All Quotes

"Second, as I prepare for question period, I look around the table and all I see is men. Inexplicably, your Committee itself is composed entirely of men. Yes, I realize that you have called upon a number of women to testify during the course of these proceedings. This, of course, makes sense. After all, a significant majority of privacy professionals are women. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that global thought-leadership in the field of privacy is, by majority, the result of contributions made by women. So I find it astonishing and unjustifiable that you have no women on your Committee, a decision as incomprehensible as any made by an algorithm. And so, I feel compelled to close my remarks by making this observation a part of the public record."

"I am proud of my teaching scores (which are consistently between "above average" and "excellent" for all classes that I teach). These scores are listed below for your information. I work really hard on the classes I teach both because teaching is important to me and because I am enthusiastic about computer science, especially artificial intelligence and robotics, and I want the students to be as enthusiastic about these topics as I am. Four of my teaching assistants won best teaching assistant awards."

"I am listing the scores for the question "Overall, how would you rate this instructor?" for ALL course evaluations available at www.usc.edu/course-eval in 2010 and earlier and some additional ones. The scores mean: 1 = poor, 2 = below average, 3 = average, 4 = above average, 5 = excellent. The scores of on-campus and DEN (= Distance Education Network) students get reported separately. Three scores means that I taught two sections since there are two scores for on-campus students and one for DEN students."

"I wanted to help a larger group of students with skill building that I had identified as lacking, partly through my own experiences. The name of the non-profit organisation is a play on Swahili words meaning ‘whole education.’"

"There’s too much pressure to decide what you want to be too early. Take your time to discover the areas of real interest. They often come later and that was my experience."

"I realized how much research and innovation are intertwined. Through my doctoral journey, I was inspired to increase my impact in innovation; thus, I consider myself a computer scientist who is a researcher, educator and mentor."

"One of the biggest challenges I have faced as an African researcher is the inability to produce research output consistently. This is partly due to limited avenues for relevant funding and increased workload."

"Strengthen your personal and professional skills to excel in STEM. To succeed in STEM, you cannot focus on technical skills alone. For example, learning how to communicate your science through public speaking and professional writing will enable you to explain your technical work to mixed audiences, experts, and non-experts. Learning how to write winning applications for grants and scholarships will open doors for expanding your training or networks."

"For the foreseeable future, sound programming skills will be crucial in STEM subjects, especially at a foundation level. As long as this situation persists and students’ access to mobile phones and tablets grows, the techniques developed through this project could offer a smart solution that allows the continent to keep producing young programmers."

"This is a very unique opportunity to work on ethical issues in a new technology on such a scale. It comes at a point in time when AI is on the forefront of a large number of both scientific and public debates. We have the chance to work on AI ethics issues in detail, and not just by doing research behind closed doors, but with an outreach to civil society, politics, and the corporate world."

"First, I always state that there are no obligations whatsoever towards Facebook. The new institute is an independent research institute, which will also have an independent Advisory Board with no members of Facebook sitting on it. The money comes as a gift for research. It will be used to help make AI systems more ethical, not just by putting together some abstract principles, but by working on concrete issues, like algorithms, systems, robots or screening technologies, for example. Therefore, if the money from Facebook can be employed for advancing ethics and bringing (ethical) benefits to the users of AI (which we all either soon will be or already are), it will be beneficial for all sides."

"When sitting on the German federal ethics committee for autonomous driving, I had a lot of discussions with representatives from automotive companies who felt the same way about this kind of technology: They were equally looking for academia and government to help them address ethical problems. There are some problems a single company – or even industry as a whole – cannot address on their own: These range from questions like how to organize AI accountability issues to very fundamental philosophical problems such as: How much dependence on certain technologies are we willing to accept as a society?"

"If innovation is considerably stifled, it cannot bring about its ethical potential."

"This is not a simple yes or no question. In general however, I believe regulation should be approached with caution at this point. The digitech markets are still very dynamic, and that has to be taken into account. It should also be clear beforehand that specific regulation would achieve the goals it aims at and not be counterproductive: if innovation is considerably stifled, it cannot bring about its ethical potential. Therefore, I favor an approach that relies on ethical guidelines first, and in which all parts of society participate."

"There is still a lot of critical discussion on the GDPR in Europe, and there are some valid arguments in it. I believe however that on the overall, the GDPR can become a tool for improving trust in digital technologies without putting the brakes on them. It could become a sort of blueprint for other regions of the world, as it sets a relatively clear regulatory framework for people to sell their data. This issue is certainly seen in a more liberal way in the US, where the use of data is not considered per se as problematic as in Germany, in particular. But still, there are a lot of critics in the US too, and a – revised and refined – GDPR could address these."

"The digital world is a mirror of society in many ways. Of course, there are a lot of activities going on which people would not openly admit to, some of them illegal, certainly. However, I am not sure that privacy (and in particular, privacy with respect to illegal activities) has increased when compared to the non-digital world. Was it not worse in a time when dictatorships around the world could shield their citizens from information from the outside or when companies could hide their activities easily without having to worry about the power of social networks? So in this regard, I believe we cannot complain about too much privacy in the digital world – in some ways at least, we had more privacy in the old days, with bad consequences sometimes. Still, I agree of course that disclosure of information is essential in many digital contexts and too much privacy can have bad consequences too."

"“If we’re not authentic in being scientists, and not doing research that follows local problems and our local culture, then at some point, we will just become another US or another France, and that will be very boring. Hopefully that will not happen here. And then we will be vibrant and do a different kind of science. People will say: ‘Wow, why didn’t this happen sooner?’”"

"“The hardest part about being a female entrepreneur is that you will definitely need to work twice as hard as a man to succeed. People will tend to underestimate you. But at some point, you should be unapologetic about your leadership. Just get the work done. Show your organizational skills.”"

"“Gender bias is an issue for women everywhere, and here I also encounter bias against young people. I try to overcome these biases by speaking through my work. It’s not my personality to promote myself on social media as an influencer or at international conferences."

"“We clearly need to expand science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. The ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic are showing us the dangers of not guiding students towards jobs in biotechnology and artificial intelligence that will define the future. If we are not part of the global economy, leveraging knowledge to create technologies, then we are doomed.”"

"“I chose the struggle. I was pushing myself and pushing my SeeSD colleagues, too. We were young, we lacked experience, we made mistakes, but we learnt by doing. I’ve grown so much since I came back. You have to negotiate the lack of funding, human resources and training. We started something out of nothing.”"

"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."

"I wanted to do things that directly touched people’s lives like law or medicine (see more explanation, under regrets). I however was exposed to research while I was undertaking my undergraduate degree."

"We were able to start a support system through these interventions to support women and also youth, and it’s economic to feed themselves in dignity, but also to empower them."

"I have been more involved in breastfeeding and nutrition work, and it’s from that perspective I realised, I learned a lot that food security is very important for us to be able to optimise breastfeeding and early nutrition for children. So I have entered in this space of supporting women in agriculture in the recent past."

"I remember being inspired by the space flight of the first black female astronaut Mae Jemison. I thought to myself: “If someone can be so brave to go to space, I should be brave to quit the job that I wasn’t loving.”"

"Projects like the SKA are so big, that if you do them right, they can really have a lasting impact wherever you are. There are young people who have gone through our learnership and skills training programmes that are now working for SARAO."

"This project really changed the narrative about what Africa can or cannot do. This idea that we are just consumers of science and technology – when you see that Africa can actually contribute to science and technology in some areas, it allows us to be a real global player."

"In terms of economic development, having Africa be a player in high-tech industries, rather than just being a consumer of science and technology, will stimulate job creation, infrastructure development, and increased investment in science and technology in general."

"I’m confident that South Africa has the potential for an innovation-led future."

"With the right environment to foster innovation, and by leveraging projects like the SKA to attract further investment, I’m optimistic about South Africa’s ability to become a global leader in cutting-edge science and technology."

"It is important to be intentional about creating opportunities for women in mathematics. There are few of us and we need to ensure that barriers are removed so more women can pursue careers in mathematics."

"I could not gain admission for my first choice program and had to settle for my second choice which was mathematics and economics. Nevertheless, I loved the challenge mathematics presented. I had to spend hours after lectures revising lecture notes and solving exercises. I found this thrilling."

"Our mission is to inspire young girls about the diverse career options available when you study mathematics and our vision is to see girls being confident to pursue a career in mathematics and related fields."

"My motivation for giving back to the community where I grew up was to give students from less privileged backgrounds access to quality education."

"It's very urgent that we position our youth for this next big revolution."

"It was amazing seeing the story of these black women told on that global stage," I had a lot of goose bumps watching it."

"If your work is not even recognised now, it will be recognised sometime in future. It was a real turning-point for me."

"It’s being able to make data speak and give an objective meaning to what is happening. I enjoy informing policy. I like the fact that curiosity, or a simple observation can lead to a discovery. I enjoy writing and publishing research articles which make your work known worldwide."

"I also mentor other women in health research to help them shine and run an empowerment programme for girls in rural areas where we award those who are excelling."

"“Educate our boys — educate men around the world to be agents of change by supporting women.”"

"“We don’t have infrastructure to support young mums in Ghana.”"

"We can't rely on men. They are busy themselves looking for money to be able to keep their family. So women, and particularly working women, will benefit if you have, like, at work some places where we can keep our breast milk, some places where we can breastfeed, some places where we know that our children are safe, and then by the end of the day probably leave and take them home."

"The burden of motherhood falls heavily on women. I think that's one of the reason that we don't have enough women emerging in the careers, particularly in sciences."

"So it's not like a feeling. It’s a fact that women stay at a lower stage or lower rung because of many barriers. And then people who get to the top positions are men. It's a fact."

"After the human genome was sequenced, we had the text, but we didn’t know how to make sense of it, Now we have a ‘deep genomics’ engine – a machine-learning system where you feed in the genetics and it will tell you what’s going to happen in the cells."

"People with gene mutation A are more likely to get disease B"

"As one who wrote interesting stories — whimsical stories, perhaps — and who drew whimsical maps and landscapes across a long canvas. Is this real enough? I also wish to be remembered as a Filipino, most of all."

"We put it all together into one big system, Our ability to interpret the genome is growing very rapidly now. I think in 10 years we’re going to understand most of what the genome does, which mutations cause which diseases and why. Even if we could just address 10 per cent of genetic disease more accurately, it would have a huge impact on people’s lives.."