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OUR SPEAKERS
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Dr. Patricia Gestoso is an award-winning inclusion strategist, a technologist with 20+ years of experience in digital transformation, and a career and life coach.
She helps organisations and leaders leverage diversity and technology in their strategy so they can reach untapped markets, boost innovation, increase revenue and reputation, and attract and retain talent.
Patricia advises companies, NGOs, and governmental organizations on the topics of inclusive products and workplaces, technology, science, client services, acquisition integrations, and ethical artificial intelligence.
She is writing a book on “How women succeed in tech worldwide” based on testimonies of 400+ women in tech from +60 countries.
Patricia Gestoso
Inclusion Strategist | Director of Support | Coach
English, Spanish,, French
Languages:
Location:
Manchester, UK
Can also give an online talk/webinar
Paid only. Contact speaker for pricing!
MY TALKS
Mind the Innovation Gap: Identify untapped markets with ethical and inclusive product design
Design, UX / UI, Diversity and Inclusion, Product
Most creators envision making products and services of universal appeal. However, even the best intentioned designers come with their implicit unconscious biases about users and their preferences, needs, and behaviours. How can we highlight our blind spots and avoid deferring or disregarding ethical and inclusive considerations? Is being thoughtful about the impact of the solutions we create a zero-sum game?
The Ethics and Inclusion Framework© is a free tool that guides creators and developers through the process of identifying, preventing, mitigating, and accounting for the actual and potential negative impact of the solutions they create. The assessment is done via a questionnaire that incorporates the perspectives of users, unintended users, and non-users who may be indirectly impacted by the service or product. This systematic approach facilitates the discovery of neglected or negatively impacted groups by current solutions, highlighting opportunities to foster innovation,
How to create ethical and inclusive products and services
Diversity and Inclusion, UX / UI, Design, Product
We’ll use the Ethics and Inclusion Framework© free tool to help attendees identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for the actual and potential negative impact of the services and products they create.
The assessment is done via a questionnaire that incorporates the perspectives of users, unintended users, and non-users who may be indirectly impacted. The degree of inclusion of all those affected is evaluated against their diversity in terms of personal characteristics, accessibility, and access to technology. The likelihood of adverse outcomes is also assessed. As a bonus, uncovering those neglected and/or negatively impacted groups may highlight opportunities to foster innovation and differentiation.
Debunking Myths About the Low Representation of Women in Tech
Women in Tech, Inspirational, Diversity and Inclusion, Soft Skills
Are you overly qualified but you are not getting access to the plum projects or the next promotion? Are more junior male colleagues getting ahead of you in spite of delivering great work? Are you getting the feedback that you need to be “fixed” in order to succeed?
During my 20+ years in tech, I've gotten all those barriers and more. Actually, more than 40% of women that start in tech leave the sector.
In this talk, I condense key learnings from my journey living in 6 countries, spearheading several DEI initiatives in tech, coaching and mentoring women and people from underrepresented communities in tech, as well as writing a book about how women succeed in tech worldwide.
First, I’ll debunk common beliefs such as that there is a simple solution to the lack of women in leadership positions in tech or that you need to be fixed to get to the top. Then, I’ll present 7 proven strategies that will help you build a successful, resilient, and sustainable career in tech.
Decision making in a VUCA world: Can mental tactics improve the odds?
Soft Skills, Professional Development, General, Leadership
We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous multilateral (VUCA) world. The frequency of disruptive events keeps accelerating and we are overwhelmed with abundance of information, options, and stimulation.
However, biologically, we are still wired for survival, as our primitive human ancestors. This means we overestimate risks, we discount rewards, and we use heuristics (rules of thumb) and unconscious biases (shortcuts) to speed up the thousands of decisions we make every day. This is very useful to escape a burning building, but it might be disadvantageous when we lead a project, conduct a performance review, or implement change.
In this seminar, I’ll share some examples of my 17+ years of professional experience where decisions were clouded by the influence of heuristics and biases. I’ll also discuss some of the mental tactics I use to mitigate those effects.
Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability: The good, the bad, and the ugly
Data / AI / ML, Diversity and Inclusion, Inspirational
There is a growing effort towards exploring the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For example, AI has already been helped to enable circular business models, accelerate the scientific discovery of new materials and drugs, and reduce e-waste.
It is also true that AI has a cost to the planet in terms of natural resources and CO2 emissions. Moreover, the exponential increase of AI applications has powered the rise of AI ethics, a field that studies the main ethical dilemmas and moral questions associated with the deployment of those technologies such as the displacement of workers by automation and their role in enforcing systemic biases, to mention a few.
In this talk, I’ll outline these tensions between environment, society, and economy and explore how tech workers can contribute to building ethical artificial intelligence that delivers on its promise of sustainability.
How to Decolonise AI With Feminism
Diversity and Inclusion, Data / AI / ML, Leadership, Women in Tech
We have a binary view of AI. For some, it’s the door to a utopian future: delegate the work we don’t want to do, massive innovation, and exponential growth. For others, it’s the gateway to a dystopian world: lost jobs, manipulation, and machines taking up the world.
In my article https://www.themintmagazine.com/how-artificial-intelligence-is-recolonising-the-global-south/ I show that AI is already here and the impact on human labour is real, especially the exploitation of people in the Global South.
In this talk, we’ll explore the different ways the Global North uses AI to recolonise the Global South – access to internet, technoprecarity, the physical cost of AI - and how a 7-point feminist framework that includes topics such as intersectionality, epistemic justice, and self-care can help us to build AI tools that work for everybody everywhere.
Mind the Innovation Gap: Identify untapped markets with ethical and inclusive product design
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How to create ethical and inclusive products and services
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Debunking Myths About the Low Representation of Women in Tech
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Decision making in a VUCA world: Can mental tactics improve the odds?
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Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability: The good, the bad, and the ugly
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How to Decolonise AI With Feminism
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