Two Portuguese women innovators, Daniela Braga and Manuela Veloso, were recognized by Forbes magazine as among the top 10 “leading women” globally in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In a LinkedIn post, innovation expert Elizabeth Scallon proposed several “extraordinary” women to consider for the board of directors of OpenAI, the world’s foremost AI company.
Among those suggested by Scallon is Daniela Braga, the founder and CEO of Defined.ai, a company specializing in voice, text, and image recognition that has received numerous accolades.
Daniela Braga
Daniela Braga, a 44-year-old businesswoman born in Porto, resides in the USA. The founder of DefinedCrowd, a Seattle-based startup that specializes in artificial intelligence, she currently is one of the 12 members of the Biden administration’s National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Resource Task Force.
Subsequently, businesswoman and author Rebekah Bastian expanded upon Scallon’s list by highlighting “women leaders in AI” in an article for Forbes. Bastian advocated for these individuals to be considered for high-ranking roles within AI-focused companies, including another Portuguese luminary – Manuela Veloso.
Manuela Veloso
Manuela Veloso, a 66-year-old educator, who has made significant contributions to the field, currently is the Head of J.P. Morgan AI Research & Herbert A. Simon University Professor Emeritus in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where she was previously Head of the Machine Learning Department. She is known for her contributions in robotics and AI. Bastian emphasized, “Her extensive experience in academia and industry could bridge the gap between AI research and real-world applications at OpenAI,” proposing her as a strong candidate for managerial positions within the company.
These two Portuguese women are now elevated to luminaries such as Fei-Fei Li from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Timnit Gebru, former co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI team, Alessya Visnjic, CEO of AI monitoring platform WhyLabs, Latanya Sweeney, director of the Public Interest Technology Laboratory at Harvard and former chief technologist at the US Federal Trade Commission, Daphne Koller, researcher and founder of the educational platform Coursera, and Rana el Kaliouby, CEO of the Affectiva platform and a pioneer in emotional AI.
Rebekah Bastian’s Forbes article underscores these accomplished women while commenting on the lack of gender diversity in managerial roles within technology companies, particularly highlighting OpenAI, the company behind the creation of ChatGPT.
Source: Forbes Magazine
PAJ/Staff
