Rana el Kaliouby

Rana el Kaliouby is a distinguished figure in the realm of emotion AI, renowned for her groundbreaking work in bringing emotional intelligence to technology. Born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, she embarked on an academic journey that led her to earn her bachelor's and master's degrees from the American University in Cairo and a Ph.D. from Newnham College, Cambridge.

Rana's career began with a pivotal role at the MIT Media Lab's Affective Computing group where she was integral to the team that developed the innovative "emotional hearing aid," a pioneering set of emotion-reading wearable glasses. This invention gained recognition as one of the New York Times' Top 100 Innovations of 2006.

Her vision for humanizing technology led her to co-found Affectiva, a spin-off from the MIT Media Lab. As the CEO of Affectiva, Rana has been at the forefront of leveraging facial and vocal recognition software to bridge the gap between humans and machines. Under her leadership, Affectiva has grown its facial emotion repository to nearly 6 million faces analyzed across 75 countries.

Beyond her role in Affectiva, Rana has made her mark as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She has also co-hosted the PBS NOVA Wonders series, further demonstrating her ability to make complex technological concepts accessible to a wider audience.

Rana's journey and insights into the world of AI and emotion recognition are eloquently captured in her memoir, "Girl Decoded." Additionally, she has contributed a chapter to "Architects of Intelligence: The Truth About AI from the People Building It" by Martin Ford, solidifying her position as a thought leader in the AI community.