Melda Akin, an award-winning computer scientist and the founder of D14.AI, an AI company solving optimization challenges in business, just launched Sirius Labs in Dubai. It’s an app that trains women to launch careers in tech. Less than 20% of the workforce in tech is women, and Akin who has won awards in entrepreneurship, will help the UAE and MENA region women build out a local workforce led by women. She is among the first women to organize AI and machine learning training for women in the Middle East region.
Sirius Labs, she says, offers curated AI and tech training programs and mentorship to females across MENA.
“I believe in the power of tech to solve the world’s biggest challenges,” she says, “Sirius Labs brings curated, personalized learning paths to enable women the best chance possible to succeed in the technology sector. Through our AI engine, we continuously track, learn, and improve content recommendations for our students to create the most efficient learning journey.
“With the number of women pursuing STEM subjects in higher education on the decline and only 18% of women achieving new computer science degrees,” Akin notes, “it is important that we collaborate with key players within the space and provide support and mentoring to females who want to pursue a career in technology. I look forward to demonstrating the transformative potential of Sirius Labs, and AI-driven training, for women in tech and helping them secure their dream jobs.”
The Sirius Labs platform evaluates each student when first enrolled onto the program and uses AI to dynamically create a personalized learning pathway tailored to their individual needs. The students are mentored in technology and taught key skills to land tech-based jobs through workshops, bootcamps and women-empowerment events with top technology companies.
In the next six months, Sirius Labs aims to train 100 Middle East North African and Turkey-based women to land their dream tech job and sign 20 hiring contracts for technology roles.
The Sirius Labs program will cover a variety of technology-focused subjects including product management, project management, IOS development, Android development, introduction to AI, data science and software development. It also offers advice on important soft skills needed to succeed in the technology sector, as well as interview preparation, negotiation and communication skills, conflict resolution, public speaking and storytelling.
I hope they consider adding a sustainability angle to the training because big energy is currently dominated by men and renewable energy entrepreneurship could use a boost by women entering the workforce.
And when it comes to women in tech, it takes one to know one –– the best mentors for women are women and I can attest to that. When I had my startup Flux I was mentored by Inbar Arieli, author of Chutzpah: Leadership Skills & Innovation Secrets. Through Arieli I got to participate in the 8200 EISP program, which is run by programmers from Israel’s elite army unit 8200. Thanks to Arieli who comes from the 8200 unit herself and who has founded a number of startups, I got to travel to Aspen to the Aspen Ideas Festival where I met world-leading minds in innovation and entrepreneurship. Women can only take the lead when they see other leaders. Every time I stood on stage to introduce my company I had young women come up to me saying, “I want to do that too.”
It’s not only important, but critical that women from around the world enter the conversations in AI as what’s happening today in AI builds the framework for the next 100 years. ChatGTP for instance carries web-based biases with it when it comes up with queries. Men program their biases into technology and this is the reason why we end up with virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa sounding like their maids.
Akin is ranked one of the Top 20 Women in Tech MENA 2022 and 2021, and Top 10 Women Behind Middle Eastern Tech Brands 2021 by Forbes. Melda was also selected as ‘Women Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2022 at the Middle East Womens Leader Summit and is a mentor in the United Nations and NAMA Women Empowerment organization. She was the first woman in the world to organize and conduct AI and machine learning training for women in the region – in collaboration with the Cyber Defence and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Kingdom of the Saudi Arabia.
Three cheers for Akin.
Areas in tech that could benefit from sustainable AI
- In agtech to optimize plant growth using minimal nutrients and for building better models in smallhold regenerative ag farms
- Helping people build collectives in egg farming, bee farming
- Building software to make data centers more energy efficient
- Creating applications that detect leaks and contamination in water infrastructure
- Monitoring and signalling deforestation and ecosystem health
- Optimizing renewable energy deployment to the grid
- Designing more energy efficient buildings using lo-tech and hi-tech combined
