Founded in 2015 at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

by Dr.

Margot Gerritsen Margot Geertrui Gerritsen is a professor of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University and a senior associate dean for educational initiatives in the Stanford University School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. Her research inter ...

Karen Matthys Karen may refer to: * Karen (name), a given name and surname * Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding woman displaying certain behaviors People * Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand ** Karen languages or Karenic l ...

, and Dr.

Esteban Arcaute Esteban () is a Spanish male given name, derived from Greek Στέφανος (Stéphanos) and related to the English names Steven and Stephen. Although in its original pronunciation the accent is on the penultimate syllable, English-speakers tend t ...

, the Women in Data Science Initiative (WiDs) encourages women from around the world to connect with one another, to form local and regional networks, and to promote an inclusive and diverse community within the rapidly expanding field of data science. Fro
problems
with facial recognition technologies that do not recognize darker-skinned faces t
predictive policing

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...

that misidentify threats and intensify surveillance in communities of color, the effects of the lack of diversity in data science are numerous. Biased data sets may result in additional forms of discrimination. When an early attempt to design a computer program to help with hiring decisions relied mainly on resumes from men, the program "taught itself that male candidates were preferable to women." While Amazon immediately recognized this tendency and never used the program to evaluate job candidates, this example shows that relying on biased data may perpetuate inequalities. According to Gerritsen, “We cannot let these algorithms and these approaches of data-driven decision making really play the significant role that they are starting to play in our society at large if we do not really understand the ethics.” WiDs holds an annual Women in Data Science Worldwide conference annually, held as a 24-hour virtual event in 2021, is intended to inspire, educate, and sustain data science worldwide. In 2020, over 30,000 people participated, from 50 different countries. WiDs has reached over 100,000 women around the world. The Pune, India chapter of WiDs, for example, has over 5,000 members. Sucheta Dhere, ambassador of the WiDs Pune Chapter noted that computer vision, natural language processing, and machine learning "have a huge hiring potential in India," particularly for women. In 2019, more than 250 women convened in Madrid for the WIDS conference, which brought together women working on

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

. The Cambridge WiDS event was held at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 2020. Its signature event was a panel discussion on data science and fake news called “Data weaponized, data scrutinized: a war on information.” The Women in Data Science initiative also runs workshops on topics ranging from actionable ethics, automating machine learning, data analysis for health, and exploring artificial intelligence.

References

{{reflist Stanford University Facial recognition software Diversity in computing