In a captivating memoir, an Egyptian American visionary and scientist
provides an intimate view of her personal transformation as she follows
her calling--to humanize our technology and how we connect with one
another.
**
LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD - "A vivid
coming-of-age story and a call to each of us to be more mindful and
compassionate when we interact online."--Arianna Huffington**
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PARADE
Rana el Kaliouby is a rarity in both the tech world and her native
Middle East: a Muslim woman in charge in a field that is still
overwhelmingly white and male. Growing up in Egypt and Kuwait, el
Kaliouby was raised by a strict father who valued tradition--yet also
had high expectations for his daughters--and a mother who was one of the
first female computer programmers in the Middle East. Even before el
Kaliouby broke ground as a scientist, she broke the rules of what it
meant to be an obedient daughter and, later, an obedient wife to pursue
her own daring dream.
After earning her PhD at Cambridge, el Kaliouby, now the divorced mother
of two, moved to America to pursue her mission to humanize technology
before it dehumanizes us. The majority of our communication is conveyed
through nonverbal cues: facial expressions, tone of voice, body
language. But that communication is lost when we interact with others
through our smartphones and devices. The result is an emotion-blind
digital universe that impairs the very intelligence and
capabilities--including empathy--that distinguish human beings from our
machines.
To combat our fundamental loss of emotional intelligence online, she
cofounded Affectiva, the pioneer in the new field of Emotion AI,
allowing our technology to understand humans the way we understand one
another. Girl Decoded chronicles el Kaliouby's journey from being a
"nice Egyptian girl" to becoming a woman, carving her own path as she
revolutionizes technology. But decoding herself--learning to express and
act on her own emotions--would prove to be the biggest challenge of all.
