AI for human ingenuity

This ethos is at the heart of our AI for Good Accelerator programme, created in partnership with the Social Tech Trust, a charity that provides the investment and support needed for social tech ventures to grow and scale their social impact. It’s open to UK start-ups who are developing a solution that focusses on one of four areas: AI for Earth, AI for Accessibility, AI for Humanitarian Action and AI for Cultural Heritage.

When technology is built with inclusivity at heart, it has the ability to ensure everyone can stay empowered, especially as we rely on more digital forms of connecting. For example, Live captioning in virtual meetings can help those who are hard of hearing or are in noisy rooms.

2020 saw our world change the way we work and connect, leaning more on digital solutions. When the lockdown closed stores and in-person services in the UK, people moved to digital services. It’s important to ensure these services are accessible for everyone. Some of the members of the AI for Good cohort are directly addressing digital inclusion with their solutions.

Digital inclusion to vital services

Signly is helping people who are deaf, hard of hearing and have British Sign Language (BSL) as a first language by serving up pre-recorded, broadcast quality signed content, signed by real people, in-browser. While users can use the browser extension to request specific pages, some companies are taking the step to have pages already translated for users. Lloyds Banking Group recently asked Signly to inject sign language into their website so that deaf users had entirely equal access.

Improving communications for everyone

To reflect our multicultural society, it’s important we have the ability to easily translate information into the right language so everyone has the same understanding. Akari Translation Studio is helping employees manage workload and easily support customer’s individual needs. Users can upload multiple documents and translate it into one of 60 languages, using AI to ensure the document has the correct context. For example, a tenancy agreement can be translated into another language, as well as the communication around it.

Helping build resilience

Our increased use of technology has bought different stressors and affected people in different ways. For those remote working, they may find themselves blurring the line between work and life. To ensure employee wellbeing, it important to check up on everyone. MyCognition has built an accessible platform that helps monitor, treat and increase mental resilience. The app creates personalised on-demand programmes to help users reduce stress and improve mental health.

AI for good

These three companies are providing vital services that amplify human capability to ensure everyone is included in the digital future – a core stance of our AI for Accessibility platform.

They, along with the rest of our AI for Good cohort have two things in common: They all are creating positive social transformation and using technology to power that. GrantTree, who helps innovative UK companies find government funding, spoke to some of cohort on their What Comes Next? Podcast. Hear their stories on how they are solving some of the world’s biggest problems.

Episode 1

The start of the AI for Good series, What Comes Next? learns about how Signly improves access to websites for people who use BSL as their first language and Akari Solutions is increasing access to vital services with auto-translation. They also find out about how MyCognition is building mental resilience with AI.

Episode 2

What Comes Next? talks to Hello Lamp Post, an app that lets users interact with their built environment in order to learn or give feedback to urban planners. They also learn about how Recycleye is using machine vision to revolutionise recycling. They learn about how Baobab Connect improves access to the justice system via legal connection.

Episode 3

Learn about how BeneTalk can improve speech therapy outcomes with its unique mix of wearable app, online counselling, and eventually personalised support delivered via an AI that helps people who stutter to access training and support. Good Boost is also providing personalised water-based rehabilitation program with AI to people with musculoskeletal problems. Finally, discover how OrxaGrid uses advanced machine learning algorithms and IoT sensors to create detailed analytics about our energy networks and the demands placed upon them by next generation technologies.

Episode 4

The final episode of the series, the team learn about how miiCARE uses a combination of AI and home-monitoring tools to protect the elderly and how Ecosync harnesses AI to reduce heat and energy waste in buildings. In addition, they take a look back on the series.

Three ways you can increase digital inclusion

It’s important that whether we work remotely, or are heading back into the office to ensure we meet everyone’s needs. As part of our Resilient Operations Report, we took a look at a number of ways you can build agile teams. This included how you can ensure everyone is connected, while keeping digital inclusion at the heart:

Improve communication

Look for communication tools that let you use a mix of audio, video, and chat. That way your employees can be comfortable to communicate whatever way that suits them. Microsoft Teams has extra accessibility tools such as live captioning, screen blurring, narrations and more, to help people work in their best way.

Use tools that are accessible by design

Over 70 percent of disabilities are invisible. There’s also situational challenges that people need support or assistance for. That’s why it’s important to ensure your documents, presentations, and communications are suited for all. Have captions, providing recordings or transcripts of meetings allows your people to review and follow at their own pace. Make sure your presentations and documents are inclusive by using the Accessibility Checker in Microsoft 365.

Building inclusive tools

Building voice, vision, and other cognitive capabilities into applications will increase accessibility and usage. Your developers will be able to do this with Azure Cognitive Services.

Find out more

Resilient Operations Report

What Comes Next? Podcast,

4 skills organisations can embrace to use AI for social good

Be part of our next AI for Good cohort

Tools to empower your development team

Build accessibility into your apps

About the author

Since joining Microsoft 12 years ago, Eve has taken on numerous challenges which have continually driven her capabilities and expertise. Using her strong communications skills, she prides herself on putting customers and employees first and will always strive to ensure Microsoft’s commitment to them is met. In her role as the Responsibility manager, she creates and manages relevant CSR projects within the UK, focusing programmes where she believes we can truly deliver impact, align to our business model, and positively amplify Microsoft’s society brand. Eve works closely with key influencers across the sector, building strategic partnerships and reaching customers with relevant content that showcases the value and relevance of Microsoft technology. She manages key programmes like the AI for Good activity, Environmental Sustainability, Employee Volunteering and Giving, and Accessibility.

Eve is hugely passionate about Environmental Sustainability and the impact the ever changing modern life has on the planet. Technology has a significant role to play in reducing our impact and offering innovative solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems. She is also fascinated by the Charitable sector and the valuable contribution it makes to UK society – which is often under the radar and largely unrecognised. Coupling this with her love for technology, she is able to work in areas that keep her highly motivated and driven to exceed the targets she is challenged with.

The post How inclusive technology can improve your digital experiences appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Finding your voice in business can be challenging, no matter what your background, experience or role is. However, for some groups of people, it can be even trickier.

While the UK is a diverse nation, this is sometimes not reflected in leadership roles in business. This can be seen in companies large and small – and just 19.4 percent of start-ups between 2000-2018 were founded by women.

I spoke with the three female entrepreneurs in our cohort to find out what led them to start their own company, and what they’ve learned along the way. The experiences and advice they shared can help you find your own voice, build confidence and offer inspiration to start your own career journey at a start-up.

Tip: Find a mentor. In a 2016 report, Innovation UK found that more than two-thirds of female innovators believed that having a mentor would have made a difference in overcoming challenges.

The importance of female leadership

Having more women in leadership roles is important, not only in start-ups but in more established businesses, too. Companies with a lack of diverse leadership will find it harder to create products and solutions that reflect society as a whole and help everybody.

However, just starting a business as a female entrepreneur is difficult. Venture Capitalist (VC) firms with only male partners are more likely to invest in male-led projects or businesses. Of the 6,793 companies funded by VCs, only 2.7 percent had female CEOs².

Tip: Proactively look for opportunities to network and engage with people from a multitude of diverse backgrounds.

The greater the number of diverse start-ups and organisations, the more likely society is to have access to inclusive products companies and workforces.

Closing the gender gap in the workplace has the potential to increase GDP by 35 percent in the UK. However, women in the UK are half as likely as men to start a new business, and even less likely to seek external funding².

One thing female entrepreneurs tend to have in common is their strong belief in creating a positive social impact. Their experiences have led them to find new ways to solve issues that benefit everyone.

Tip: Keep your idea and values at the heart of what you do. Surround yourself with like-minded, inspiring people and organisations and you will grow faster and stronger.

Isabel Van De Keere

Isabel worked in the health and biomedical industries until a work accident in 2010 resulted in a long period of physical rehabilitation. She used her background in engineering to come up with Immersive Rehab – a company looking to help improve the results of physical and neuro-rehabilitation.

“Don’t be afraid to take to the stage and to talk about what you’re doing – to help others break down barriers. You have to proactively look for it and initially engage with people to actually get to the stage but once you get it, be visible and don’t be afraid.”

Read more

Amanda Pickford

Amanda is an entrepreneurial pioneer, identifying innovative business opportunities.– starting her first business at the age of 19. She is passionate about finding new solutions to problems. Her company, ThermaFY, makes it easier to compare and interpret thermal images, giving users previously unavailable insight. Their cameras and software are making it easier to diagnose and treat animals, as well as analysing heat efficiency in buildings which translates to environmental savings.

“There’s a huge gap there to solve societal issues by developing software that’s led by females. We look at things very differently.”

Read more

Rene Perkins

Rene has spent the past six years using her passion for solving problems and disability issues to create sustainable solutions for smart cities. CityMaaS is her vision aimed at enabling efficient travel for all, including those with diverse travel needs The technology will use artificial intelligence to constantly analyse recommended routes and look for better options to ensure travel is efficient and effective.

“Social impact should be at the core of every decision you make.  Surround yourself with like-minded, inspiring people and organisations and you will grow faster and stronger.”

Read more

After getting to know these women for the past 16 weeks, I have seen the incredible resilience each founder has had to develop to reach where they are now They are challenged every day on many levels – from being one of the only women present at an industry event to being made to feel they are inadequate because they show vulnerability or introversion.

Tip: Don’t be scared of failure. Failures are just opportunities to grow and learn.

My lasting impression is these women truly believe in what they are trying to do; however, this focus did not come instantly. Their self confidence is fuelled by the belief others have in them, and the confidence others are able to express in their company, product, and ultimately themselves as women leaders.

Through sharing their stories, my hope is to encourage more women to pursue leadership roles and entrepreneurship to create industries that are more diverse and inclusive.

Our cohort were given access to the resources, knowledge, and people they need to help scale their AI solution. They also had access to business development, marketing, and technical support alongside talks, seminars, and workshops. Find out more about the cohort here.

Find out more

Hear from Rene Perkins, CEO and co-founder of CityMaaS

Hear from Amanda Pickford, CEO and founder of ThermaFY

Hear from Isabel Van De Keere, CEO and founder of Immersive Rehab

Microsoft launches programme to help UK women start their own company

1. https://www.cobizfunding.co.uk/seed-crowdfunding-data-reveals-women-outperform-men
2. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/545202/Women_In_Innovation_Ebiquity_Report_August_2016_FINAL.pdf

The post How to find your voice in business appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

I talked to Amanda to find out more about what drives her, her experiences as a female entrepreneur, and any tips and advice she can share.

Tell me a bit about yourself

I would describe myself as an entrepreneurial pioneer, identifying innovative business opportunities. I left school at 15 and set up my own business at 19. I love finding new solutions to problems and most of my businesses have been new technologies or new attitudes to things. Most recently, I was introduced to thermal cameras and wanted to see how I could turn it into a consumer product. I saw an opportunity to expand the world of thermography and it’s grown from there.

I spent the first couple of years selling cameras and understanding the customer base, before developing the software. I started selling in the equine market and went around all the horse shows, getting in front of competition riders and built a very big customer base.

One of the first things I did was working with a research company. I wanted to test our software and ensure it did what it said on the tin, so we did a research project with the Veterinary School at Edinburgh university. And they loved it!

I also met someone from Bosch, who were interested and ended up selling through their networks. It was this that led to our team developing software that analyses heat within radiators to measure if there is sediment making the radiators inefficient, therefore reducing the life cycle of the boiler.

This product was specifically for heat in appliances, but it’s much the same as analysing people, animals etc. It’s all just heat patterns. We have a trial at the moment looking at calves and aiming to pick up early signs of eye/rectal diseases. The next route is to prove it in the animal sector.

What would your advice be to the next generation of female founders?

I have a real passion for this topic, and I’m looking forward to discussing it further during our [AI for Good] graduation day as there is a massive opportunity to raise the profile of women in tech.

50 percent of the population are female and using technology designed by 80 percent of men. And it’s an even bigger percentage if you think about who is founding the business and coming up with the ideas.

There’s a huge gap there to solve societal issues by developing software that’s led by females. We look at things very differently.

I would love for there to be more women in the industry. I think I’m not always understood, and often because I’m female. I have such trouble getting my ideas across at times and, whilst I don’t know if this is the case for all tech companies, but it’s been a massive issue for me.

I’d love there to be more of an environment where women can discuss this kind of thing.

What have you gained from this [AI for Good Cohort] experience?

I come from a very rural place on the Scottish borders. What I have done here at Microsoft has been a different league.

My business and I have grown hugely in the last four months and I’m desperate for [the Cohort] not to finish. I’ve loved every minute of it and every session has had takeaways. I have so many more tools, resources under my belt now.

We came in as app developers. Now we have a suite of tools, training modules, metric dashboards…so much more. And it’s all thanks to the people Microsoft put in front of us.

Additionally, I couldn’t pitch for toffee, the tools and confidence that Mircosoft and their team have given me has transformed the way I now pitch, this will have a major impact on me and the business as we go forward.

What’s next for Thermafy?

I’ve have been successful in being awarded a number of grants to help us test and validate our software. We also have recently been awarded a new Innovation Voucher to improve workforces. We are using this funding to developing new training modules which will enable our software to be easily adopted by industry.

A couple of the session at Microsoft have been around partner strategy and what we would need to provide for our product to be adopted and integrated into their workflow. The training modules are a big part of this but also creating a clear metrics portal, so that they can see how our software is working and quickly validate their return on investment.

The skills and knowledge we have gained whilst at Microsoft will also have direct impact on the next phase of our software development, incorporating more cognitive services, making the gathering of data simpler for the heating engineer whilst also ensuring it is accurate. We will still be tapping into the resources and networks within Microsoft and hope this will be a long term relationship as our business grows.

What advice might you have for those starting their own business?

Go out and give it a go. Don’t be scared of failure. Go and try and tackle some of the big issues in society. Give it a shot…it’s good fun!

Find out more

Hear from Rene Perkins, CEO and co-founder of CityMaaS

Hear from Isabel Van De Keere, CEO and founder of Immersive Rehab

How to find your voice in business

The post In conversation with…Amanda Pickford appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Rene has a background in sustainable transport solutions for smart cities, so starting CityMaaS was a next step in her vision of inclusive cities. They’ve been taking part in our AI for Good accelerator programme, designed to help advance their AI solutions. Run by Microsoft for Startups UK team and Social Tech Trust the programme provides access to the resources, knowledge, and people they need to help. The unique curriculum will also provide them with business development, marketing, and technical support alongside talks, seminars, and workshops.

I chatted to Rene about her passions, and experiences starting a company.

Please tell us about yourself and why you started your company.

I am passionate about solving problems that matter. Disability issues touched me deeply after a complicated pregnancy lead to losing my second child in the same year my beloved grandma passed away. I have also witnessed the struggles of my family-in-law’s disabled foster children.

I truly appreciate the meaning of ‘life is short’ and my ambition of doing something that creates a positive impact grows ever stronger.

For the past six years, I have been immersed in sustainable transport solutions for smart cities. CityMaaS is my vision for a user-centric mobility solution. It was born in the summer of 2018 with a mission to enable efficient travel for all, especially for people with limited mobility. Travel should never be an obstacle to live an independent life.

Did you think your future would involve running and managing your own business?

I come from an entrepreneurial family so running a business has always been in my bones. I spent over 12 years of my working career in the financial services industry at large corporates, a heavily male dominated industry, where I qualified as an chartered accountant and learnt and built invaluable skills and networks but my passion has always been in creating and making positive changes in whatever I do.

Who is your role model and why?

My role model is my Dad, whom I didn’t see very often while growing up. My grandma used to inspire me by telling me all the impressive stories of Dad not being afraid to take on huge challenges and through hard work, dedication and innovation he was always able to achieve whatever he set himself to do.

These characteristics that I inherited make me the way I am today.

If we’re sitting here a year from now celebrating what a great year it’s been for you and your company, what would you have achieved?

Fast forward one year on, CityMaas will have made a positive impact on over three million journeys for 200,000 people with limited mobility.

Currently CityMaaS is going through a procurement process of providing an end-to-end service platform for the London Dial a Ride service provided by TFL for over 1 million door-to-door journeys for disabled and elderly people. I am sure I would have made and learned from many mistakes and equally would have grown tremendously from forging partnerships to lead a highly effective and dedicated team.

What have you gained from being involved in our AI for Good Cohort? What lessons or insights are going to stay with you?

AI for Good Cohort is an invaluable, jam-packed programme that is full of gems and has tonnes of learning opportunities from technical development to social impact theories. Some sessions are inspiring while some develop essential skills to run a successful start-up.

There are many takeaways from each session and one of the most important insights that would stay with me for life is that navigating successfully through the start-up scene is tough, but social impact should be at the core of every decision you make.

Surround yourself with like-minded and inspiring people and organisations and you will grow faster and stronger.

Find out more

Hear from Amanda Pickford, CEO and founder of ThermaFY

Hear from Isabel Van De Keere, CEO and founder of Immersive Rehab

How to find your voice in business

The post In conversation with…Rene Perkins appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Dr Isabel Van De Keere is founder and CEO of Immersive Rehab. They’ve been taking part in our AI for Good accelerator programme, designed to help advance their AI solutions. Run by Microsoft for Startups UK team and Social Tech Trust the programme provides access to the resources, knowledge, and people they need to help. The unique curriculum will also provide them with business development, marketing, and technical support alongside talks, seminars, and workshops.

In my chat with Isabel, I discovered what empowered her to start Immersive Rehab and her experiences getting funding, support, and tips she has to share.

Please tell us about yourself and why you started your company – Immersive Rehab.

I have a background in engineering – mechanical and biomedical and worked in healthcare technology for quite some time. Then in 2010, I had a severe work accident which took me out of work for several years. I went through a long rehab period with little or no balance for about two years. Throughout the rehab, I found myself often very demotivated, feeling both frustrated and isolated.

As I am an engineer, I found myself starting to look into technological solutions on how to solve the problem of going through these long, rehab periods as well as gaining access to more appropriate rehab. And that’s when Immersive Rehab started forming in my head. It took several years before I made the combination with virtual reality (VR) because of my background in hardware.

I tried VR about four years ago for the first time and made the connection because I was suddenly moving objects around in VR myself. It enabled a much more engaging way for patients to interact with their surroundings–something missing from many current rehabilitation techniques.

What gave you the energy to take this idea forward and create something new?

There are various reasons, but just looking at the moment where I decided to take this leap of faith, it came from an experience I had with a charity called Girls Rock London. It is a music project which runs three-day bootcamps for women where you learn to create and perform music with other women, ultimately raising funds for a longer girls rock camp aimed at 11-16 year olds to help boost their confidence.

In my case, I came together with 20 women, who I did not know and shared an incredible experience. We began on a Friday night, forming four bands, we chose our instruments, wrote our own songs and then performed live in a public bar on the Monday night in front of around 100 people.

It was the most empowering experience–starting from nothing and ending with something in four days; coupled with having that confidence boost of performing on stage became the initiator for me to apply for the Bethnal Green Ventures programme.

I applied the very same week as the Women’s Camp with incredible support from my manager and team at the time encouraging me to take on the challenge–sharing their belief and confidence in me was really important to me making the decision.

I wasn’t afraid anymore.

My perspective would probably have been different if I hadn’t had the accident. I started from scratch again after my accident so I believed I could do it again.

That shows incredible resilience.

Did you ever envisage you would be running your own company?

I think it naturally happened in a way, but I guess I always thought I would stay in academia. An academic career is a bit like running your own company but it’s a safe environment as you are under the umbrella of the university. I’ve always wanted to make a difference but didn’t envisage I would create my own company.

That being said, now I would encourage other women to give it a try. If you really think you have something that could potentially go somewhere, if you don’t try you will never know. Every situation is different – there are obviously different people with different restrictions. For example – family commitments, so it can depend, but you can learn so much from the experience.

Who is your role model and why?

I don’t have a specific role model, but I think there are several women that are very socially driven whether they are someone in a charity organisation or for-profit organisations, that are just there to make a difference.

The way they also want to interact with people around them in a very humane way–they want to pull people up rather than push people down. It can happen on many different levels but those who help others develop and grow–women and men in powerful positions who act like that–they are the people I look up to and who inspires me.

Is there someone you know who does this well who our readers can watch and learn from?

If you look at Michelle Obama, although she is in a very privileged situation now, she’s always worked really hard to get to where she is today. She is not from a privileged background but she always, maintains integrity – still now and when she was First Lady. She comes across very authentic, giving people the opportunity to speak.

If we’re sitting here a year from now celebrating what a great year it’s been for your company, what would you have achieved?

For us, it would be having a clinical trial or long-term clinical study running to completion, and hopefully grown the team with more people and patient groups advocating for our work.

Have you seen any improvements since you began in 2009 in terms of women in business and leadership roles?

I think the effort is there, but it is still very limited. I have to say it depends on the organisations responsible for organising events or workshops and how they address the problem.

Only last month at an event, I was on the only panel with two other women–the rest across the entire two days, including moderators were all men–I was shocked. The organisers curating these events need to make a stand internally–if you say you are not going to sit on a panel because of a lack of diversity, there is a responsibility both on your and the curators shoulders to ensure diversity is heard and you are not just simply replaced with anyone.

You just don’t think things like that can still happen! What can we do as active participants in this agenda to help improve the situation?

I was part of a group of 21 women last year who came together to write a vision statement for women in VR because tech communities can be extremely male dominated and quite non-diverse on many levels.

As the VR community is new, we wanted to ensure this community wouldn’t be discriminatory to women and other underrepresented. Action also needs to come from all sides otherwise if the majority doesn’t see this an issue, nothing will change. For example, the CEO at the Welcome Trust has said if it’s not a 50:50 panel, they are not participating anymore.

Do you see a difference from investors in how female and male founders are perceived?

Yes, there is a very different conversation when it comes to raising capital for my business given only 8 percent of partners in the top 100 Venture Capitalist (VC) firms are women. With women founders, the conversation is very much focused towards risk and questioning how these problems will be solved whilst many of my male founder friends share that investors ask them about their vision and where they see their business going. I have rarely been asked about my own exit strategy.

This is reflected in the numbers, recent Seed Crowdfunding Data revealed that in the UK, over 220 early-stage, digital start-ups found that male entrepreneurs were 86 percent more likely to be VC funded than their female counterparts, and men were 59 percent more likely to secure angel investment.

What have you gained from being involved in our AI for Good Cohort? What lessons or insights are going to stay with you?

Well, on one side we have an amazing group of people within the cohort. The team are diverse in many ways including background and the people are very engaging.

With the workshops, the mix between Microsoft and Social Tech Trust has worked really well. They have been high level, really interesting and motivating. The discussions have always been very interactive, which is invaluable to all our businesses, even though we’re very different.

Finally, it was all about trying to have a strategy in mind about using machine learning and AI in our product and the connections we have made here have been high quality and useful.

One thing I would say to others in this space is to not to be afraid to take to the stage and to talk about where you’re doing – to help others break down barriers. You have to proactively look for it and initially engage with people to actually get the stage or to get that opportunity to talk, but once you get it be visible and don’t be afraid.

Find out more

Hear from Rene Perkins, CEO and co-founder of CityMaaS

Hear from Amanda Pickford, CEO and founder of ThermaFY

How to find your voice in business

The post In conversation with…Isabel Van De Keere appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Tell us a little about yourself

I live for adventure! Living just outside the Lake District, I get to explore the mountains and valleys with my sidekick, Robin the sprocker. I joined Microsoft just over 10 years ago on their graduate programme. I have always strived to work on projects focussed on where technology and social impact meet. My role at Microsoft allows me to work with a wide variety of organisations and individuals. From charities, think tanks, and start-ups to our own employees – all whom are looking to change the world with tech.

What is AI for Good?

AI for Good is our five-year commitment to tackling global issues leveraging the power of AI. We have already committed $115 million, a figure that’s still growing, in three key areas: AI for Humanitarian Action, AI for Accessibility, and AI for Earth. We want to work with organisations across the globe who are building AI solutions which are designed to assist humanity and are underpinned by ethical ideals that are rooted in societal values.

AI will be in our future. Therefore, it is important that we collectively develop and deploy AI in a responsible way that builds trust.
To do this, we are guided by a set of design principles. We need to ensure AI systems are: fair, reliable and safe, private and secure, inclusive, transparent and accountable.

[msce_cta layout=”image_center” align=”center” linktype=”blue” imageurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-gb/industry/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2018/12/AI-1024.png” linkurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-gb/ai/ai-for-good” linkscreenreadertext=”Find out more about AI for Good” linktext=”Find out more about AI for Good” imageid=”5437″ ][/msce_cta]

What is AI for Accessibility?

AI for Accessibility aims to accelerate the development of accessible and intelligent AI solutions. Building on recent advancements in Microsoft Cognitive Services, it helps developers create intelligent apps that see, hear, speak, understand, and better interpret people’s needs.

This programme is a call to action for developers, charities, academics, researchers, and inventors to bring their ideas to the next level! This five year, $25 million grant commitment will help us harness the power of AI to amplify human capability. It will create new and develop existing tools that support independence and productivity, as technology rapidly changes the way we live, learn, and work.

This programme will focus on three main challenges: employment, daily life, and communication and connection.

• • Employment: The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is more than double that of people without. We see opportunities in using AI to help people develop more advanced skills in the workplace and evolve the culture around inclusive hiring.
  • Daily life: We see great opportunities in building modern solutions for people with disabilities by making software and devices smarter and more contextually relevant.
  • Communication and connection: Communication is fundamental to providing equal access to information and opportunities. Lack of options excludes some from employment and society. Technology can create new possibilities regardless of how a person listens, speaks, or writes.

[msce_cta layout=”image_center” align=”center” linktype=”blue” imageurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-gb/industry/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2018/11/Disability-and-accessibility.png” linkurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/ai/ai-for-accessibility” linkscreenreadertext=”Explore more about AI for Accessibility here” linktext=”Explore more about AI for Accessibility here” imageid=”5521″ ][/msce_cta]

Why is diversity and inclusion important in AI, specifically with regards to Accessibility?

Have you ever created a colour coded Excel spreadsheet with the common red, orange, and green design and sent it to somebody? Do you know that your customer or colleague may be colourblind? They could be interpreting that spreadsheet in a VERY different way to your expectations.

Disabilities come in many forms – both visible and unseen. In fact 70 percent of disabilities are invisible. The need for accessible technology is growing and must include everybody in its design. We bring this to life through our Inclusive Design Principles.

Inclusive design is the design of an environment, product, or service so that it can be accessed and used by as many people as possible – regardless of age, gender, and disability.

A mobile app designed for someone who is blind, could also be useful to someone who has full hands and needs to send a text message.

A person who is hard of hearing could benefit from closed captions on a video. But so would a person in a noisy environment.

[msce_cta layout=”image_center” align=”center” linktype=”blue” imageurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-gb/industry/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2019/03/inclusive.png” linkurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=design/inclusive/” linkscreenreadertext=”Find out more about inclusive design” linktext=”Find out more about inclusive design” imageid=”8935″ ][/msce_cta]

Why is diversity and inclusion (D&I) important to you?

Throughout my life, I have always been engaged in male-dominated environments: playing women’s rugby, studying sports science at university and now working within technology. Throughout all of these experiences, I have been lucky enough to be exposed to inclusive, forward thinking, and diverse leaders. They believe in equal opportunity and hearing everyone’s voice, allowing myself and other women to excel.

However, being lucky should not be the way we describe this type of support for any D&I area. It should not be potluck as to who you are employed by or work with.

D&I should be a priority for any leader or employee – with everyone showing leadership and holding themselves accountable. This is currently not the case and that’s why it is important to me that D&I principles are talked about and raised at any suitable opportunity – for those who do have a voice to use their influence and encourage others to engage in conversation and take action.

How do you see technology helping to increase D&I in the workplace?

The answer to this is simple: AI can help increase D&I in the workplace by offering new and previously unthought of solutions to inclusive working practices. Enabling those who previously lacked a voice to have one and those who were previously excluded to now be included and embraced

An example of this is our Microsoft Presentation Translator now embedded within Powerpoint. There is now no excuse to not deliver live captioning in presentations to support those who are hard of hearing – or indeed those for whom English is not their first language.

What can we expect from the event?

I am hoping for a truly inspiring conversation on the 28th March – in fact multiple inspiring conversations! There are many active thinkers, organisations and charities in the accessibility space. I am delighted our data team wants to create an opportunity to bring many of them together. We will also have three of our UK AI for Good UK startups sharing their stories.

We will challenge some thinking in this area, showcase some best practice and have the opportunity to explore new ideas for a more inclusive, ethical and accessible AI future.

AI for Accessibility

Thank you so much for that insight Eve! As we have now learnt, diversity and inclusion is something we should all be thinking about. AI is being used to do amazing things in the accessibility space, and we will showcase some exciting examples of this at our event. You can expect to hear from experts in the field, as well as the opportunity to take part in some interactive demos.

We hope to see you at our free AI for Accessibility event on March 28. Sign up now to secure your place!

Find out more

Join us for our AI in Accessibility event

The post Using AI to shape an inclusive future for all appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.