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, angel investor, author, and an 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 is currently focused on scaling the company to a global AI powerhouse. She is also an executive fellow at the Harvard Business School where she teaches about AI and startups. Her bestselling memoir, Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology (Penguin Random House, April 2020), 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 venture capital from top-tier investors 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 market research, automotive, 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 to 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 supporting female founders and funders, and a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) where she is serves on YPO’s New England board. 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. A TED speaker, and co-host of a PBS NOVA series on AI, Rana has been recognized on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list and as one of Forbes’ Top 50 Women in Tech. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and a Post Doctorate from MIT.
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, the global leader in Human Insight AI, 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 the global leader in Human Insight AI, technology that understands, supports and predicts human behavior in complex environments. Together with our subsidiaries Affectiva and iMotions we are bridging the gap between humans and machines for a safe and sustainable future.
Today, Smart Eye’s technology is embedded in next-generation vehicles, leading the way towards human-centric mobility through Driver Monitoring Systems and Interior Sensing solutions. Our Research Instruments offer unparalleled insights into automotive, aviation, assistive technology, behavioral science and many more fields.
Smart Eye was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Sweden with offices in the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Egypt, Japan, Singapore and China. A publicly traded company since 2016, our customers include NASA, Nissan, Boeing, Honeywell, Volvo, GM, BMW, Geely, Harvard University, over 1,300 research organizations around the world, 70% of the world’s largest advertisers and 28% of the Fortune Global 500 companies.
