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Advice for women starting out in AI and tech
Video and transcript
As part of our inspiring women in AI series of interviews, Kelly Vero, Dr. Gry Hasselbalch, and Dr. Sandra K. Johnson share their advice and tips on starting with AI and working in the tech sectors.
Transcript and audio description
All shots of interviewees are face-on in an internal office environment.
Kelly Vero: I'm Kelly Vero and I am a game developer with a digital fashion factory startup who is also the author of Breaking Through Bytes.
Gry Hasselbalch: I am Gry Hasselbalch. I am the author of Human Power: Seven Traits for the Politics of the AI Machine Age. I'm an academic. I have a PhD in data ethics and power, AI ethics.
Sandra K. Johnson: I am Sandra Johnson. I am an electrical and computer engineer. The first African American woman to earn a PhD in computer engineering.
Kelly: Find the area that you feel the most comfortable in. Even though I've got game technology experience, I was able to apply the knowledge into building my own startup.
I think it's important to first of all discover that discoverability. What makes you excited about AI and then follow that career pathway or explore the possibilities that lie within that space.
Gry: In both in businesses and in all fields that men are really good at creating alliances and little communities where they kind of help and support each other. And I think women could be a lot better at that.
So I do think that if you're a young, for example, person that wants to start working, with AI, then the first thing to do is to maybe try to reach out to women that's been for a longer time in the field. And if you're a woman who has worked for a longer time in the field, you should be better at reaching out to other women, younger women, and supporting and helping out.
Sandra: Know what you were born to do. Know your purpose. Know your destiny. Not all of us do. So if you don't spend time knowing what that is, and then move forward to put your plan in place.
Kelly: I think professional continuous development is very important. We're all starting now to introduce AI into our workplaces. So what things about those particular tools that been introduced into the workplace, excite and inspire?
So it's about really driving the inspirational part, maybe the aspiration through women who have achieved. We're pretty open to being able to have conversations with people who want to work in these spaces. And then I think, you know, it's important to be able to find your tribe, who, where and how can you get support?
Is it through friends? Are you part of a coding group? Do you have meetups to discuss Love Island, but also on the sly, you have conversations about code or Nerf technology or whatever? I certainly do with people in my social group.
So I think it's important to find people that you connect with, first of all, and then figure out, you know, what are those pain points that we could work on together?
There is no limit to the age at which you can change your career or your life or your outlook on anything. No one is telling you that you're past it or you should have started doing this.
Sandra: You are the captain of your ship.
You steer it in the direction that you feel it needs to go. Yes, find others along the way who will help you guide it and steer it, but stay focused on your ultimate destination because there will be others who will try to get you to veer off course. You will run into obstacles. And in those situations, you may have to go around them, through them, over them, under them.
But in some instances, you may have to go backwards. But stay focused on your purpose and your destiny. And eventually, that ship will steer back in the direction that you wanted to go to keep going forward.
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