IWIB Talks & Podcast - Algorithmic Diversity with Yonah Welker: The Challenges of Zero Exclusion, AI & Ethics

Yonah has been working on the intersection of tech and society since 2005 year - when he become a tech explorer and launched a hardware think tank. He founded and co-created tech startups and labs, helped to facilitate tech ecosystems through North America to APAC, MENA, Africa, Europe, screened over 2000 teams, contributed projects in ethics (AI, tech), deeptech, impact and sustainability (European Commission-funded projects and open calls). Yonah guided and screened the world youngest tech and AI inventors, Ashoka and United Nations fellows, talent from Google, Singularity University, 500 Startups, Techstars, Masschallenge, alumni of MIT, Stanford, Oxford. Recent projects include the Human-Centered AI & Ethics (with Shop4CF, funded by the European Commission). I also support such communities as: All Tech Is Human, Montreal AI Ethics Institute, Women In AI, Teens In AI and many others. In Yonah's words:  

"Journey. My neurodivergence was a source of both the great challenges and opportunities to learn, collect, analyze and experiment. That’s how I became a highly proactive technologist working on the intersections of technology, society, ethics / roboethics, and creativity. I’ve started my path in 2005 when I’ve launched a hardware tech think tank. Over my journey, I founded and co-created tech startups and labs, helped to facilitate tech ecosystems through North America to APAC, MENA, Africa, Europe, screened over 2000 teams, contributed projects in ethics (AI, tech), deeptech, impact and sustainability.

Values. Our international work became a source of terms and values which encompass our projects and help us to reshape our technology culture (like recent “Zero Exclusion” Women In AI Hackathon which we led). Algorithmic diversity and technology – we interpolate design thinking principles of “1 fits 1” to algorithms and technology development. Nonbinarity of research – we use lessons of neurodiversity, considering and evaluating things based on the “spectrum”, not predefined coordinates. Zero exclusion and ecosystems – we use lessons of decentralization, cooperation and sustainability to not exclude first – to create as many alternatives as possible. Unfortunately, until today ecosystems were designed by one vision/men and after that, we just tried to “include” others to this monopoly of design thinking: women, neurodivergent or disabled people, ethnic minorities. Even though it doesn’t fit them – its nature, logic, mechanism, and definitions."

Welcome! 

IWIB Team