Meet these 12 incredible women advancing artificial intelligence tech in Europe

(Editor's note: this is a guest post by Moojan Asghari, co-founder of non-profit Women in AI and a globally recognised advocate for gender diversity and women empowerment.)

Within the context of digitization, we keep hearing a lot about artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is transforming virtually every industry and function. But while this technology expands in a wide range of industries, there is still a considerable gender diversity gap within this field.

This gap is just as wide in research and academics as it is in the technology industry. According to a recent study by the World Economic Forum and LinkedIn, only 22% of jobs in artificial intelligence are held by women, with even fewer holding senior roles. So, what can we do to close this gap?

For me, one of the first steps to bridge the gender gap in AI is through awareness creation.

That is also, why I co-founded the nonprofit do-tank Women in AI (WAI) in 2016 together with Hanan Salam and Caroline Lair to increase participation and representation of women in AI. At WAI, we are bringing empowerment, knowledge, and active collaboration via education, support for female founders via accelerate and awards programs, research, blogging, and technical events.

One of our momentous events is the annual Women in AI Global Summit, which will take place on September 8. More than 100 speakers will attend the Summit speaking about various emerging issues in the context of AI. It is a full-day event with the kick-off in Australia, Asia then moving to Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

We are expecting over 3,000 participants from all over the world.

If you want to be part of this amazing virtual event, you would have to register here, where you can also access the event schedule.

To give you a short preview of a few amazing women who will speak at our event, I have put together a list with 12 inspiring European women that you will meet when joining the WAI Global Summit:

1. Agnes van de Walle

Agnes is Commercial Partner Lead and Partners Development Division Director at Microsoft France. She is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history of working in the computer hardware and software industry. She is highly skilled in business development, Sales & Marketing Management, Business Planning, and Partner Management.

2. Prof. Aleksandra Przegalinska

Aleksandra is currently an Associate Researcher at the American Institute for Economic Research as well as Associate Professor at Kozminski University. She holds a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and is interested in new technologies, sustainable technological growth, and media studies, as well as critical theory and system/ organization theory.

3. Dr. Anne Schwerk

Anne works as an IT project manager for artificial intelligence at CENTOGENE. Prior, she worked at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence at the intersection of AI and healthcare, with a focus on precision medicine, diagnostics decision support, and multi-modal predictive modeling. Anne obtained her Ph.D. in the field of neurosciences at the Charité in Berlin.

4. Bryony Marshall

Bryony is an Associate Director with OMERS Private Equity. She spent over four years in corporate finance at Hawkpoint in London, advising the UK and European private equity and corporates on mid-market transactions across a wide range of sectors. She holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelor of Business in Finance.

5. Dipti Ganeriwala

Dipti is Product Design Lead at Vara, a diagnostic platform designed for medical specialists to process and review medical images at high scale and quality. At Vara, Dipti applies human-centered design methodologies to make the platform as useful as possible for the users.

6. Eline Chivot

As a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center of Data Innovation in Brussels, Eline focuses on European technology policy issues and how policymakers can promote digital innovation in the EU. Eline has worked as a policy analyst at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, where her work included research projects on defense, security, and economic policy issues.

7. Elizabeth M. Adams

Elizabeth is the United Nations AI Ethics Advisor and therefore helps influencers, scholars, and civic leaders to develop AI Ethics, Security Compliance, Ethical Tech Design & Tech Diversity programs, and policies. She is also the author of the children’s book “Little AI and Peety” to help children, parents, and caregivers learn about safe technology and spark interest in a new generation of techies.

8. Irina Orssich

Irina is working in the Directorate-General CONNECT at the European Commission. She is specialised in the field of artificial intelligence. She has a law degree and a postgraduate degree in European law. Previously responsibilities have included posts in the audiovisual sector and as a legal adviser for competition and state aid law.

9. Marie Weijler

Marie is the first woman on the investment team of Cottonwood Technology Fund, a Dutch- American venture capital firm specialized in high-tech and hard science. She is also the Chief Legal Officer of LipoCoat, winner of the European Biotech Startup of 2019 Award.

Marie is an honoree on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list 2019 in the Finance category. She is the first Dutch citizen to have made it to the list in this category.

10. Megan Schaible

Megan is COO of Reaktor Education, where she partners with world-class organizations and education providers to develop online courses and digital learning solutions for the 21st century of education. The debut course, Elements of AI, has launched a movement spreading the basics of AI education to citizens around the world.

11. Stephanie Trang

Stephanie has a consulting & financial background of seven years working at PwC and Capgemini as well as entrepreneurial experiences as CEO/ CFO and start-up consultant. She is currently Managing Director AI for Health at start-up inside, a professional training & coaching company spreading the entrepreneurial culture and start-up methods throughout the world of corporates and institutions.

12. Valentina Zantedeschi

Valentina is a Machine Learning Researcher whose research spans from kernel methods and learning theory to deep learning, adversarial examples, and decentralized learning. In particular, Valentina works on the development of Machine Learning for Earth Observational problems, such as cloud classification and weather forecasting from satellite imagery.

There are so many great women out there who are following their dream and building their success path. We should give those women a stage and get others to see their success and ideas to inspire even more women to pursue a career in tech.

So, girls, go out and connect and meet each other at WAI Global Summit!