Joy Buolamwini

Joy Adowaa Buolamwini is a Ghanaian-American computer scientist and digital activist based at the MIT Media Lab. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League, an organisation that looks to challenge bias in decision making software.

Early life and education

Buolamwini was born in Canada, grew up in Mississippi and attended Cordova High School. At age 9, she was inspired by Kismet, the MIT robot, and taught herself XHTML, JavaScript and PHP. She was a competitive pole vaulter.

As an undergraduate, Buolamwini studied computer science at Georgia Institute of Technology, where she researched health informatics. Buolamwini graduated as a Stamps President's Scholar from Georgia Tech in 2012, and was the youngest finalist of the Georgia Tech InVenture Prize in 2009.

Buolamwini is a Rhodes Scholar, a Fulbright fellow, a Stamps scholar, an Astronaut Scholar and an Anita Borg Institute scholar. As a Rhodes Scholar, she studied learning and technology at the University of Oxford. During her scholarship she took part in the first formal Service Year, working on community focused projects. She was awarded a Master's Degree from MIT in 2017 for research supervised by Ethan Zuckerman.

Career and research

In 2011, she teamed with the Trachoma program at Carter Center, to develop an Android-based assessment system for Ethiopia and aide eradication of the disease worldwide.

Joy Buolamwini at Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town

As a Fulbright fellow, in 2013 Buolamwini worked with local computer scientists in Zambia to empower Zambian youth to become technology creators. On September 14, 2016 Buolamwini appeared at the White House summit on Computer Science for All.

She is a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, where she identifies bias in algorithms and develops practices for accountability during their design; at the lab, Buolamwini is a member of Ethan Zuckerman's Center for Civic Media group. During her research, Buolamwini showed facial recognition systems 1,000 faces and asked them to identify whether faces were male or female, she found that software found it hard to identify dark-skinned women. Her project, Gender Shades, has attracted significant media attention and become part of her MIT thesis. Her 2018 paper Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification,Vorlage:Citation needed prompted responses from IBM and Microsoft, who swiftly improved their software. She also created the Aspire Mirror, a device that lets you see a reflection of yourself based on what inspires you. Her program, Algorithmic Justice League, aims to highlight the bias in code that can lead to discrimination of underrepresented groups. She has created two films, 'Code4Rights' and 'Algorithmic Justice League: Unmasking Bias'. She is Chief Technology Officer for Techturized Inc, a haircare technology company.

Awards and recognition

In 2017, Buolamwini was awarded the grand prize in the professional category in the Search for Hidden Figures contest, tied to the release of the film Hidden Figures in December 2016. The contest, sponsored by PepsiCo and 21st Century Fox, was intended to "help uncover the next generation of female leaders in science, technology, engineering and math," and attracted 7,300 submissions from young women across the United States.

Buolamwini delivered a TEDx talk at Beacon Street entitled How I'm fighting bias in algorithms. In 2018 she appeared on TED Radio Hour. She was featured on Amy Poehler's Smart Girls in 2018. Fast Company magazine listed her as one of four "design heroes who are defending democracy online". She was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women in 2018. In 2018 she was featured among "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by Forbes.

Personal life

Buolamwini has lived in Ghana, Barcelona, Memphis and Atlanta.