelligent enterprises – defined as organisations that use intelligent technologies and a connected network to their advantage – their ability to combine operational and experience data increases. “The most successful and innovative companies of the future will blend operational and experience data to gain a comprehensive real-time view over the total performance of their business, and make the employee experience a key consideration in broader decision-making processes.”

4. In-house academies

According to a WEF report, there has been a four-fold increase in the numbers of individuals seeking opportunities for online learning, accompanied by a five-fold increase in employers providing online learning opportunities to their workers.

“As technology advances make increasing numbers of job roles obsolete, workers will need to be upskilled or reskilled and then deployed to new roles,” explains Khota. “Estimates are that even among job roles that won’t become obsolete in the near future, the skills needed to perform such roles will. In fact, 40% of core skills in such roles are likely to change in the next five years, and .”

To ensure they have access to the skills they need, organisations will increasingly need to invest in in-house skills development. “It is highly likely that we will see a rise in-house academies, where workers can develop skills needed within their organisations and gain valuable experience that can immediately be applied to the benefit of their employers.”

For employees, this will have the dual benefit of helping them grow within their current roles while also making them more employable to the broader industry in the longer term.

“In its recent Future of Jobs 2020 report, the World Economic Forum found that 94% of business leaders expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a major increase from 65% in 2018,” says Khota. “To win in the new world of work, employers and employees will need to engage in continuous skills development to ensure a steady supply of work-ready skills.”

The post Five Things the Past 20 Years can Teach us About our Future Work Lives appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

At the current rate of change, to achieve gender parity, an unacceptable timeline in today鈥檚 modern world. Increasing women鈥檚 participation in the labor market will play a large role in achieving gender parity, and it will not only lead to more , more companies, but on a global scale it could add up to — or 26% — to the global GDP. The math is simple and we cannot afford to continue to overlook half the population, especially in the field of data science, one of the .

Amid the current pandemic, women are facing even more barriers in the workforce as they manage their professional lives while taking care of the children and overseeing many of the household duties. At 麻豆原创, we recognize the value of in the workforce, especially women in technology, where historically, women face underrepresentation. One of the fields where this is particularly prominent is data science: only . This staggering statistic inspired 麻豆原创 to become a trusted collaborator and sponsor of Stanford University鈥檚 (WiDS) initiative since 2016.

Women in Data Science

As a technology company that employs data scientists worldwide, we want to address why few women are embarking on careers in data science and why few women are advancing into data science leadership roles. Despite the value of a technology skill set, studies on the future of work show the increasing demand for among employers. Studies show than men when it comes to emotional intelligence, reinforcing the need to foster female leaders across every industry, including data science. At 麻豆原创, we strongly support the WiDS mission 鈥渢o inspire and educate data scientists worldwide, regardless of gender, and to support women in the field.鈥�

鈥淒ata science is becoming ever more critical in the world as data-driven decision-making has penetrated many parts of our society,鈥� said Margot Gerritsen, professor at Stanford University and co-director of WiDS.聽 鈥淎s our reliance on data and investments in this field continue to increase, it is critical that women, and people from all genders, have a clear seat at the decision table and share in the wealth creation, all around the globe. Through our conferences, workshops, datathon, podcasts, and education initiatives, we hope to expand the role of women and accelerate their representation in the field.鈥�

The WiDS Worldwide Conference, spearheaded by Stanford University, kicks off on International Women鈥檚 Day, March 8. The event will follow the sun, spotlighting incredible female data scientists working on innovative technology across business, academia, government, and nonprofits.

鈥淚t is great to see how many amazing and inspiring women this event brings together from all over the world. Female role models are crucial in fostering female leadership in the field of data science. They show the next generation what is possible to achieve, and that is very powerful,鈥� shared Dr. Katharina Sch盲fer, global head of 麻豆原创 University Alliances. 鈥淚鈥檓 excited to see Karina Edmonds, a globally recognized visionary leader in the field of innovation, technology transfer, and commercialization, represent 麻豆原创 at the WiDS Worldwide Conference, where she will share how data science education can effectively empower future leaders to tackle big global and environmental challenges.鈥�

On the sideline of the global event, 麻豆原创 will host a regional event in New York City that will take place virtually, bringing together data-driven business professionals, students, and aspiring data scientists to explore 鈥�.鈥�

The NYC regional event will kick off a 鈥淲iDS @ 麻豆原创鈥� regional series on that will run throughout the course of the year. This series will include virtual events based in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.聽 The worldwide and regional events will feature prominent 麻豆原创 data scientists, including Dr. Fei-Yu Xu, global head of Artificial Intelligence in Innovation; Dr. Susanne Beckers, head of Infused Intelligence in Intelligent Data and Analytics; and Dr. Sarah Detzler, competence lead for Data Science and Machine Learning in Technical Presales.

Diversity and Inclusion at 麻豆原创

To embed diversity and inclusion even further into the culture of 麻豆原创, we are committed to ensuring that our workforce better reflects the diversity of society and the customers we serve. We also aim to increase the number of women in leadership roles to 30% by 2022. Women currently make up 43% of the Intelligent Data & Analytics team at 麻豆原创 and 26% of its leadership team, with an increasing trend over the last 12 months. This sets a strong example for the company and reinforces the trajectory toward a more representative workforce.

鈥淓ach hire we make at 麻豆原创, from our working students and interns, to our early talents, to our professionals and executives, needs to embody curiosity and compassion,鈥� said Jenn Prevoznik, global leader, Early Career Talent Attraction, 麻豆原创. 鈥淗iring managers and recruiters look for candidates鈥� ability to code. As a technology company, many of our open roles target individuals with a technology skill set. We value our partnership with WiDS and actively leverage the events to attract and hire top talent to 麻豆原创. I challenge all managers to make every day International Women鈥檚 Day and be intentional about who you hire. In recruiting, we invest heavily in increasing the number of women and underrepresented groups in the pipeline. We need all hands on deck to move the needle.鈥�

Join WiDS @ 麻豆原创

Register for the on March 8 and the regional events happening throughout the year as we #ChoosetoChallenge the status quo and discover ways to foster female leaders in data science.

Christian Hecker is global vice president and chief data and analytics officer at 麻豆原创. Dr. Karina Edmonds is vice president and global head of 麻豆原创 Academies and 麻豆原创 University Alliances.

This article first appeared on the 麻豆原创 Global News Center.

The post A More Equal World: Fostering Female Leaders in Data Science appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Unleashing the creativity and potential of every employee

At 麻豆原创, there are several programs that develop talent, while bringing 麻豆原创鈥檚 purpose to life and creating social impact. One of those programs is the 麻豆原创 Social Sabbatical Program, an award-winning CSR portfolio. Another example is , 麻豆原创鈥檚 flagship social intrapreneurship initiative that drives innovation and gives employees the permission, time, technology, and mentorship to turn their passion for making a difference into sustainable, income generating ventures. Founded by Adaire Fox-Martin, Executive Board Member, 麻豆原创 SE Customer Success, the 1BLives initiative is 麻豆原创鈥檚 social innovation platform that aspires to help improve the lives of one billion people.

From social entrepreneurs scaling their ventures, to large corporates re-examining their supply chains, through to governmental bodies looking to support wider social change 鈥� by finding challenges and potential solutions 麻豆原创 supports the winning ideas of their employees with investment funds of those who seek to make a positive difference in the world. 麻豆原创 One Billion Lives is about unleashing the creativity of every employee to generate social impact around the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To put the previous outcomes into perspective: Until now, One Billion Lives has improved the protection of over 23 million people from natural disasters, improved the results of cancer treatments for over 60 percent of the cancer population in India and is gearing to eliminate child labor in cobalt mines. Life changing, isn鈥檛 it?

Times of change present limitless opportunities

The 麻豆原创 One Billion Lives Initiative is open to employees across the globe and organized by global teams in collaboration with regional program managers. Each year regional teams plan and execute ideation workshops across their respective regions where colleagues meet and jointly ideate. The planning for the 2020 edition of the program was ongoing when suddenly the world changed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The new reality forced the organizing teams to shift this program to a virtual format. What seemed to be a challenge back then turned into an opportunity of a lifetime.

Undoubtedly, there are many benefits of meeting face-to-face but so there are of virtual collaboration. 麻豆原创鈥檚 EMEA South region spans from the South of Europe, over the entire African continent to the Middle East, making it the most diverse region in all of 麻豆原创. Some colleagues work in cross-regional roles and teams, others don鈥檛. By turning 麻豆原创鈥檚 flagship social intrapreneurship initiative into a virtual one, 麻豆原创鈥檚 EMEA South region provided its over 5.000 employees the unique opportunity to collaborate and co-create for social impact 鈥� together with peers, who they have never met before. A sense of community across the program participants was created: colleagues wished each other happy Easter, happy orthodox Easter and Ramadan Kareem. Participants learned new local expressions and most importantly they learned a lot from each other.

When looking at the success of innovation in teams and organizations, diversity is a key differentiator and a catalyst for innovative outcomes. Hence, in addition to the unique value for individuals the new format also led to a higher innovation outcome. The result: within just a few weeks the teams of dedicated colleagues have crafted innovative solutions for social challenges, operating at startup speed in addition to their day-to-day jobs. Diversity matters: to make a positive difference for individuals and for one billion people out there.

鈥淭he situation around the pandemic made us pause and remember what we had already known but not taken into consideration in the context of One Billion Lives: there is a direct link between innovation and diversity,鈥� said Marita Mitschein, Senior Vice President – Digital Skills, 麻豆原创 Southern Europe, Africa and Middle East, and Managing Director of the 麻豆原创 Training and Development Institute. 鈥淭he new normal forced us to adjust what has always been working well. And those changes impacted the experience of the One Billion Lives program in a positive way.鈥�

The post Turning Challenges into Opportunities: 麻豆原创鈥檚 Flagship Social Intrapreneurship Initiative in Times of Change appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

One such truth is smbolised by the global #BlackLivesMatter movement, which has once again聽highlighted the embedded biases in our interconnected social fabric, forcing us all, to re-evaluate long standing notions of morality, fairness and ethics.

It is worth taking pause, to consider whether the exponential technological progress is not also amplifying some of the very same challenges we are trying to overcome, as a global society.

As we strive to meet the needs of customers, we continuously look towards technology. We see leading companies globally investing heavily in technologies such as cloud computing, internet of things, advanced analytics, edge computing, virtual and augmented reality, 3D printing and of course artificial intelligence. And it is AI, which many experts tout as one of the most transformational technologies of our time,in terms of sheer impact on humanity.

Global use of AI has , with estimated revenues of . AI powered technology solutions have become so pervasive, a recent Gallup poll found that .

And yet, a dark side of AI is surfacing with alarming frequency as AI engrains itself in our daily lives.

Bias in the machine

There are ample examples of algorithms displaying forms of bias.

In 2018, of Gmail鈥檚 predictive text tool automatically assigning 鈥渋nvestor鈥� as 鈥渕ale鈥�. When a research scientist typed 鈥淚 am meeting an investor next week鈥�, Gmail鈥檚 Smart Compose tool thought they would want to follow up with the question: 鈥淒o you want to meet him?鈥�

That same year, Amazon had to decommission its AI-powered talent acquisition system . The software seemingly downgraded female candidates if their resumes included phrases with the word 鈥渨omen鈥檚鈥� in them, for example 鈥渨omen鈥檚 hockey club captain.鈥�

Many of the large tech firms battle with diversity, with men much better represented than women in most major tech companies. Having gender bias embedded in algorithms designed to support the hiring process presents a significant risk to efforts at achieving greater diversity: Mercer鈥檚 Global Talent Trends report for 2019 highlights that 88% of companies globally already use AI powered solutions in some way for HR.

Persecuted by an algorithm

Errant algorithms can be responsible for greater harm than just a few missed employment opportunities.

In June 2020, the on an African American man wrongfully arrested for a crime he didn鈥檛 commit after a flawed match from a facial recognition algorithm.

found that facial recognition software, used by US police departments for decades, work relatively well on certain demographics, but is far less effective on other demographics, mainly due to a lack of diversity in the data that the developers used to train these algorithms.

Microsoft and Amazon have halted sales of their facial recognition software until there is a better understanding and mitigation of their impact, on especially vulnerable or minority communities. IBM has even gone as far to halt .

How bias enters our algorithms

McKinsey supports the view that it is actually the underlying data that is the culprit in perpetuating bias, more so than the actual algorithm itself. , the firm argued that algorithms trained on data containing human decisions have a natural tendency toward bias. For example, news articles could instil the common gender stereotypes we find in society simply due to the nature of the language used.

Many of the early algorithms were also trained using web data, which is often rife with our raw, unfiltered thoughts and prejudices. A person commenting anonymously on an online forum arguably has more freedom to display prejudices without much consequence. Any algorithm trained on this data is likely to assimilate the embedded biases.

As observes: 鈥淒ebiasing humans is a lot harder than debiasing AI systems.”

One example of this is with its chatbot, Tay. Tay was plugged directly into Twitter, where users across the world could interact with it. Users of the popular social media platform promptly got to work teaching the bot racist, misogynistic phrases. Within one day, the bot started praising Hitler, forcing Microsoft researchers to pull the experiment.

The lesson: algorithms learn precisely what you teach them, consciously or unconsciously. And because algorithms learn from data, data matters.

Web data is also not fairly representative of society at large: issues with access to connectivity and the cost of smartphones and data could exclude many – especially minorities – from engaging with online content. This means that data collected from the web is naturally skewed to the demographics that make most use of websites and social media.

Combating bias in our AI solutions

One of the biggest challenges for the creators of AI algorithms trying to eliminate bias, besides merely identifying it, is knowing what should replace it. If fairness is the opposite of bias, how do you define fairness?

Princeton computer scientist Arvind Narayanan argues there are , the problem this creates is that one person鈥檚 fairness could be another鈥檚 discrimination.

There is arguably a need for greater diversity in the development rooms where AI algorithms are created. A cursory glance at the demographics of the big tech firms shows a disproportionate gender and demographic bias. More must be done to accelerate the synthesis of diverse and inclusive perspectives in the AI creation process, so that AI algorithms and the data they are trained on embody a broad range of perspectives, allowing them to drive more optimal outcomes for all those represented in society.

What can we do to mitigate bias in the AI solutions we increasingly use to make potentially life changing decisions, such as arresting someone or hiring someone? Greater awareness of bias can help developers see the context in which AI could amplify embedded bias and guide them to put corrective measures in place. Testing processes should also be developed with bias in mind: AI creators should deliberately create processes and practices that test for and correct bias. Design should always keep bias in mind.

Finally, AI firms need to make investments into bias research, partnering with other disciplines far beyond technology such as psychology or philosophy, and share the learnings broadly to ensure all the algorithms we use can operate alongside humans in a responsible and helpful manner.

Fixing bias is not something we can do overnight. It鈥檚 a process, just like solving discrimination in any other part of society. However, with greater awareness and a purposeful approach to combating bias, AI algorithm creators have a hugely influential role to play in helping establish a more fair and just society for everyone.

This could be one silver lining in the ominous cloud that is 2020.

The post Why Eliminating Bias in AI is Key to AI Success appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

From sending cookies to coronavirus first responders and truckers on the road to printing 3D face masks and earning cybersecurity badges, the latest generation of Girl Scouts is all-in for the next phase of the organization鈥檚 digital journey.

In an , Sylvia Acevedo, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, described how Girl Scouts have come together and become even stronger in applying technology and leadership development to fulfill the .

Here are highlights from Acevedo鈥檚 digital broadcast with Paula Hansen, chief revenue officer for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience.

Adapting Quickly to Innovate Cookie Sales

After hearing about Acevedo鈥檚 extensive STEM background 鈥� which included work as a rocket scientist at NASA and positions as a technology executive and entrepreneur 鈥� it is easy to understand how she has channeled her passion for space, science, and math into valuable skill-building for girls. For example, in response to the pandemic, Girl Scouts brought its entire cookie sales operation online in just nine days.

鈥淭he iconic cookie program teaches amazing business skills, but you have to adapt to the way people work and live,鈥� Acevedo said. 鈥淪o that girls would be safe, we stopped all in-person cookie sales and pivoted to put in an entire online system together with partners using 麻豆原创 software so that we could enable girls to sell their cookies all over the country. We called it 鈥楪irl Scouts Cookie Care.鈥欌��

Cybersecurity is Top Digital Priority

Girl Scouts has gone more digital, offering a host of program activities that revolve around STEM, entrepreneurship, the outdoors, and leadership. The initiative is called Girl Scouts at Home, but the objective is to open up a world of civic-minded leadership to girls who are eager to keep learning. With the spread of COVID-19 and subsequent focus on all things virtual, cybersecurity recently became a priority.

鈥淲e had almost 8,000 cybersecurity badges earned in March, so that tells us our programs are relevant and girls see real use of it,鈥� Acevedo said. 鈥淥ne girl wrote to me saying that based on what she learned in our cybersecurity program, she immediately called her grandmother [who] had been frauded. She made sure that her grandmother put all the protections on her Wi-Fi system, computer, and phone so she wouldn鈥檛 be frauded again.鈥�

Digital with a Human Touch

Going virtual has also helped bolster community spirit. Online troop meetings have increased because girls want to stay in touch with friends more, whether they鈥檙e creating tens of thousands of face masks — one troop is using 3D printing to churn these out颅 — or going outside for shared constellation learning experiences.

鈥淕irls are figuring out how they can still use their skills to make the world a better place,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey can still earn their space science badges, and it鈥檚 also a great way to connect with other girls.鈥�

Encouraging Girls to Pursue STEM Careers

Chief among Acevedo鈥檚 goals was helping girls understand they were not just tech users, but also could be tech creators, designers, and inventors. Girl Scouts flipped STEM programming that has been historically designed to meet boy鈥檚 interests to meet the interests of girls today. Last year, Girl Scouts earned over 1 million STEM badges and 128,000 cybersecurity badges. Acevedo was particularly proud of how Girl Scouts as young as middle schoolers were developing Faraday shields to foil would-be car thieves.

鈥淲e redesigned the badges around what a girl is familiar with and interested in,鈥� Acevedo explained. 鈥淥nce they鈥檙e familiar with it, they鈥檙e interested. Once they鈥檙e interested, they鈥檙e confident. And once they鈥檙e confident, they鈥檙e competent. People ask, 鈥楬ow do you teach brownies, who are seven- and eight-year-old girls, protocols, networks, and malware?鈥� We meet them where they are.鈥�

Building the Future Workforce

Acevedo said Girl Scouts is leading the largest national effort in the U.S. to teach girls 21st century skills. Gender equity is a major objective, reflected in the organization鈥檚 Fair Play, Equal Pay initiative that helps build a better future for girls in collaboration with companies like 麻豆原创.

鈥溌槎乖� was our very first partner in this,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a signal to the 1.6 million girls in our organization that 麻豆原创 is the kind of place they want to go work at. And, the kind of STEM experiences we鈥檙e developing are a great match for 麻豆原创 because they have the workforce skills that are very much needed. I鈥檓 grateful for the leadership of 麻豆原创 and what that says to their employees and the rising generation.鈥�

One thing that has not changed is the taste of those delicious Girl Scout cookies. Thanks to the organization鈥檚 latest digital transformation, customers can stock up before the end of cookie season with just a few clicks. Enjoy!

This article first appeared on the 麻豆原创 News Center.

The post 麻豆原创PHIRE NOW Unplugged: Girl Scouts Innovate Iconic Cookie Sales and More for Digital World appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

It is becoming clear that most 鈥� if not all 鈥� our major social, economic and political decisions over the next few years will be made through the prism of the coronavirus and the ripple effects of the pandemic.

Lacking the financial resources and healthcare capacity of the more developed Western countries, Africa will have to pave its own way in dealing with the crisis. To date, the continent has been spared the worst, with Europe and the US forming the current epicentres of the pandemic.

However, it is certain that we are yet to see the worst of the disease, in terms of health, social impact and the economy. While lockdown measures are evident in much of the region, public health experts are unanimous in their view that we won鈥檛 escape a surge in new infections, especially as we head into the colder winter months in many countries.

Already, the economic effects of lockdown can be felt, as informal traders and small to medium enterprises grind to a halt due to government restrictions. The effects, while impossible to fully predict, are likely to reshape the future of the continent in fundamental ways.

While our current focus is on overcoming the immediate challenge posed by the virus, I cannot help but look up and consider what awaits us beyond the horizon. And, despite the chaos and uncertainty we all presently feel, I remain highly optimistic about our collective future, both as a business leader and as an African citizen.

Inspiring an entrepreneurial spirit

Due to the digital skills divide and a number of other factors, most Africans are not actively working in the digital economy. The overwhelming majority of Africa鈥檚 citizens are informal traders, smallholder farmers and other forms of entrepreneurs.

An estimated sixty percent of Africa鈥檚 workforce are engaged in agriculture alone. The continent鈥檚 250 million smallholder farmers, working on plots of around 2ha each and earning less than $1,000 per year, produce 80% of all food consumed here. A single smallholder farmer financially supports multiple family members and makes an invaluable contribution to food security. Any intervention that supports this sector has the potential to deliver dramatic socio-economic returns.

We can see this in Nigeria, where an initiative by the Convention on Business Integrity鈥檚 for-profit arm CBi Innovations has seen the deployment of a technology tool to support 850 000 maize farmers and connect them more sustainably to the agricultural value chain.

Where countries have invested in building stronger agriculture sectors, the entire economy has been lifted. World Bank data shows that Ethiopia鈥檚 poverty levels dropped by a thirds since 2000 mainly thanks to impressive agricultural GDP growth of nearly 10% per year.

A growing and evolving continent

Africa鈥檚 population growth has been on an accelerated path for some time. Experts agree that, at current rates, the continent鈥檚 population will double by 2050. This will be accompanied by a mass urbanisation that could see rural areas empty as more citizens seek a better life in fast-growing cities.

The World Economic Forum predicts that the population in Lagos in Nigeria could pass 88 million by 2100, making it聽.

However, these oft-quoted predictions are extreme. The latest data shows that the working age population in Africa 鈥� those aged between 25 and 64 鈥� is growing faster than other age groups, which provides an opportunity for accelerate economic growth, also known as the 鈥榙emographic dividend鈥�.

How we engage, mobilise and equip this demographic dividend in service of the continent鈥檚 socio-economic goals will be instrumental in our collective effort to build a better future.

Which makes the advances in digital skills development, driven by investments from public and private sector organisations into digital skills development among teachers and students, all the more exciting.

Digital skills training crosses tipping point

With more than 700 million youth spread across 54 countries, Africa鈥檚 wealth of youthful talent is the envy of even more developed nations that face ageing 鈥� and in some cases, declining 鈥� populations.

A broad collective effort has been underway over the past few years to equip this youthful talent pool with the skills and knowledge they need to be active participants and contributors to the global digital economy.

Much of the developed world has been able to quickly shift learning to online platforms thanks to the pervasive high-speed internet connectivity and broad use of internet-enabled devices in those markets. In Africa, too many children simply don鈥檛 have that option.

Public and private sector organisations will need to build on the success that has been achieved over the past years to bring digital skills learning to more of the continent鈥檚 youth. Such efforts should focus not only on expanding access to technology among especially rural communities, but on equipping teachers and educators with the tools and knowledge they need to be effective digital learning champions.

The investments we make in training our youth today will pay huge dividends as we steer through the coming years and decades.

Diversity our greatest strength

Just as technology is supporting smallholder farmers by connecting them to better information and market opportunities, so too will we see innovations that empower female entrepreneurs to maximise their business ventures.

In the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Women鈥檚 Report, sub-Saharan Africa boasted the highest rate of female entrepreneurs at 21.8%. This against a global rate of 10.2% 鈥� in Europe, the rate drops to 6%. This means more than one in five women in Africa are engaged in some form of entrepreneurial activity.

Social entrepreneurship is also gaining ground as a more sustainable and broadly beneficial business model for addressing socio-economic challenges on the continent. In 2019, Africa hosted the Social Entrepreneurship World Forum, first established in 2007, in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. In that country alone, 55 000 social enterprises have sprung up to address a wide spectrum of challenges. Surprisingly, more than a quarter of social entrepreneurs in the country are women, compared to only 4.5% who lead mainstream Ethiopian businesses.

I believe it is our diversity and multiculturalism that gives us immense strength in innovation and resilience. Three thousand ethnic groups speaking more than two thousand languages lend the continent an unmatched richness in perspectives and lived experiences.

As a greater share of our daily work output becomes automated by more efficient machines and algorithms, we鈥檙e likely to see a shift back to those skills and qualities that make us uniquely human. Empathy, creativity, compassion, the ability to consider and engage with a diverse set of views 鈥� these are the skills that will distinguish us as we head into the coming decades.

In closing

There鈥檚 no doubt we face a difficult and uncertain road ahead. Things are likely to get worse before they get better. But we have done so much work over the past decades, achieved so much, overcome such immense socio-economic challenges, that I take heart that our continent will survive.

More than that, I believe we are well-placed to create a pan-African community with a shared vision for a more equitable future, one driven by the deeply African belief in Ubuntu. Some global analysts believe there is opportunity聽, despite our challenges.

I think Africa will chart its own course, one that is no less transformational than the so-called Chinese Miracle, but takes all our best qualities: our diversity, our natural wealth, our youthfulness, our creativity and resilience, and forges an inclusive future for all who call this continent home.

The post Why I Am Resolute in my Afro-Optimism Despite the Continent鈥檚 Challenges appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.