WiCS Newsletter May 5th 2021 |
|
|
ANNOUNCEMENTS May 12th Guest Speaker Register below for our panel featuring Rikhi Roy! |
|
|
May 12th Guest SpeakerJoin us for a guest speaker session featuring Rikhi Roy on Wednesday, May 12th from 12:30-1:20pm PST! We will be having a discussion on her experience as an aerospace engineer. The event will take place on Zoom. Zoom meeting information will be sent to the email address you provide below. |
|
|
AbracadabraHacks (May 7-9th)Create projects that bring out your inner magician. Whether you're a Potterhead or a fan of Houdini's mysterious works, this hackathon is the place to build something to fulfill your magical dreams! | | |
|
|
UCSC IEEE Hack-a-bot 2021 (May 14-16th)UCSC IEEE is hosting it's annual robotics hackathon called Hack-a-Bot virtually. There will be workshops scattered throughout the event as well as mentors from a variety of background available to help so students of all backgrounds are encouraged to join. | | |
|
|
Biomedical Research Hackathon (May 21-23rd) Teams of students from middle school to graduate school spend a weekend developing public service campaigns around scientific publications. | | |
|
|
What's New in Tech? AI and "deepfake geography" |
|
|
| | What is a deepfake? "The term "deepfake" comes from the underlying technology "deep learning," which is a form of AI. Deep learning algorithms, which teach themselves how to solve problems when given large sets of data, are used to swap faces in video and digital content to make realistic-looking fake media" (Business Insider). What is the issue at hand? "Location spoofing" or the ability to modify real geographical locations with fake details using satellite images is an emerging problem. " 'This isn't just Photoshopping things. It's making data look uncannily realistic,' said Bo Zhao, assistant professor of geography at the UW and lead author of the study, which published April 21 in the journal Cartography and Geographic Information Science. [...] In 2019, the director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the organization charged with supplying maps and analyzing satellite images for the U.S. Department of Defense, implied that AI-manipulated satellite images can be a severe national security threat "(ScienceDaily). Have there been deliberate inaccuracies in mapping geography in the past? "As Zhao and his co-authors point out, fake locations and other inaccuracies have been part of mapmaking since ancient times. That's due in part to the very nature of translating real-life locations to map form, as no map can capture a place exactly as it is"(ScienceDaily). Small inaccuracies are present to protect copyright. | | |
|
| | What are the researchers trying to accomplish? What tools are they using? "To study how satellite images can be faked, Zhao and his team turned to an AI framework that has been used in manipulating other types of digital files. When applied to the field of mapping, the algorithm essentially learns the characteristics of satellite images from an urban area, then generates a deepfake image by feeding the characteristics of the learned satellite image characteristics onto a different base map -- similar to how popular image filters can map the features of a human face onto a cat" (ScienceDaily). Is there a positive side to "deepfake geography"? Zhao states, "[s]ome simulated satellite imagery can serve a purpose [...] especially when representing geographic areas over periods of time to, say, understand urban sprawl or climate change. There may be a location for which there are no images for a certain period of time in the past, or in forecasting the future, so creating new images based on existing ones -- and clearly identifying them as simulations -- could fill in the gaps and help provide perspective" (ScienceDaily). What do Zhao and his team hope to implement as a result of their study? " [...] [The researchers] hope to learn how to detect fake images so that geographers can begin to develop the data literacy tools, similar to today's fact-checking services, for public benefit. Sources: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-deepfake https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210421124657.htm Photos: Photo1 Photo2 | | |
|
|
Virtual Conferences/Workshops |
|
|
Women in AI USA - Respectful & Responsible AI (May 5th 2021) This event is a fireside chat with Mona Sloane, Senior Research Scientist at the NYU Center for Responsible AI and Dr. Karina Alexanyan, Founder/CEO at Humanication - who will share their perspective on AI innovation, policy and especially designing data and tech to address inequality. | | |
|
|
HP Ask: Tech Careers (May 13th 2021) This virtual event is open to any young person wishing to learn about the types of careers in tech fields, to learn about something new, or to hear the personal stories of mentors. Attendees can participate in the event by asking questions live or through chat function, or are able to just listen. | | |
|
|
Pie & AI: Henderson- Project Juntos & Go Deeper into GANs (May 14th 2021) Pie & AI is a series of DeepLearning AI meetups independently hosted by a global AI community. Events typically include conversations with leaders in the world, thought-provoking discussions, networking opportunities with fellow learners, hands-on project practice, and pies | | |
|
|
Women in Tech FeatureEllen Pao (1970-Present) Project Include CEO, former Reddit CEO, whistleblower |
|
|
| | The middle daughter of three, Ellen Kangru Pao was born in New Jersey to Taiwanese immigrants Tsyh-Wen Pao (mother) and Young-Ping Pao (father) in 1970. Peo’s parents were both involved in academic STEM throughout her childhood. Young-Ping was a professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Tsyh-Wen was a computer science engineer at the University of Pennsylvania. Tsyh taught Ellen to code when she was just ten years old. Pao graduated with an A.B. (otherwise known as a B.A.) degree from Princeton University’s school of Public and International Affairs. She studied informational privacy and their connection to computer databases. Right after graduating, Pao attended Harvard Law School, worked for two years as a corporate attorney, and then attended Harvard Business School. After she graduated with an MBA, Pao worked at many companies in Silicon Valley, eventually joining Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm in San Francisco. The job required degrees and experience in engineering, law, business and enterprise software. With her diverse educational background and work experience, Pao was highly qualified to become John Doerr’s (a senior partner) technical chief of staff. She expanded the company into China, and then became a junior investing partner under Ted Schlein. After a few years, with feedback and support from Doerr and her own diligence, Pao was promised a senior partner position, and eventually denied it. As Pao remained a junior partner, equally qualified men were promoted.
| | |
|
| | On May 10, 2012, Pao filed a lawsuit against her employer for gender discrimination, as a result of workplace retaliation by a male junior partner, as well as passing her over for positions she was qualified for. Later that year, Pao was terminated abruptly from Kleiner Perkins for reasons allegedly unrelated to the lawsuit. Pao was named a whistleblower for calling out the unjust workplace behavior that was more prevalent than it seemed in the tech industry. In 2013, Pao became the head of business development at Reddit. She invested in strengthening ties between Reddit and Imgur, and set clear goals, eventually taking the position of interim CEO after Yishan Wong’s resignation in 2014. Pao prevented repercussions for women who negotiated pay, as she found that they were more likely to be subject to retaliation than men. Many of her changes were followed by other social media programs and websites. She resigned in 2015 after multiple Reddit communities (subreddits) were banned for harassment and the company’s talent director was fired. Pao went on to co-found Project Include, a non-profit to “accelerate diversity and inclusion solutions in the tech industry.” She wrote a memoir about her experiences and her fight against workplace discrimination. She is now the CEO of Project Include. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/naomi-schaefer-riley/self-styled-martyr-silicon-valley/ https://www.ellenkpao.com/
| | |
|
|
Coursera x Google UX Design Professional Certificate Learn UX concepts and create a portfolio. No prior experience needed. | | |
|
|
Intro to R: Harvard Get started with learning R and implement data analysis and visualization. | | |
|
|
Intro to Figma for UI/UX Learn how to harness Figma for UI/UX Design | | |
|
|
Create an Instagram Filter: Intro to Spark AR A quick intro to Spark AR and how it can be used to create your own Instagram filters! | | |
|
|
Check out this race between an AI piloted drone and a human piloted drone! |
|
|
No Yelling (Language: Swift) |
|
Create a function that transforms sentences ending with multiple question marks ? or exclamation marks ! into a sentence only ending with one without changing punctuation in the middle of the sentences. *moderately difficult* |
|
|
Keep An Eye Out for Future Newsletters! |
|
|
|
|
