About Rana el Kaliouby
About Rana el Kaliouby
Rana’s life work is about humanizing technology before it dehumanizes us. She is an Egyptian-American scientist, entrepreneur, author and AI thought leader on a mission to bring emotional intelligence to our digital world. She is the Deputy CEO at Smart Eye and formerly, Co-Founder and CEO of Affectiva, an MIT spin-off and category defining AI company. Rana realized a successful exit for Affectiva in June 2021 when the company was acquired by Smart Eye, where she will team with Martin Krantz, Smart Eye’s CEO to scale the company to a global AI powerhouse. Her bestselling memoir, Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology (published by Penguin Random House), follows her personal journey, growing up in the Middle East and moving to the United States to become an entrepreneur, juxtaposed against her work building Emotion AI.
Rana has raised $50M+ in capital from top-tier investors and non-dilutive funding to bring Affectiva’s Emotion AI, built on deep learning, computer vision, speech science and massive amounts of real-world data, to 90+ countries and to several industries including the automotive industry and media analytics. She has a track record of translating technology innovations into products that address the needs of massive international markets and spearhead the application of Emotion AI to mental health, autism, conversational interfaces, robotics and education.
She is extremely passionate about the ethical development and deployment of AI, including advocating for standards to ensure data privacy and mitigate data and algorithmic bias. To help establish best practices and guidelines for AI ethics, Rana is part of industry organizations like the Partnership on AI and the World Economic Forum’s Council of Young Global Leaders.
As one of few women leading an AI company, she cares deeply about her role as an advocate for diversity and inclusion in tech and leadership. To help catalyze change and improve equity industry-wide, she is a member of the Boston Steering Committee for All Raise and a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). Rana is also a venture partner of the MIT Media Lab E14 Fund, a Board Member of SIMPEDs at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a Board of Trustees member at the Mass Technology Leadership Council and at the American University in Cairo, the leading liberal arts university in the Middle East.Rana believes in the power of human connection.
About Affectiva
Affectiva is on a mission to humanize technology. An MIT Media Lab spin-off, Affectiva created and defined the Emotion AI category. Built on deep learning, computer vision, speech science and massive amounts of real-world data, Affectiva’s technology can detect nuanced human emotions, complex cognitive states, activities, interactions and objects people use.
In automotive, Affectiva’s in-cabin sensing AI is enabling leading car manufacturers, fleet managers and ridesharing companies to build next-generation mobility that adapts to complex human states. Affectiva’s technology is also used by 25 percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies to test consumer engagement with ads, videos and TV programming.
In June 2021 Smart Eye acquired Affectiva. The two companies are merging to create a transatlantic AI powerhouse that will lead and accelerate the growth and development of the rapidly evolving automotive Interior Sensing market, as well as the Media Analytics and Research markets.
About Smart Eye
Smart Eye is leading the way towards safe and sustainable transportation. Every year, 1.2 million people lose their lives in traffic-related accidents around the world, another 50 million are injured. Our firm belief is that science and technology can help turn this around.
For over 20 years Smart Eye has developed artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of eye tracking technology that understands, supports and predicts a person’s intentions and actions. By carefully studying eye, facial and head movement, our technology can draw conclusions about a person’s awareness and mental state. Our eye tracking technology is used in the next generation of cars, commercial vehicles and providing new insights for research within aerospace, aviation, neuroscience and more.
Smart Eye’s solutions are used around the world by more than 800 partners and customers, including the US Air Force, NASA, BMW, Audi, Boeing, Volvo, GM, and Harvard University.
