Impact Labs Summit at Columbia University: My Experience

I had the opportunity to attend the Impact Labs Summit in Summer 2022! “The Impact Summit is a gathering of talented and passionate students and early-career technologists from around the world to connect with one another, hear from expert speakers, learn new skills, and discover high-impact opportunities.”

Workshop Highlights

AI/ML Bias Workshop

The first workshop was on the importance of reducing bias in AI/ML models, and also on identifying how these models may not be 100% correct. This applies especially for minority and underrepresented communities, as there may not be enough data points. It is important to understand these limitations before making generalizations that may not be representative of the population in which these studies/models aim to represent. Its just as important to understand other factors that may be underlying these studies / the variables in which we aim to measure.

Other Key Sessions

leveraging a data-driven approach for investigative journalism
using tech for social impact in non-profit settings
using tech for social impact in corporate settings
using tech to improve education
learning about how data pipelines are used in improving education

I was able to better understand the structures of these organizations, and seeing the pitch for a non-profit leveraging tech for social good helped me to better understand how non-profits, and social enterprises can solve solutions in communities globally.

Inspiring Speakers

It was also inspiring to hear from the speakers, who have had many years of experience and that have demonstrated grit, and perseverance towards the mission of leveraging tech for social impact. It was inspiring to hear from Julia Angwin for example, because as a woman in STEM, I can relate to the experiences that she had been one of the few females in the room. She also described moments in which she was pushed to explore new areas in tech through her journalism. She also described how the data analytics and data collection aspect worked and being able to better understand the processes in which writers and journalists take to write these comprehensive reports (often having to conduct their own studies and collection) opened my eyes to the possibilities of what I could be researching to bring issues of social impact to the limelight, and how I could approach the process from beginning to end.

Ethics in Tech Solutions

In the workshops based on creating solutions for non-profits and to create solutions to solving pressing issues in society, I was able to develop a stronger understanding of how ethics plays a role. Not only is it important to solve these problems at the root source when possible, but to also try to give those individuals utilizing you to be independent and ability to use the systems on their own.