Rana el Kaliouby is a woman in charge in a field that is still overwhelmingly white and male and a successful entrepreneur that left Egypt for Cambridge, UK and ultimately USA, proudly celebrating her identity wherever she traveled.
Growing up in Egypt and Kuwait, el Kaliouby was raised by a conservative father who valued tradition – yet also had high expectations for his daughters – and a mother who was one of the first female computer programmers in the Middle East.
To combat our fundamental loss of emotional intelligence online, Rana co-founded Affectiva, the pioneer in the new field of Emotion AI, allowing technology to understand humans the way we understand one another.
Affectiva’s goal is to bring emotional intelligence to the digital world with their emotion recognition software.
She wrote “Girl Decoded” to show us her journey from a “nice Egyptian girl” to a woman carving her own path as she revolutionizes technology.
Rana is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), a member of the Boston Steering Committee for All Raise, and a senior advisor for the Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Project, which is based at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. She co-hosted a PBS NOVA Series, “NOVA Wonders,” and is also featured in the YouTube Originals Series, “The Age of AI,” hosted by Robert Downey Jr.
She’s managed to conquer all kinds of impressive goals, including getting featured in Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards 2015, Forbes: America’s Top 50 Women in Tech, Top 30 Women in AI: Us Edition, Fortune’s 40 under 40to name a few.
Girl Decoded– order from your favorite online retailer or local bookstore. To learn more about Rana, visit her website here and follow her on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.