Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

 

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As a woman in AI, Rana has always been very aware of being “the only woman in the room” and, moving on from Affectiva, she has decided to do something about this. To this end, she is seeking out opportunities to support and encourage diversity in the tech world with the AI Fund, which is helping to invest in and build the next generation of tech giants.

“I realize how hard it is for women, under-represented founders and even under-represented ideas. I’ve become used to it and now found my voice but it took years,” she reveals.

“It’s actually awesome to be different because we need diverse people to solve problems in our world and diverse teams actually do better, financially and economically.”

Rana recounts the moment she realized she needed to work as hard on herself as her company. After starting Affectiva in 2009, she hired an experienced CEO to please investors. When he left in 2013, she didn’t put herself in the running for the role as it was not one she had held before. It was several years later, when she really drilled down into what the position entailed, that she realized she was not only qualified for the job, she was actually already doing it.

“One of my mentors said, ‘You have to convince yourself first that you’re ready’, so we did a lot of visualization exercises,” Rana explains. “And once I believed that I was ready, we took it to the board for a vote and it was unanimous to have me step into the CEO role.

“That was a big lesson – you don’t want to be your own biggest obstacle. But often women don’t raise their hand for opportunities unless they check 100 per cent of the requirements, whereas sometimes men are ready to if they check 30 per cent. I encourage the women on our team to raise their hand even if they think they’re not ready.”

Perpetuating Bias

It is not just companies that are being held back by a lack of diversity. Rana highlights the wider ethical issues for society, which are caused by the lack of women and people from minority groups in the AI workspace.

“The biggest issue in AI today is data and algorithmic bias,” she points out. “If you train any AI algorithm on data that’s not diverse, it becomes bias, and then if you deploy it around the world, scale it, you’ve accentuated the bias that exists in society by thousands of times.

“I think business leaders have to be intentional about diversity, equality and inclusion. It’s not going to happen on its own.”

“The only way to solve this is to have diverse data – and the only way to have diverse data is to have diverse people around the table saying, ‘Have you thought about including data of women who wear the hijab or guys who have beards?’ I think the more diverse the people around the table are, the more robust the solution is going to be.”

A Seat at the Table

To ensure this change happens, Rana believes companies need to take a proactive stance in recruiting, rather than hoping the right candidates will come knocking on their door. “We as business leaders need to do a better job, to reach out to underprivileged minorities who might not think they could have a career in tech,” she stresses.

“Affectiva had an incredible internship program and would get 600-plus applications for five positions. But we realised we were getting kids from private universities and schools, so decided to seek out kids who would never think to apply. Sometimes they didn’t have any coding background and we were like, ‘It’s OK, we will teach you – you just have to be a hustler, be driven and motivated’.

The pace of change is something Rana finds frustrating as she launches the AI Fund. Since establishing her startup all those year ago, she says things have not moved on as much as she would have hoped. “It’s so hard to find women investors to put money in the fund. But I’m adamant there must be women out there; even if they put in smaller cheques, I want to bring women around the table as investors and as founders.”

However, the inspiration and joy Rana gets from working with those beginning their companies through the AI Fund makes it all worthwhile and she has achieved everything – and more – she ever hoped she would when she was a teen.

And Rana admits she too gains in addition to those the Fund supports. “One of my core values is lifelong learning,” she explains. “I’m an intellectual, curious human and love learning about new things, it just feeds my brain.

“It’s definitely key for any entrepreneur who has done well, because that stops you going stale and it pushes you – sometimes you have to look outside of yourself and your own business. You have to put yourself in a spot where you’re open to random connections, to open new doors.”

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