How AI can help shatter barriers to equality Jamila Gordon
My father used to call me Jamila
“Gabar Nasiib Nasiib Badan,”
which means Jamila
“The Lucky, Lucky Girl.”
And I have been very fortunate in my life.
My family were originally nomads.
And when it rained the night I was born,
they stopped in a tiny village
that looked a bit like this,
where we lived in the next 11 years
until drought and a war with Ethiopia
forced us to move
to Somali’s capital, Mogadishu.
When I was 18,
my father realized
Somalia was headed for a civil war
and we are all at risk of being killed.
He did his best
to get me and my 13 brothers
and sisters out of the country.
The family was scattered to the wind.
I was lucky.
I ended up on my own
as a displaced person in Kenya,
and I was fortunate to come to Australia
thanks to a backpacker who I met there.
I was incredibly grateful
when the Australian government
gave me unemployment benefits
while I learned English,
but I wanted to find work
as soon as I could.
I learned about a Japanese
restaurant that was hiring,
and I thought, “What do I have to lose?”
Mami, the woman who ran front of house,
figured my poor English
might be a problem,
so she sent me to the kitchen
to meet her husband, Yoshi.
Now, Yoshi didn’t speak
much English either,
but we managed to communicate
with one another.
He hired me as a dishwasher
and trained me as a kitchen hand.
Now, that couple’s kindness
set me on a path
where hard work and persistence
led me to my graduation
as a software developer
and went on to become
a global executive with IBM
and later, chief information officer
of Qantas Airways.
Now I want artificial intelligence
to do at a massive scale
what that couple did for me:
give disadvantaged people
tools to find work,
give them the skills
to be great at their jobs,
get them to do their jobs safely,
to give them a break.
You hear stories
about how artificial intelligence
is going to take away jobs
and automate everything.
And in some cases that might be true,
but I can tell you
in the real world right now,
AI is making amazing things
possible for organizations
and for people who otherwise
would have been left behind.
Language, education and location
are no longer the barriers they once were.
And to help break down those barriers
is one of the reasons
I founded my company.
Much of our work
is in global food supply chains,
especially in the meat industry.
We use computer vision-based AI
to create transparency for consumers
and to reward producers
who operate ethically and sustainably.
But AI can do much more than that.
For example, it can notice
unsafe behaviors,
like if someone is not wearing
their personal protective gear correctly,
or someone not following
the hygiene procedures,
or if someone needs help
on how to carry out a specific task
because they’re not following
the recipe correctly.
We can make sure
people are socially distancing
and can provide contact tracing if needed.
We then deliver individualized training
to that person’s preferred language
both in written and audio formats.
Now, ability to read or write
or to speak the local language
are no longer the obstacles
they once were.
Many of the employees in the food industry
are often migrants, refugees
or people from disadvantaged backgrounds
who might not be able
to speak the local language
and often might not be able
to read or write well.
In fact, one of our customers
has 49 languages spoken
in some of their facilities,
with English long way down the list.
When we can see opportunities
for improvements
and then deliver training
with that person’s preferred language,
it makes huge difference
to the organization and to its people.
And that is only the beginning.
When I was very young –
about five or six years old,
living in that tiny village –
one of my jobs
was to carry buckets of water
from the well to the huts.
And I remember putting the buckets down
in every 20 meters or so
and how the handles digged into my hands.
They were so heavy,
and I was so scrawny
because we didn’t have enough to eat.
Even though that experience
taught me resilience,
it’s not something I want
any other child to go through.
I want to live in a world
where people are not limited
by local language, by geography,
by lack of access
to knowledge and training,
where everyone is safe at work,
when nobody’s excluded
because they cannot read or write,
where everyone
can fulfill their potential.
Now AI can deliver this world.
Thank you.