Thank you. Hello and welcome to the NVIDIA AI Podcast.
I'm your host, Noah Kravitz. In 2020, Angel Bush founded Black Women in Artificial Intelligence, with a mission to educate, engage, embrace, and empower Black women in AI.
Under her leadership, Black Woman in AI has grown into a global force, uniting members across five continents and forging partnerships with industry leaders such as Amazon, Microsoft, Capital One, and Nvidia.
Angel's dedication to creating spaces where Black women thrive is not just a mission, It's a movement.
Here with us to talk about Black women in AI, the organization, the movement, and the power of inclusivity and innovation is Angel Bush. founder and CEO of Black Women in Artificial Intelligence.
Angel, welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time to join the AI podcast. thank you so much for having me here I'm so excited about this conversation me too Why don't we start with the beginning?
What inspired you to start Black Women in AI?
In the beginning. Well, this all happened because of Usher.
And I don't know Usher. Usher does not know me.
So let's clear that up right up front. Okay.
But what I was doing, I was trying to build a robot and that robot's name was going to be Usher.
Mm hmm. And all Usher's job was to do was to simply bring me hot cocoa.
And so... In trying to develop this robot, I went down this rabbit hole called YouTube University.
Trying to figure out what are the dynamics of this robot?
How do I build this robot? And as I'm doing this research, I'm hearing more and more about artificial intelligence.
Now, this was 2019. So before the big AI explosion.
And so as I'm doing this research, I'm finding more about artificial intelligence.
And I'm hearing it's the fourth industrial revolution.
And so I started to attend different events.
And as I'm at these events, I'm not quite seeing a full reflection of myself.
Right. But as they continue to say it's the fourth industrial revolution—
You know, in those moments, I said to myself, well, surely you can have a revolution. without Black women.
And so that was the genesis of Black women in artificial intelligence.
Got it. And so this was 2019? Yes. Started the organization the next year officially? we officially got all of our assets, social media assets in 2020.
Gotcha. And so what's the growth? Growth is a funny word, but what's the journey of the organization been like since then?
You know, it's been an interesting journey.
I think when you start anything that's new.
The first portion of it is learning, learning where you fit in the space, understanding the space of AI, because, again, this was 2019.
August of 2020 is when we officially became an organization.
And I think that artificial intelligence wasn't where it is now. in 2020, you know, global pandemic, all of these things happening at once.
And so with Black Women in AI, We had to learn in terms of our space.
What does this space look like? Where do we fit into this space?
So I think the initial years was growth. in learning what's happening in AI and what exactly is AI.
And as we continued in this journey, here we are almost five years later.
And our membership has grown, as you mentioned.
We have members on five continents, and we're excited about that.
And we have so many dynamic partnerships. with different organizations, again, from Nvidia to Microsoft, Capital One, Amazon, Create Labs, so many different organizations that contribute to the cause and really have taken it upon themselves to make sure that we create initiatives for Black women that will assist us in this arena.
Right. Can you talk a little bit about some of those initiatives?
We have an initiative in particular working with NVIDIA.
NVIDIA has been a strong partner. ally and partner in Black women in AI.
And so we've worked on computer science, we've worked on data science, we've worked on AR. and VR projects.
And one of the projects that we worked on in particular is an autonomous hair braiding machine.
Oh, wow. And so that was something where the members of your organization came in and said, okay, How does this look?
You know, let us teach you how to create a model card so you'll understand the dynamics of if you create this product, how it works.
Right. And so that's one of the major initiatives with NVIDIA that we've created.
We've worked with Microsoft in their innovation challenge wanting people to learn more about Azure.
The initiatives are primarily learning experiences. and creating cohorts of learning so people can understand, okay, where do I fit?
How do I pivot? Because you have a lot of individuals who are pivoting into AI.
Yeah, I was thinking of asking you next, and so I'm glad you brought it up, what your members...
The range of folks you have as members. Yes.
Our members come from such diverse backgrounds.
Yes. For example, we have some new members who just joined probably about a month or so ago.
They've worked in television. And so we have people in television, we have university professors, we have lawyers, we have doctors.
It runs the gamut because I think they are an example of what's happening in the world globally as far as Again, I'm going to continue to talk about pivoting because we have to prepare to pivot.
So every industry is impacted by AI. And so if you're in television, it's time to pivot.
It's not time to wait and see, is this AI thing just a fad?
No, it's not. It's time to pivot. So you mentioned... some of the partnerships with NVIDIA and some of the other corporations.
How do you work with them? How do the partnerships kind of start?
And is it, You have a specific initiative in mind.
Do you work with the partners to develop something?
Does it kind of rise organically from what the membership's interested in?
It's a little bit of all of that. It's a mixture of all of that.
Whether the organizations contact us, which oftentimes they'll contact us or whether we reach out to the organization.
That first meeting, I asked them three things when we're talking about partnerships.
Do you know the vision? And that's to educate, engage, embrace and empower.
Do you understand the vision? Educate, engage, embrace and empower.
And also, do you trust the vision, educate, engage, embrace, and empower?
Because when you trust the vision, you'll tell someone else about it.
And so we ask those three things. And then we talk about capacity.
That's the next step, because some people will go into a partnership.
Well, I want A, B, C and D. But that may not be the capacity of the organization that you're asking.
And so then the conversations will stop.
And so before we even get into a deeper conversation, my first question is, what is your capacity?
Is your capacity training? Is your capacity funding?
What is your capacity? And then we work from there.
Right. The organization is called Black Women in AI.
Is there a... Bottom age cutoff? Actually, the average age of our members is 30.
Wow. So it's 30 and up. Yeah. So and one of the things that we want to focus on is the shared learning experience.
What happens is. Some of our members have children.
And what I can say to you right now, and I'm going to give you this example of When I was in high school, it was required to take a foreign language.
And the foreign language that I chose, of course. was French.
Oh, me too. Okay. And all I can say to you is, comment va-tu?
Je vais très bien, merci à vous. OK, and that's it.
That's it. And my point of that story is, had there been a forward thinking person that said, not only am I going to teach you French. but I'm going to teach your family French.
Oh, right, right. And so for Black women in AI, it goes back to that shared learning experience.
Not only are we going to teach you AI, but now you have the opportunity when your child comes home because you are your child's first teacher.
You can continue that learning so that they can retain it as they grow older.
Right. It's like what you're saying with the partners trusting the vision.
You trust it. You'll share it. Yeah, that's it.
And so it's a global organization. You have members, partners everywhere.
Are the initiatives, the activities relevant?
Primarily in person, primarily online, kind of a hybrid.
What do those look like? They're primarily online because, of course, we started in 2020.
Right. So everybody started going online.
So that's the standard right now. But we did have an opportunity to attend GTC. in person and it has been phenomenal.
So there are some initiatives that are in person and some primarily online.
I'm speaking with Angel Bush. Angel is the founder and CEO of Black Woman in AI, an organization she started in 2020 after, and I forgot to ask you, did you build, did the robot complete?
Did it bring you hot chocolate? I did not build the robot.
Didn't build a robot but built a global organization.
It sounds like a fair trade. Yes. So it's not really shifting gears, but to talk a little bit less about what the organization's doing and kind of more about... why it's important, why an organization like this is necessary.
Can you talk a little bit about the challenges that Black women face in AI and beyond AI for that matter?
Well, I would say this, I think, artificial intelligence has a branding problem.
And the issue with artificial intelligence is when people hear about AI, They believe that you have to attend Harvard or one of these Ivy League schools in order to be a part of it.
Or they feel like I am, you know, I'm hesitant to use AI.
I either don't trust it or I don't understand it.
And so what we do is what I wanna do in terms of challenges is break those barriers down where people can feel comfortable In any arena, whether you're in marketing, whether you're doing podcasts.
You can still be a part of AI. So I think the biggest challenge really is the branding problem of AI more than anything, because we have to make sure that people, we meet them where they are.
And so I think it's a problem that many people face.
So before we recorded, I had a chance just to take a look.
I didn't actually get to go through it. You've created this really cool looking AI career assessment tool.
What was the genesis for that and how does it work?
And what's the, I don't know, reaction and experience been like for your members?
It has been absolutely wonderful. It's actually in live agent.
So anyone can test it out. Yeah. But one of the things is that I hear quite often is, well, how do I start?
Yeah. What do I need to do to get into AI?
And so with those questions that I get all of the time, I said, OK, how can we help people understand what they need to do in order to, again, pivot and transition into AI?
Right. And so our custom AI career assessment agent, let's just say you have a love for ice cream.
I do, actually. And I love that. I love ice cream as well.
And so what you do is you type in, I love ice cream.
And the AI career assessment agent will give you insight into how AI and ice cream are related.
Interesting. It'll tell you the emerging technology in that area.
And it'll also give you insight into the first three classes that you need to take in order to pursue that goal.
Very cool. Yeah. And so we wanted to, again, give people the tools that they needed in order to pivot.
Right. And so do you work with people to help them change careers and career training, career placement, that kind of thing, or?
We work with individuals who are interested in AI but not sure where they're going.
Okay. And so we have these conversations about, OK, so so tell me, you know, what's the North Star for you?
Where do you want to go with AI? Whether it's I want to work for NVIDIA or I want to work for another company or I want to create my own company.
Right. And understanding that AI is being democratized, in particular with ChatGPT.
I went in and created a Tetris game. And really making sure that we're not just consumers. but creators.
And that is the focus of Black Women in AI.
And one of the things that we challenged our members with in order to attend this event, one of the requirements was that you need to build something.
And I told them, and they can attest to this, I said, I don't care if it's the latest doorbell.
I need for you to build something. And they all stood for that challenge and they all created something.
And some of them are new again to AI. So they were asking questions and I said, just build.
Because we have to move beyond that fear.
Yes. Just build. And one of the things that came out of it is there is a app. called the conference app that was created.
And if you go into the conference app, it lists all of the speakers that are in the conference app and what time they speak.
And so the young ladies had never built an app before, and now they're excited.
And listening to Jensen, let's scale. How do we scale?
And so now that barrier to... I don't know what AI is, I don't understand it.
All of that is being removed and then we have innovation.
When you remove the barriers, then you will increase the innovation.
You kind of just answered the question I was going to ask, which was once Once they get hands-on, does it, for most of them, like, does it flow?
Do they kind of feel like, oh wait, this isn't intimidating.
Like I can work with this. Yes. Yes. I think you see the light, you know, when you see the light come on in a person where now they're coming up with the different ideas and they're not saying, so what should I do?
They're saying, you know what? We can scale this, we can add this, and we can transition depending on whatever the conference is, for example, we'll figure out what is the gap and we'll fill the gap.
Yeah. So the organization's four or five years old, going on five years.
What are the plans this year? I don't know how far out in advance, how far can we plan these days with AI changing so quickly, right?
But what are you working on? What are some of the, you know, things coming up down the road?
Well, one of the things that I've always said to people is, I want Black women in artificial intelligence to be so successful that it no longer has to exist.
I want to work myself out of this job. Yeah.
So this is not my last stop, but that's the main goal that we're so successful that we no longer need to exist.
Right. And so when it comes to what are we working on, we're working on another app. utilizing the OpenAI API.
And so this is in particular, to optimize resumes.
Oh, great. Yes, because a lot of people will say, well, I submitted a resume today, to this company, that company, but they're not aware of the applicant tracking system.
We're going to optimize their resume so that it can get past that initial stop of the applicant tracking system.
So that's what we're working on. And that will be on our website really soon.
So we're really excited about that. And again, utilizing the OpenAI API.
Great. And how do interested individuals go about becoming members?
Does it reach out to you? Is it on the website?
And what does that kind of entail? Yes.
Visiting our website, which is www.blackwomeninai.org.
We need to get you to cut some promos for the podcast.
I've been on radio. I've been on the radio.
So, yeah, there is a membership page. Mm-hmm.
And once they are approved for membership, then we also have an onboarding session, have an onboarding video.
And so we're making sure that they're prepared.
Again, as you said in the beginning, we're really not looking for members.
We're looking for people to be a part of a movement.
Yeah. Yeah. And really understand and trust that vision of the movement that We're going to make sure that you have all the tools you need in order to be a part of the AI economy, in order to pivot into your career.
We're going to do that for you. How do you go about and whether it's yourself or maybe coaching some of the people in the community to deal with these situations?
How do you go about it when you encounter resistance?
And, you know, wherever the resistance is coming from, but for whatever reason, the energy coming back at you or someone you're working with in community is feeling like I don't know if I belong in this space I don't know if they want me in this space just feeling that barrier I think My my personality is I'm going to do it anyway.
Yeah. And so I'm going to give you that energy.
You know, one of the things about Black women in AI, someone asked me coming over here today, they said, well, what did you do?
How did you just do this? I said, I just started.
I'm not concerned about what could potentially go wrong.
I just started. And Doors have opened where I have not had to apply pressure.
And that to me is the greatest part of this journey because I have not felt that resistance that I think most people believe. that I would feel it's been, oh, okay, let's have this conversation.
And I think when you start again with that capacity, then the doors open.
But if you start with, I just want A, B, C, and D, Okay, that's fine.
But when you start with that capacity and you build that relationship of trust.
And to me, that's more important than anything else.
All right. Change gears for a second. I think you mentioned ChatGPT before, but AI tools that you use in your daily work.
Anything come to mind? Have a favorite? Oh my goodness.
AI tools, chat GPT every day with the exception of this week.
What do you use it for? I use ChatGPT for everything, whether it's trying to make sure that the thoughts... are clear and the mood or the tone when I'm responding to an email.
But I've learned which models work best.
You know, the chat GPT-4, that's all creative.
But if you want something specific and deterministic, I think you should use chat GPT-4.
ChatGPT one and three. Interesting. You're doing coding and you need specific.
Yeah. Those are the ones to use. And Midjourney.
I love Midjourney. I'm using Sora. And I just started using another one and I can't think of the name of it right now, but it is. amazing where if you want to make a cartoon oh okay oh my god it's amazing It's amazing.
I'm going to find out after this. Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes.
Oh my God. It's... Next level. Angel, for listeners who want to find out more, ideally want to get involved, whether becoming a part of the community, supporting...
Maybe they're in an organization who'd like to partner.
What's the best way to learn more and to get in touch? make sure that you go to our website.
It has information. You can contact us. The email address is on there.
It's blackwomenandai.com? Yes, blackwomenandai.com.
Make sure that you really look at the website and you look at the possibilities.
If you're looking at the possibilities, then you won't hesitate to reach out.
So for me, Look at the possibilities of what's online, what we've shared.
And we're looking for thinking outside the box as well.
Right. Angel Bush, this has been a pleasure.
Congratulations and best of luck is an understatement with all the work you're doing to build this community.
It's a great thing. And hearing you talk about it is a great thing as well.
So thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
I appreciate it. Thank you.
