Tess Posner

Short description: American social entrepreneur & AI diversity advocate

Tess Posner

Known for| Artificial Intelligence
AI Ethics
Diversity in Technology
Academic background
Alma mater| Columbia University (M.A.)
Saint John's College (B.A.)
Academic work
Institutions| AI4ALL

Tess Posner is an American social entrepreneur and musician best known for her work in artificial intelligence advocacy and ethics, focusing on increasing equity and inclusion in technology.[1]

Posner headed several initiatives to promote diversity in technology before being hired as the CEO of non-profit organization AI4ALL, a position from which she stepped down in 2021 to concentrate on her music career.[2][3][4] Her work has earned recognition including her selection as one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2020.[5]

## Contents

* 1 Early years and education
* 2 Career
* 2.1 Social entrepreneurship
* 2.2 Music
* 3 Selected awards and recognition
* 4 References

## Early years and education

Posner grew up near Boston, Massachusetts. In high school, she traveled to El Salvador to build houses with Habitat for Humanity following an earthquake. Posner holds a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy and Mathematics from Saint John's College and a Master's degree from Columbia University in Social Enterprise Administration.[6]

## Career

### Social entrepreneurship

Early in her career, Posner built and ran Samsa School, a non-profit organization providing low-income people worldwide with tools and education to find work in the digital economy. Then, she became the managing director of TechHire at Opportunity@Work, a White House initiative that sought to increase diversity in the technology industry.[7] In 2016, Posner was selected as a fellow at the Institute for the Future.[8]

Posner then joined non-profit organization AI4ALL as their CEO and executive director.[9][10] AI4ALL provides AI education and mentorship particularly towards historically underrepresented talent.[2][11][4] In the years she served as CEO, AI4ALL saw over 15,000 young people participate in the organization's AI education and mentorship programs.[12] Posner has spoken at SXSW, Grace Hopper Celebration, Nvidia GPU Technology Conference, and further conferences about artificial intelligence and technology diversity and outreach.[13][14][15]

She is listed as a coauthor in Vint Cerf and David Nordfors's 2018 book The People Centered Economy: The New Ecosystem for Work.[16]

In an online statement published in October 2021, Posner announced that she would step out of the role as CEO of AI4ALL into an advisory role to pursue her music career full-time.[3] Emily Reid took over her role at the start of 2022 as interim CEO.[17]

### Music

Posner is also an alt-pop music artist. She released her first EP in 2018 and released new singles in 2020.[18][19]

## Selected awards and recognition

* 2019 – VentureBeat Women in AI Award: Responsibility and Ethics Winner[20]
* 2019 – Alconics Awards AI Innovator of the Year Finalist[21]
* 2020 – 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics Hall of Fame Honoree[5]

## References

1. ↑ "AI Isn't Good for Women — But We Can Fix It" (in en-US). April 4, 2018. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/artificial-intelligence-isnt-good-for-women-but-we-can-fix-it.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wong, Ashley. "Artificial intelligence has a racial bias problem. Google is funding summer camps to try to change that" (in en-US). https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/08/10/google-gives-1-million-help-more-young-blacks-latinos-and-women-create-artificial-intelligence/915627002/.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Team, AI4ALL (November 3, 2021). "Singing A New Song" (in en). https://medium.com/ai4allorg/singing-a-new-song-23dbfe79f054.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Smiley, Lauren (May 23, 2018). "The Future of AI Depends on High-School Girls" (in en). https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/ai-future-women/560618/. "They hired Tess Posner, who had led initiatives aimed at getting more diversity into the digital economy, to be the CEO."
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Hall of Fame" (in en-US). https://100brilliantwomeninaiethics.com/the-list/hall-of-fame/.
6. ↑ "Tess Posner inspires and trains diverse AI talent" (in en). https://accelerate.withgoogle.com/stories/tess-posner-inspires-and-trains-diverse-ai-talent.
7. ↑ "AI in Medicine: Inclusion & Equity". https://aemstage.med.stanford.edu/presence/initiatives/rwj/rwj-2018/tessposner.html.
8. ↑ "IFTF: Tess Posner". https://www.iftf.org/tessposner/.
9. ↑ Castellanos, Sara (August 10, 2020). "The Changes AI Will Bring" (in en-US). Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-changes-ai-will-bring-11597072070.
10. ↑ "A Rare Tech Company Where Women Dominate" (in en). https://fortune.com/2019/08/21/thirdlove-tech-diversity-women/.
11. ↑ Walch, Kathleen. "Concerns Of AI And Bias Insights from AI4ALL's Tess Posner" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/10/27/concerns-of-ai-and-bias-insights-from-ai4alls-tess-posner/.
12. ↑ "Miami Dade College Partners with AI4ALL College Pathways Initiative to Prepare Students for Careers in Artificial Intelligence" (in en-US). https://news.mdc.edu/press_release/miami-dade-college-partners-with-ai4all-college-pathways-initiative-to-prepare-students-for-careers-in-artificial-intelligence/.
13. ↑ "Understanding the Human Side of Automation". http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/74340.
14. ↑ Lindeman, Laura (September 26, 2019). "10 Talks We Can't Wait to Hear at the 2019 Grace Hopper Celebration" (in en). https://engineering.salesforce.com/10-talks-we-cant-wait-to-hear-at-the-2019-grace-hopper-celebration-4ae87d6d4aa7.
15. ↑ Stewart, Louis (October 15, 2020). "At GTC, Leaders Focus on Equity in AI, Developer Diversity | NVIDIA Blog" (in en-US). https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/10/14/gtc-ai-equity-developer-diversity/.
16. ↑ Cerf, Vint; Nordfors, David (2018). The People Centered Economy: The New Ecosystem for Work. ISBN 978-1729145920. https://archive.org/stream/ThePeopleCenteredEconomyTheNewEcosyVintCerf/The People Centered Economy_ The New Ecosy - Vint Cerf_djvu.txt.
17. ↑ Team, AI4ALL (December 14, 2021). "Emily Reid Named Interim CEO of AI4ALL" (in en). https://medium.com/ai4allorg/emily-reid-named-interim-ceo-of-ai4all-8da8849061df.
18. ↑ "Interview: Tess Posner" (in en-US). https://www.tonguetiedmag.com/interviews/interview-tess-posner.
19. ↑ FeaturesMusic· (February 21, 2020). "Tess Posner Shines On Catchy New Single "Ocean"" (in en-GB). https://www.discovernu.co/tess-posner-shines-on-catchy-new-single-ocean/.
20. ↑ "Winners of VentureBeat's first Women in AI Awards announced at Transform 2019" (in en-US). July 12, 2019. https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/12/winners-of-venturebeats-first-women-in-ai-awards-announced-at-transform-2019/.
21. ↑ "AIconics Awards San Francisco 2019: Shortlist announced" (in en). https://www.aibusiness.com/document.asp?doc_id=761052.

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