TRAILBLAZER
Dr Rana el Kaliouby
Job Title : Deputy CEO Company : Smart Eye
Rana el Kaliouby is an Egyptian-American Scientist who co-founded Affectiva , a software company that builds AI that understands human emotions , cognitive states , activities and the objects people use . Having spun out of MIT Media Labs , Affectiva created the new technology category of Artificial Emotion .
Early education and work with emotion-sensing El Kaliouby studied at the American University in Cairo between 1993 to 2000 where she earned a Bachelors and Master of Science degree in Computer Science . In 2001 she then went on to study for a PhD in Computer Science at Newnham College , at the University of Cambridge in England .
It was at the University of Cambridge that el Kaliouby developed a real-time facial emotion-sensing system .
Working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ), el Kaliouby worked as a research scientist and
Amount raised to create Emotion AI
$ 50mn + helped the institute found its Autism and Communication Technology Initiative . Here she became interested in the possibility of applying artificial intelligence ( AI ) to improve human to human communication , especially for autistic people who may struggle with emotional communication .
As part of a team that pioneered the development of an ‘ emotional hearing aid ’. This ‘ hearing aid ’ was a set of emotion reading wearable glasses that the New York Times included in their Top 100 innovations of 2006 .
Pushing the boundaries with Affectiva In 2009 , el Kaliouby co-founded Affectiva with Rosalind Picard . The company builds AI that understands human emotions , cognitive states , activities and the objects people use . Its platform does this by analysing facial and vocal expressions .
While working at Affectiva , el Kaliouby raised USD $ 50m + in capital from top-tier investors and non-dilutive funding to bring Affectiva ’ s Emotion AI to over 90 countries and several industries , including the automotive and media analytics industries .
14 October 2021