do you ever automatically reach for your
smartphone to Google it when you hear
something new or interesting or you just
want to settle an argument
I do way too of my friends tell me
but what freaks me out is when the
answer is automatically available even
before I ask the question you know on
one side I love the convenience on the
other my FOMO
or my fear of missing out is raging what
am I not saying if Google decides what I
want it’s all around us in the news on
our devices in our school and healthcare
systems even in our homes Siri
okay Google artificial intelligence
machine learning robots chat BOTS and
other BOTS what does it really mean
should we be scared or should we be
excited you know AI
and machines can definitely do some
things better than us but does it make
them smarter and robots should take over
some jobs change others make them
simpler change the way that we think
about things or maybe it’ll just free up
some time so that we can connect and do
real stuff together and then there is
talk about when AI becomes a smart or
smarter than us and the singularity
reycarts val is the head of engineering
at Google and a futurist and he has
consistently predicted 2029 it’s only 11
years from now as the year when AI will
be as smart as us and he has set the
date of 2045 for the singularity which
is when we multiply our effective
intelligence a billion fold by merging
it with the intelligence that we have
created you know I’ve been in in the
software industry for a long time an AI
has been around for longer than that but
it’s the speed that it’s a
moving out that’s changed so we are at a
turning point and we need to decide how
we power our future now I firmly believe
that we need to use the best from both
sides and that we need to be in control
and by we I mean all of humankind
not just us geeks we need to define what
success looks like based on our
collective values and set the parameters
and decide what we actually allow
machines to do we need to create that
real connection between people and
technology a bit later I’ll talk about
steam it’s a new kind of steam that we
need to do some work on before we hit
singularity but for now technology is
going to impact all of us so what does
that look like there are some fantastic
discoveries thanks to technology did you
for example know that 3d printers can
print biodegradable scaffolding for
people with head trauma and when the
skull reforms the scaffolding
disintegrates just like that and what
about Daniel
a young man with quadriplegia his blind
who’s gaining his independence now by
using Siri to connect socially and
romantically and isn’t it fantastic when
we learned that we can improve the
accuracy of cancer diagnosis to 99.5%
but combining our ability to recognize
false positives with the machines
capacity to find those hard to spot
cases it’s not without challenges data
scientist Cathy O’Leary challenges what
she calls the blind faith in big data to
illustrate she talks about a case for an
algorithm for recruitment that was meant
to address issues with diversity but it
was based on the same definition of
success the same parameters and the same
data set so they continued to recruit
the same kind of people that are backed
by the current culture and bias she
calls for quality control and
accountability around all algorithms and
in this technology ethnography Tricia
Tricia Wang who immersed herself
in the culture and she found beyond uh
through all her qualitative research
that most young Chinese people aspired
to have a smartphone she took this to
Nokia who ignored it
because it was in big data do we have
any Nokia phones in the room today well
maybe they should have listened to those
um human insights to inform the
algorithms and then just the ugly United
Nations have recently voiced concerns
about killer robots and the AI thought
leaders are calling for AI safety do we
need it
well this AI that was programmed to do
something devastating like autonomous
weapons in warfare and then this AI that
was programmed to do something
beneficial and then it develops
destructive behave methods of getting
there like for example if you ask an
obedient intelligent car to go to the
airport as fast as possible it might do
that but you might need not expect the
consequences now there is another side
to go ugly too and it’s one we don’t
hear that much about but it could have
dire consequences and that is the lack
of diversity in the teams that build
these technologies now diversity is a
lot more than gender balance but I lose
my I lose my lived experience too to
illustrate so I googled for diversity in
technology to find an image I found a
lot of images of young men with
computers a few young women some people
from different cultural backgrounds a
couple of older guys but there were no
women of nope no images of women over 40
so basically I and the rest of the wise
women in the industry are invisible it
makes me sad when I studied computer
science 35 years ago we had 15% girls in
my ear and it was on the rise in my
first job I was the only female
programmer Provost soon joined by others
and guess what in the 90s there was
almost 30% women in key roles in the
technology business unfortunately there
has been a backwards trend and today
we’re at levels lower than the 80s in
university update
I recently met a young woman who’s doing
her second year of computer science and
she had not met any other girls in any
of her classes but was it always like
this
Kazu eyes back to 1840 that’s nearly 200
years ago Ada Lovelace is considered by
many to be the first-ever computer
programmer and we rolled forward to the
1940s most of the coders were women
women were actively recruited to program
key machines like this US Army and yak
and if you seen the movie hidden figures
we follow the journeys of three
trailblazing women of color who were
employed by NASA they plotted the launch
and landing of the first man to orbit
Earth taught themselves the program and
took over the entire programming
Department so what’s happened in the
industry a lot of things but in around
the 70s there was a realization that
programming and software would probably
have a bigger impact on the future than
what Hardware did so there’s been a
power play and women have been
discouraged from entering the industry
and those who are in the industry often
feel alienated and end up leaving and
this wasn’t helped by the emergence of
the personal computer and gaming in the
eighties which was appealed a lot more
to young boys and men who then gotten a
bridge in in work and study so the girls
felt left out so what can you and I do
about this do we get our kids to do STEM
subjects that’s science technology
engineering and maths skills of the
future no doubt we all need to
understand technology in this day and
age but we all need to be programmers
evidence has no diverse multi-skilled
teams are much more effective at
delivering solutions that work on time
so we need a new approach to shift the
way we do things a new way to power our
future we need to bring in the skills
from the arts and humanities into the
STEM landscape to create the right kind
of fuel
a stem plus arts I told you would get
the same because if we want to build
technologies that are humane and
meaningful and solve real world problems
we need not only the deep technical
expertise we need compassion for the
user critical thinking design languages
focus on quality a deep understanding of
any subject matter and a collaborative
mindset these are skills that don’t
generally see that the core of stem the
parts of the arts and the humanities and
often attract a more diverse cohort and
then that are so important for change
and transformation as we grapple with
the infiltration of technology
influencing our everyday decisions it
becomes even more important to get that
diversity in steam power was a catalyst
for the first Industrial Revolution and
we need this new kind of steam to power
our future and underpin the technologies
we create so how do we power up this
theme we need role models over the last
few years I’ve noticed that a number of
people in my industry opted for a more
colorful approach than within the more
visible easier to spot often highly
respected many of these people come from
non tech backgrounds so they’re kind of
opening the door and forging their way
I’m not about to dye my hair anytime
soon but I promise you I will do
everything in my power to stay visible
and be a role model it is absolutely
critical that we all do because one of
the biggest inhibitors of change is that
you cannot be what you cannot see so if
we have a more colorful vibrant
confident group of people of different
of all ages genders abilities and
cultures then we showcase this the
options and the potential that are so
essential to drive change in the
workplace in the community and in
education now let’s talk about education
for a mo
and many of us have been inspired by
teachers or mentors that we’ve come
across on our journeys they have been
fundamental to our beliefs about
ourselves and the world around us in
primary school I had the most fantastic
teacher who looked at all the
individuals and brought us back together
to collaboratively assess that everybody
benefited and in my teens I attended a
local village school in Africa where my
team and I got to build a solar cooker
from cardboard and Alfred we showcased
it at the annual town fair frying eggs
and we won the top science prize what a
thrill you know I still have that
scientific calculator it was a big
influencer in me choosing career in
technology I believe that every child
deserves experiences like this to show
them the options and help them carve
their path and I know most educators try
to give the children the mindset and the
tools to achieve this but they’re often
faced with a new set of challenges that
we need to address now before we go full
steam ahead firstly they have to assess
academic capabilities based on really
rigid frameworks and then they have to
massage the data to satisfy school
administrators now this takes focus and
time away from the students and can
result in teaching the old ways rather
than new skills such as critical
thinking or questioning the Y secondly
children who grow up there I don’t even
know where world with our technology and
they have a whole new set of
expectations despite every desire and
intent to stay on top most teachers
struggle to juggle the time between
student interaction and upskilling
themselves and if they’re a little bit
more mature or wise that it can be
daunting to experiment with technologies
and last but not least you know teachers
do so much more
than teach and it can be life-changing
for their students
when this Chicago teacher received a
phone call at 2:00 a.m. for a foot from
a former student who was going through
some struggles and needed to get a job
fair the next day not only did she take
her there and look after the baby she
started a crowdfunding campaign for them
you know this is the kind of unselfish
action that I see from so many of our
educators when their students past or
present struggle for whatever reason
they’re there whether it’s expected or
not our educators have a significant
impact on who we become and we need to
support them and recognize them and give
them the systems and time to stay on top
and be current and be the leading
learners they so naturally are these
teachers they despite all the challenges
they still inspire a diverse and
inclusive world that values all kinds of
skills evenly and they are crucial to
building the steam we need to power our
future and speaking of our future I have
a dream I have a dream that every little
boy and girl wake up in the morning and
think I can do anything and when they do
that anything we applaud we urge them
forward we support them to be themselves
I have a dream where machine and human
intelligence were hand-in-hand to create
a more connected world and in that world
our collective values are at the core of
everything that we build so let’s build
a steam engine and go on a journey
together
it’s a journey where we celebrate
differences because we realize that our
little differences are what makes the
world go around and if we want to shape
our future we need people with different
skills and experiences and
effectives it’s a journey that values
arts and stem equally and evolves into
steam before we reach singularity you
know as we storm into this fourth
Industrial Revolution where we’re
merging our physical digital and
biological spheres into what’s been
termed as the cyber physical systems we
need this new kind of steam with
diversity and inclusion so much more to
underpin all the technologies we create
to make sure they’re humane and
meaningful and to create a positive
future and power a positive future where
everybody feels welcome and valued I
wake up every morning to inspire and
empower people around me so that we
together can create a more connected
world a world possibly powered by steam
I’m ready to get on our steam engine now
how about you will you come with me our future needs us right now thank you
smartphone to Google it when you hear
something new or interesting or you just
want to settle an argument
I do way too of my friends tell me
but what freaks me out is when the
answer is automatically available even
before I ask the question you know on
one side I love the convenience on the
other my FOMO
or my fear of missing out is raging what
am I not saying if Google decides what I
want it’s all around us in the news on
our devices in our school and healthcare
systems even in our homes Siri
okay Google artificial intelligence
machine learning robots chat BOTS and
other BOTS what does it really mean
should we be scared or should we be
excited you know AI
and machines can definitely do some
things better than us but does it make
them smarter and robots should take over
some jobs change others make them
simpler change the way that we think
about things or maybe it’ll just free up
some time so that we can connect and do
real stuff together and then there is
talk about when AI becomes a smart or
smarter than us and the singularity
reycarts val is the head of engineering
at Google and a futurist and he has
consistently predicted 2029 it’s only 11
years from now as the year when AI will
be as smart as us and he has set the
date of 2045 for the singularity which
is when we multiply our effective
intelligence a billion fold by merging
it with the intelligence that we have
created you know I’ve been in in the
software industry for a long time an AI
has been around for longer than that but
it’s the speed that it’s a
moving out that’s changed so we are at a
turning point and we need to decide how
we power our future now I firmly believe
that we need to use the best from both
sides and that we need to be in control
and by we I mean all of humankind
not just us geeks we need to define what
success looks like based on our
collective values and set the parameters
and decide what we actually allow
machines to do we need to create that
real connection between people and
technology a bit later I’ll talk about
steam it’s a new kind of steam that we
need to do some work on before we hit
singularity but for now technology is
going to impact all of us so what does
that look like there are some fantastic
discoveries thanks to technology did you
for example know that 3d printers can
print biodegradable scaffolding for
people with head trauma and when the
skull reforms the scaffolding
disintegrates just like that and what
about Daniel
a young man with quadriplegia his blind
who’s gaining his independence now by
using Siri to connect socially and
romantically and isn’t it fantastic when
we learned that we can improve the
accuracy of cancer diagnosis to 99.5%
but combining our ability to recognize
false positives with the machines
capacity to find those hard to spot
cases it’s not without challenges data
scientist Cathy O’Leary challenges what
she calls the blind faith in big data to
illustrate she talks about a case for an
algorithm for recruitment that was meant
to address issues with diversity but it
was based on the same definition of
success the same parameters and the same
data set so they continued to recruit
the same kind of people that are backed
by the current culture and bias she
calls for quality control and
accountability around all algorithms and
in this technology ethnography Tricia
Tricia Wang who immersed herself
in the culture and she found beyond uh
through all her qualitative research
that most young Chinese people aspired
to have a smartphone she took this to
Nokia who ignored it
because it was in big data do we have
any Nokia phones in the room today well
maybe they should have listened to those
um human insights to inform the
algorithms and then just the ugly United
Nations have recently voiced concerns
about killer robots and the AI thought
leaders are calling for AI safety do we
need it
well this AI that was programmed to do
something devastating like autonomous
weapons in warfare and then this AI that
was programmed to do something
beneficial and then it develops
destructive behave methods of getting
there like for example if you ask an
obedient intelligent car to go to the
airport as fast as possible it might do
that but you might need not expect the
consequences now there is another side
to go ugly too and it’s one we don’t
hear that much about but it could have
dire consequences and that is the lack
of diversity in the teams that build
these technologies now diversity is a
lot more than gender balance but I lose
my I lose my lived experience too to
illustrate so I googled for diversity in
technology to find an image I found a
lot of images of young men with
computers a few young women some people
from different cultural backgrounds a
couple of older guys but there were no
women of nope no images of women over 40
so basically I and the rest of the wise
women in the industry are invisible it
makes me sad when I studied computer
science 35 years ago we had 15% girls in
my ear and it was on the rise in my
first job I was the only female
programmer Provost soon joined by others
and guess what in the 90s there was
almost 30% women in key roles in the
technology business unfortunately there
has been a backwards trend and today
we’re at levels lower than the 80s in
university update
I recently met a young woman who’s doing
her second year of computer science and
she had not met any other girls in any
of her classes but was it always like
this
Kazu eyes back to 1840 that’s nearly 200
years ago Ada Lovelace is considered by
many to be the first-ever computer
programmer and we rolled forward to the
1940s most of the coders were women
women were actively recruited to program
key machines like this US Army and yak
and if you seen the movie hidden figures
we follow the journeys of three
trailblazing women of color who were
employed by NASA they plotted the launch
and landing of the first man to orbit
Earth taught themselves the program and
took over the entire programming
Department so what’s happened in the
industry a lot of things but in around
the 70s there was a realization that
programming and software would probably
have a bigger impact on the future than
what Hardware did so there’s been a
power play and women have been
discouraged from entering the industry
and those who are in the industry often
feel alienated and end up leaving and
this wasn’t helped by the emergence of
the personal computer and gaming in the
eighties which was appealed a lot more
to young boys and men who then gotten a
bridge in in work and study so the girls
felt left out so what can you and I do
about this do we get our kids to do STEM
subjects that’s science technology
engineering and maths skills of the
future no doubt we all need to
understand technology in this day and
age but we all need to be programmers
evidence has no diverse multi-skilled
teams are much more effective at
delivering solutions that work on time
so we need a new approach to shift the
way we do things a new way to power our
future we need to bring in the skills
from the arts and humanities into the
STEM landscape to create the right kind
of fuel
a stem plus arts I told you would get
the same because if we want to build
technologies that are humane and
meaningful and solve real world problems
we need not only the deep technical
expertise we need compassion for the
user critical thinking design languages
focus on quality a deep understanding of
any subject matter and a collaborative
mindset these are skills that don’t
generally see that the core of stem the
parts of the arts and the humanities and
often attract a more diverse cohort and
then that are so important for change
and transformation as we grapple with
the infiltration of technology
influencing our everyday decisions it
becomes even more important to get that
diversity in steam power was a catalyst
for the first Industrial Revolution and
we need this new kind of steam to power
our future and underpin the technologies
we create so how do we power up this
theme we need role models over the last
few years I’ve noticed that a number of
people in my industry opted for a more
colorful approach than within the more
visible easier to spot often highly
respected many of these people come from
non tech backgrounds so they’re kind of
opening the door and forging their way
I’m not about to dye my hair anytime
soon but I promise you I will do
everything in my power to stay visible
and be a role model it is absolutely
critical that we all do because one of
the biggest inhibitors of change is that
you cannot be what you cannot see so if
we have a more colorful vibrant
confident group of people of different
of all ages genders abilities and
cultures then we showcase this the
options and the potential that are so
essential to drive change in the
workplace in the community and in
education now let’s talk about education
for a mo
and many of us have been inspired by
teachers or mentors that we’ve come
across on our journeys they have been
fundamental to our beliefs about
ourselves and the world around us in
primary school I had the most fantastic
teacher who looked at all the
individuals and brought us back together
to collaboratively assess that everybody
benefited and in my teens I attended a
local village school in Africa where my
team and I got to build a solar cooker
from cardboard and Alfred we showcased
it at the annual town fair frying eggs
and we won the top science prize what a
thrill you know I still have that
scientific calculator it was a big
influencer in me choosing career in
technology I believe that every child
deserves experiences like this to show
them the options and help them carve
their path and I know most educators try
to give the children the mindset and the
tools to achieve this but they’re often
faced with a new set of challenges that
we need to address now before we go full
steam ahead firstly they have to assess
academic capabilities based on really
rigid frameworks and then they have to
massage the data to satisfy school
administrators now this takes focus and
time away from the students and can
result in teaching the old ways rather
than new skills such as critical
thinking or questioning the Y secondly
children who grow up there I don’t even
know where world with our technology and
they have a whole new set of
expectations despite every desire and
intent to stay on top most teachers
struggle to juggle the time between
student interaction and upskilling
themselves and if they’re a little bit
more mature or wise that it can be
daunting to experiment with technologies
and last but not least you know teachers
do so much more
than teach and it can be life-changing
for their students
when this Chicago teacher received a
phone call at 2:00 a.m. for a foot from
a former student who was going through
some struggles and needed to get a job
fair the next day not only did she take
her there and look after the baby she
started a crowdfunding campaign for them
you know this is the kind of unselfish
action that I see from so many of our
educators when their students past or
present struggle for whatever reason
they’re there whether it’s expected or
not our educators have a significant
impact on who we become and we need to
support them and recognize them and give
them the systems and time to stay on top
and be current and be the leading
learners they so naturally are these
teachers they despite all the challenges
they still inspire a diverse and
inclusive world that values all kinds of
skills evenly and they are crucial to
building the steam we need to power our
future and speaking of our future I have
a dream I have a dream that every little
boy and girl wake up in the morning and
think I can do anything and when they do
that anything we applaud we urge them
forward we support them to be themselves
I have a dream where machine and human
intelligence were hand-in-hand to create
a more connected world and in that world
our collective values are at the core of
everything that we build so let’s build
a steam engine and go on a journey
together
it’s a journey where we celebrate
differences because we realize that our
little differences are what makes the
world go around and if we want to shape
our future we need people with different
skills and experiences and
effectives it’s a journey that values
arts and stem equally and evolves into
steam before we reach singularity you
know as we storm into this fourth
Industrial Revolution where we’re
merging our physical digital and
biological spheres into what’s been
termed as the cyber physical systems we
need this new kind of steam with
diversity and inclusion so much more to
underpin all the technologies we create
to make sure they’re humane and
meaningful and to create a positive
future and power a positive future where
everybody feels welcome and valued I
wake up every morning to inspire and
empower people around me so that we
together can create a more connected
world a world possibly powered by steam
I’m ready to get on our steam engine now
how about you will you come with me our future needs us right now thank you
Please follow and like us: