Cognitive World is excited to announce our partnership with WomenOfAI.org, a global nonprofit of 8,000 members building women leaders of AI alongside partners at Google, Amazon, Samsung NEXT, AAUW and more. The nonprofit provides technical and leadership events & content, including a monthly newsletter reaching over 100,000 people and regular LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook content.

“Our mission is to build women leaders in AI.”

- Erica Lee, Founder of WomenOfAI.org

Origins at Apple Park

WomenOfAI.org was founded in 2018 by Erica Lee at Apple Park. Erica experienced low diversity while working at Apple in the engineering group as an AI Manager, and felt compelled to bring positive change.

“My dream is to have more balance in AI, specifically with leadership.” - Erica

Erica started Apple’s AI Executive Committee to unite AI leaders in company-wide initiatives, created an AI Developer Meetup for ML Engineers to present prototypes for feedback, and supported Apple’s sponsorship of the WiML Workshop at NeuRIPS. The success of these initiatives led Erica to start a “secret” women’s peer mentorship meetup at Apple where she built positive relationships with female peers across iCloud, Retail, Siri, FaceID, and Keyboards.

After seeing the natural growth of the community, a Google executive prompted Erica to make her meetup more accessible to non-Apple employees as a way of bringing a global community together.

“I realized WomenOfAI.org could be part of the global movement towards making the world a more accepting & empowering place.” - Erica

Expanding beyond Apple Park

In 2018, Erica turned the Apple AI Women group into a public WomenOfAI.org meetup group with 1,500 members in the SF Bay Area. People could attend tech talks featuring women speakers at places such as Stanford University and Google.

In 2019, WomenOfAI.org grew to 3,000 members and joined forces with Amazon AWS to host their first “AI Chatbots” hands-on training and hackathon.

“We wanted to make AI accessible so people of all backgrounds can have the necessary skills to be successful in the industry.” - Erica

In 2020, WomenOfAI.org became a donation-based, public 501(c)(3) nonprofit with 8000 members and an executive team. Jamie Lee joined as COO, Lauren Long joined as Director of PR & Media, Steven Zhang joined as VP of Growth, Yael Pe’er joined as VP of Marketing, Cindy Yu joined as VP of Engineering. Matt Stepka and Aakriti Srikanth joined as Advisors.

WomenOfAI.org also launched its Ambassador Program to expand internationally with representatives from Nigeria, Israel, Mexico and more.

Looking Forward

“Our mission is to build women leaders of AI.” - Erica

Since 2018, Erica’s team has brought on over 50 partners, including Google, Amazon, Samsung NEXT, AAUW, Andreessen Horowitz, DataScienceGO, Cognitive World, Coinbase, NVIDIA, Squareloot, UpChannels, FLEXE, The Girls Code and more. The team, donors, and partners make their mission a reality.

“We are deeply grateful for everyone’s philanthropic support of WomenOfAI.org.”

WomenofAI.org is known for hosting stimulating, women-featured AI events at large tech venues such as Amazon. Recently, the team has moved its programs to a virtual setting due to current COVID-19 restrictions. Cognitive World is proud to partner for their upcoming event “AI for the Digital Food Experience” on Wednesday, April 22 at 12PT on Zoom.

Founded by Lisa Wood in 2016, Cognitive World “helps solution providers make their work known to enterprises.” In 2020, Cognitive World acquired AI Venture Amalgamators and cofounders Aakriti Srikanth and Cece Chen to provide more resources and connections to further facilitate transformation and growth.

“Cognitive World is an AI Think Tank that supports the startup ecosystem and VCs. We especially love helping women grow and are thrilled to partner with WomenOfAI.org” - Aakriti

April is “AI for Food”

The upcoming “AI for Food” event will be a fireside chat between Erica Lee and Lotem Peled-Cohen, a Machine Learning Product Manager for Whisk at Samsung NEXT.

Lotem is a former data scientist turned product manager who’s passionate about shining an AI light onto the world of product. The conversation will cover how the Whisk app can improve your food journey and how their AI combines user preferences, behavior, and context for a truly personalized cooking experience.

“Our goal for this talk is to deepen your understanding of AI’s impact in the food industry.” - Lotem

WomenOfAI.org aims to provide accessible content with easy-to-understand technical talks for folks who don’t have an AI background or are early on in their AI career.

“Our community welcomes members of all backgrounds. We are an inclusive community focused on AI & leadership development.” - Erica

A Blossoming Partnership

Cognitive World and WomenOfAI.org will continue to expand their partnership throughout 2020 through additional shared events, networking opportunities, educational courses, and more.

“Cognitive World is excited to provide fun ways to connect with expert mentors and learn from them virtually by partnering with WomenofAI.org.” - Cece

With a monthly newsletter featuring news, jobs, events, and more, WomenOfAI.org regularly creates content for their busy and growing networks on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Samsung NEXT, a partner of the April “AI for the Digital Food Experience” event, champions the builders and founders to invent a more purposeful future.

Providing venture capital, business development, M&A and developing their own products, Samsung’s historic expertise in consumer electronics and hardware is highly valued by all who work with them.

“I feel blessed to work in AI and give back through my nonprofit. I owe our success to my amazing team. ” - Erica

Stay tuned for more from Cognitive World and WomenOfAI.org! Meanwhile, we encourage you to register for “AI for the Digital Food Experience” on April 22 and to join the community at www.WomenOfAI.org/join.

WomenOfAI.org Partners with Cognitive World

“Our mission is to build women leaders in AI.”