101 quotes found
"Math and theoretical computer science force you to be precise."
"Ambiguity is a bug in mathematics. If I give you a proof and it’s vague, then it’s not complete. On the algorithmic side of things, it forces you to be very explicit about what your goals are and what the input is."
"Mechanism design is like if you had an algorithm designed, but you were aware that the input data is something that could be strategically manipulated. So you’re trying to create something that’s robust to that. This is a wonderful approach, incorporating robustness into the process of designing inputs."
"I never thought of myself as someone who works in education but somehow I keep coming back to it so there’s got to be something there."
"I keep coming back to education because it is an important test case for understanding the broader issues we have been talking about, such as deciding who gets to set the objective function and how it is set."
"I keep coming back to is poverty because ultimately, whether or not an individual lives in poverty determines their access to education, housing, healthcare, and is therefore a root cause of many issues in these areas."
"Misrepresentation or underrepresentation in data sets can lead to invisibility which can perpetuate or even amplify social and economic disparities."
"It is a great honour for me to return to K-State, an institution where I benefited from, and learnt the value of partnerships in science."
"I witnessed the daily struggle of communities trying to eke a living from their land while fighting a losing battle with pests and other factors."
"I feel extremely fortunate to be recognised by many organisations from different parts of the world."
"I am always aware that my personal efforts have been backed by immense support by researchers, graduate students, other staff, partners, my family, and global partners."
"It is a great privilege to receive an award that combines two of my passions: science and agriculture."
"Much of my scientific career has focussed on using molecular tools to address agricultural constraints."
"I have been continually inspired by the possibility of changing the lives of farmers, moving from a vicious cycle of struggle to a virtuous one of prosperity."
"While icipe generates high quality, world class knowledge, the Centre’s most authentic strength is the success in transforming livelihoods of numerous endusers including farmers."
"Ask Africa—Can Agribiotech Make the Difference."
"They are there everywhere, small and big."
"I consider myself very blessed and fortunate."
"I'm hyper, It's difficult for me to sit and relax."
"I read a lot of biographies."
"Life is always a lesson Every day, I learn from everybody."
"It takes a village to raise a child, as our African sayings go... and it takes a global village to generate a successful scientist."
"Without enough food everything else slides down the priority list. That is why I chose to study agricultural sciences."
"I realized when I was in my first year of university that lifting people out of poverty first and foremost begins with modernizing agriculture and providing access to nutritious and adequate food to all. That is the basis and building block for any development and progress."
"Being back in my continent and working to solve production, environmental and health constraints facing my fellow Africans is very rewarding and fulfilling."
"People can positively respond to skills, experience and knowledge, and anything else can be made irrelevant."
"Gender inequality is a global phenomenon, and I am not immune to that. I think in my case, race played more than gender and when the two are combined, they have a compounded effect. However, I worked very hard to make these “two issues” be eclipsed by my skills, strong work ethics, delivery and a strong track record. It is possible to overcome these through hard work and excellence."
"Careers in science can be taxing and highly demanding especially when you must raise all the funds you need to do the job. It requires dedicating long hours to work. However, it is exhilarating and rewarding."
"You can use science to solve the most critical problems faced by society. You save lives, you improve the quality of life, you tackle environmental issues and so on. What other profession can be more rewarding than this?"
"We need to boost women's participation in graduate programs at MSc and PhD levels and provide support and well-planned strategies for a career path and growth."
"I give advice all the time...Some of the advice includes: not to despair when experiments don’t work (that is why you do the experiment, to figure out how to do it and to find answers); that science is very rewarding; that you can create a fulfilling career in science and do the things you love to do and contribute to society; that science knowledge is empowering and uplifting; that women are meticulous scientists; that you can balance work-family demands; believe in yourself and in your capacity to be a brilliant scientist, be assertive..."
"The value of investment in science and the appreciation of scientists cannot be overemphasized for our well-being and that of our planet."
"you can do it!” You are truly capable! You are going to accomplish it for sure! You are going to excel.” This was a great ingredient injected in my blood to motivate my soul in everything I do"
"As the saying goes success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. This taught me that life is not always a straight-line and that challenges are the way to move forward in life as it would have been very boring otherwise"
"Ofcourse as part of the human element there are individual differences in pursuing goals, but I always tried to pursue the best in whatever that comes to my table which is an added value and a cumulative result to my success today."
"I believe women not only here but all over the world face double and triple-fold challenges due to societal, cultural and other baggages."
"Passion in my view is to do the best you can in whatever position you are in. Since childhood I used to do things only that feel comfortable to my soul and the biggest one was knowledge; knowledge about mathematics, the universe, science, nature and so on, therefore as a young girl I was confused which one to choose to pursue my education further, because everything seemed equally fascinating. However, as I grew up, I started to focus on one because I understood that I cannot be a master of all."
"Therefore, first a woman has to stand and feel comfortable in her own feet/skin and then when facing challenges she should take a wise decision. A woman should avoid dependency at any level, which does not mean she doesn’t have to request for support. What I mean is she needs to thrive and die trying so that she knows the thickness of her skin"
"Feels like a gold rush."
"A lot of the people who are making money are not the people actually in the midst of it."
"It’s humans who decide whether all this should be done or not."
"We should remember that we have the agency to do that."
"Impacts people all over the world and they don’t get to have a say on how they should shape it."
"Overrepresent hegemonic viewpoints and encode biases potentially damaging to marginalised populations."
"You don’t want someone like me who’s going to get in your way."
"I think it made it really clear that unless there is external pressure to do something different, companies are not just going to self regulate."
"We need regulation and we need something better than just a profit motive."
"I’ve met so many people like you who think that they can just come here from other countries and take the hardest classes."
"I was being attacked by a bunch of guys, and nobody helped me at all."
"That was the scariest thing."
"We aim to expose the harms of the current AI system, serving as an early warning system to stop their spread."
"We focus on where AI tools are being experimented with before they get to the rest of the society and uncover what happens to the people."
"My hope is that our work counteracts the drive to centralize power and disenfranchise human beings."
"AI tools that actually help people and not try to replace them."
"The primary motivation with all of these AI technologies is either to have more warfare or to have more profit."
"I want a different kind of root motivation for technology that puts human welfare first."
"That’s not the world I want to live in."
"I want to live in a world where we’re not trying to disenfranchise humans or devalue labor."
"Iwant to live in a world where instead of there being one company in one place in the world with one dominant model."
"We have many people who are each working to support their communities in some way and sharing profits back."
"Generative AI is not just about creating something new, but about capturing what was once impossible to express.”"
"What I’ve realized is that we can talk about the ethics and fairness of AI all we want, but if our institutions don’t allow for this kind of work to take place, then it won’t.”"
"“Even at places like Stanford, we have too much concentrated power that is impacting the world, and yet the world has no opportunity to affect how technology is being developed.""
"My aim is to democratize technology."
"Ethiopia’s youth have no lack of ideas, energy or ambition,but they can’t fulfil their potential alone. What we see in Ethiopia is a lack of co-creation centres where like-minded people can come together and create and innovate."
"More than that, it’s about equipping kids to cope in the 21st century,It’s about problem solving, analytical thinking and self-learning, as well as digital literacy. It means understanding how the internet works, how to get information from it, how to identify wrong and false information, how to keep your privacy and make sure your data is not being used. We think these are really important lessons, especially in this day and age."
"The girls get the coding education but also other skills and the necessary knowledge to keep themselves away from problems – or at least be aware enough to report them."
"It doesn’t matter if you went to a great university – what matters is if you have a computer, access to the internet and the drive to achieve."
"I think now they understand the value of the quality of the education that’s provided, and the enabling environment for entrepreneurs in Ethiopia. It’s a struggle every day, but we have seen a lot of progress."
"Teaching young girls coding and seeing them become confident and inspired reminded me of how I felt when I started coding."
"The biggest thing we have in Africa is a young generation. So if we train the young generation in tech, we’ll be able to build something that is everlasting."
"Parents have an expectation of what you should be — if you’re a good student, you’re a doctor, you’re not an engineer or in the computer science field... They haven’t seen any female being in STEM and being successful."
"But the sad thing is, even if they want to, they won’t be able to apply it after they finish their high school education."
"Technology inspires you. Having that feeling of freedom and being able to do something gives you that sense of accomplishment and that sense of accomplishment drives you to do more things that you love, more things that excite you."
"The boys imagine more, they want to do something that’s big and inspired, the girls they really want to help their community from the core."
"Unless you really are in the industry, there is no one to look up to in technology."
"Who can solve the problem of a female if she cannot tell you the problem, and find her own solution?"
"Thank you Dr. Artist Tewodros Kassahun for supporting our effort to build the creative economy for the generation to come."
"I believes we can grow as a continent regardless of our several challenges and barriers, to disrupt the tech scene on a global scale."
"I used to constantly find myself at the office late at night and challenged by transport hurdles while heading to my home. I used to feel unsafe while taking a taxi…the driver also asks you to pay more than two times the price they charge in a day."
"Women-owned business are growing in number; now we need more young girls to access the finances to make their creative ideas happen.""
"Explore how our privilege, identity and power shape inequality and encourage students to tap into their humanity first and foremost when faced with decisions that can either widen or narrow those inequalities."
"I am deeply honored to join the extraordinary GH5050 Advisory Council that is guiding the work of a small but mighty GH5050 team working relentlessly to make gender equality the norm through evidence, action, and accountability."
"I have always been a person who speaks up about things that matter. To me, what has always mattered in addition to patient care and research and teaching, is social justice. At Michigan, a university where social justice is core value, I was able to learn how much can be accomplished through collaboration with people in every corner of the university."
"Professor Ryan’s course helped shape how I think about bioethics in my day-to-day work and the career path I’ve ultimately chosen to follow. The students at SIU are the future doctors and lawyers who will determine the landscape of health care and justice in our country. They will inevitably be faced with daily ethical quandaries that will have real impact on whether people live or die, whether they thrive or struggle. That is a tremendous amount of power."
"I will keep doing it whether you put me in jail, or you kill me. I'll die doing what I believe."
"I tell them my own story—how I grew up, went to school, how I struggled, and how I was mutilated."
"I am from them. I speak from reality. I touch their reality."
"There is no prescription. You make a commitment, then everything you do speaks to you if you are willing to listen. For social change, you must go to the people, to really listen to them and learn from them. It is all about commitment. As a young girl when I spoke to elders, I had to look at their feet, not their faces. As an adult, I stood in front of a congregation of 800 men, women and children. I said female genital mutilation is not prescribed in the Bible or the Koran. So where did the practice come from? Why are we ‘correcting’ God’s work? Everything is contextual."
"When speaking to women about equality, it was a total awakening. When they said they have no recourse if their husbands beat them, I explained their constitutional, legal and human rights. We learned how to link the political, economic and social problems that affect women’s lives. They have the capacity to change. But real change must happen within communities. Everyone must teach each other and learn that what is good for women and girls is good for the community."
"From birth they need equal opportunities to help them understand that their intrinsic value is the same as men. Education is key, even though they are expected to follow in their mothers’ footsteps and perform household chores for their entire lives. It’s working. Just last week we awarded 390 girls with above a 3.5 grade point average. They will go to university. If a girl is given an equal footing, she will find her own space and voice in life."
"Women were regarded as no better than the cows they milked, My mother’s life was a nightmare. I don’t know how she survived. She was a very intelligent, very wise woman, but all her life she was abused and beaten – for nothing. She had her back stooped, her legs broken, her jaw broken, even though she did everything right."
"Yes, I could have had a better house and gone jogging on the beach or gone to a spa every weekend, But is that what life is all about? Could I have stayed there knowing my sisters were being cut and abducted and turned into servants?"
"In the long run, stronger women create stronger communities, stronger women create a stronger nation, and stronger women create a stronger Africa."
"Daddy, you lived your time. This is our period, our children’s period. We don’t want to kill our children. I hope you are wise enough to accept that."
"A future where human dignity, justice, peace, kindness, care, and rights and freedoms for all serve as the north stars that guide AI development and use is possible, but that future can’t appear out of thin air and without intentional tireless work, continual dialogues, and most importantly, confronting ugly realities including big tech and government use of AI and infrastructure to power genocide and enable mass surveillance. The Declaration we produced and presented to Pope Leo XIV is an important move towards this future."
"I was so sympathetic to those people, It was in grade 4. My Amharic teacher asked us what we wanted to be – I said I should be a nurse so I can treat these people."
"Globally, there are very few women scientists who are advancing to the highest levels. The pipeline is leaking, and it leaks most at the top."
"We are in a society where nobody trusts that women can do it, it’s so challenging here. There’s the family burden, the social burden, and of course one’s career. Maybe it’s the way I was raised in the eastern part of Ethiopia."
"When I face a challenge, I always find a way. I’m the kind of person who never gives up."
"Dr Aster is an outstanding and exemplary teacher and a good role model who pushes her students to aspire to greater heights while lending them every possible support within her means."