About Us
Our Vision
A world where diverse voices shape AI, with women's contributions amplified and supported, demonstrating the power of responsible AI to help build better futures for people and planet.
Our Mission
She Shapes AI identifies, celebrates and supports female trailblazers around the world in developing and using AI responsible for social impact. We show the potential of AI done well.
What We Do
She Shapes AI is a positive platform, ecosystem and connector. We focus on the following pillars:
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Too many women-led AI initiatives are underfunded despite their groundbreaking work. We’re shifting the paradigm by spotlighting investable talent and connecting them with aligned investors, sponsors, and funding opportunities to help scale their impact.
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Representation matters especially in shaping the future of AI. We celebrate and elevate the voices of women from around the world whose work, stories, and perspectives are often overlooked in mainstream narratives.
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She Shapes AI is more than a platform. It’s a thriving ecosystem. We bring together innovators, funders, thought leaders, and allies to build a supportive and collaborative network for responsible AI development and use.
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We believe in the power of individual and collective agency to shape the future of technology. By showcasing women who lead with intention and impact, we inspire others to act boldly and drive meaningful change.
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AI holds tremendous potential, but only if developed and used responsibly. We highlight AI that serves people and planet, driven by ethics, inclusivity, and long-term vision.
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We are not just spotlighting women in AI from a handful of countries — we are celebrating trailblazers from every corner of the globe. Women making a difference in AI can be found everywhere, not just in the Western world, and we are here to recognize their contributions.
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AI is not just a technical pursuit. Success in AI demands diverse perspectives and disciplines. By embracing this broader view, we engage fully with AI's potential for good. We are uniting women from across fields - technical, legal, business and beyond, to showcase that AI thrives in a socio-technical context, not a technical vacuum
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We are not just discussing any AI; we are focusing on "responsible AI for the common good." We reject the false choice between business success and doing good. AI can and must help tackle real-world issues like healthcare, education, and environmental conservation. By highlighting impactful work, we demonstrate what is possible when AI aligns with societal values and human - centric principles.
Why We Are Different
She Shapes AI was founded in Spring 2024 by Dr Julia Stamm. She leads our commitment to showcase what AI done well looks like, bringing together her expertise in tech, innovation, research and policy to drive meaningful impact in the AI ecosystem.
Founder
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Dr Julia Stamm is an award-winning founder and visionary tech-for-impact leader. She has nearly 20 years of experience working across sectors to systemically address societal challenges, ensuring that innovation and technology are anchored in human values and help build a better future for people and planet. As founder and CEO of She Shapes AI, she leverages the contributions of women pioneers from around the world who develop and use AI responsibly to drive social impact, demonstrating the transformative potential of AI done well.
Julia combines a strong academic track record with a pronounced entrepreneurial mindset. Trained as a sociologist and political scientist with a PhD in Philosophy and an Executive Master in Public Management, she has spent her career at the intersection of science, policy, innovation and technology for impact. Having held senior positions in organisations such as the European Cooperation in Science and Technology, the European Commission and the G20, she specialises in strategy, governance and impact-driven leadership, bridging silos to create systemic change.
Prior to founding She Shapes AI, Julia was the inaugural CEO of The Data Tank, a non-profit data-for-good startup in Brussels that harnesses data for societal benefit. She was also the founding director of the Global Solutions Initiative in Berlin, supporting the think tank work of the G20 to address global challenges through policy recommendations.
In 2019, Julia founded The Futures Project, a global initiative to ensure that future-focused innovation and technology meet real societal needs. She received the Digital Female Leader Award in the Global Hero category for her pioneering work in innovation and technology for impact.
Julia regularly acts as a trusted advisor and consultant to leaders and organisations in both the public and private sectors. Among others, she has been recognised as a Woman Leader in International Relations by the Wilson Institute (US) and is a Responsible Leader of the BMW Foundation.
Julia is a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for Arts), London, and a Fellow at the Centre for Digital Governance of the Hertie School, Berlin. She is a frequent speaker and lecturer at international conferences.
Dr Julia Stamm
Advisors & Team
She Shapes AI is supported by a team of dedicated professionals.
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Jennifer believes in business as a force for good. An Executive Director with international leadership experience and board-facing accountability, she equips companies to make good choices that create long term value for their multiple stakeholders.
An expert in sustainable business strategy, value chain decarbonisation and stakeholder engagement, she is an active industry contributor with qualifications from Cambridge Institute of Sustainable Leadership and Trinity College Dublin.
As the global director of responsible business with the first listed B Corporation on the London Stock Exchange, she grew the enterprise value by converting supply chain engagement into client-facing win themes and thought-leadership.
Jennifer designs and delivers roadmaps for CSRD-readiness, TCFD reporting and double-materiality assessments with a particular interest in corporate governance and AI- readiness across organisations.
Jennifer Crowley
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Kathleen Carter is a creative marketing leader with over 15 years of experience driving brand awareness, lead generation and business growth across creative, media agencies and tech consultancies including Kin+Carta (Valtech), Dentsu and WPP, as well as at independent businesses.
Passionate about clarity in brand communications, Kathleen focuses on executing strategic marketing programmes, has managed cross-functional, global teams and believes in fostering a collaborative culture. She also has a proven track record of success in building and scaling marketing programs for B2B brands whilst driving fame for growing start-ups.
Kathleen Carter
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Rachel Gutierrez brings a decade of international experience in project management, partnership development, and design thinking to her role as Processes and Partnerships Lead. Her career spans impactful roles in global organizations, where she led strategic initiatives, managed multimillion-dollar portfolios, and fostered partnerships across areas such as global health, gender equity and social inclusion, and good governance.
Rachel Gutierrez
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Olivia is a world-renowned expert in AI Ethics and one of the first movers in Responsible AI. She is the Founder of Ethical Intelligence.
Olivia Gambelin
Elia Plagne-Ismail
Digital Marketer
Simran Kanabar
Contributing Writer
Rohitha Yarlagadda
Contributing Writer
Global Awards Council
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Galit Ariel is an award-winning Technofuturist, author and creative, exploring the wild & imaginative side of bleeding-edge technologies through her practice. Galit's research explores resemblances, gaps and possibilities stemming from new entanglements across digital, physical, and cultural spaces. Her creative work includes location-based Augmented Reality installations, speculative digital aesthetics, alternative human-computer interactions, and subversive animation.
Galit founded Future Memory Inc. - a speculative design agency and future innovation facilitator for lead tech platforms, organizations, and policymakers, and is a sought-after speaker and curator for global conferences, organizations and think tanks, including TED, SXSW, Slush, The European Union, Bell Labs, Microsoft, The City of Sydney, The City of Amsterdam, THE150 and many more.
Galit Ariel
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Professor Angela Aristidou speaks, writes and consults about the deployment of digital and artificial intelligence tools in health, MedTech and pharma, higher education, nongovernmental organizations and nonprofits.
Currently, Angela holds a large research grant by UK Research Innovation, leading a multi-disciplinary team of researchers to examine the implementation of digital innovations in the UK, USA, China and Canada. Angela is an international award-winning academic (among others: Fulbright; Stanford CASBS Award, UK Research Innovation Award), and has been included in USA and UK expert panels on the development of AI regulation. She specializes in strategy and entrepreneurship at University College London’s School of Management, is a Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab of the Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence Institute, and holds degrees from Cambridge and Harvard.
Prof. Angela Aristidou
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Maria is an acknowledged AI ethics and policy expert. As PwC's Head of AI Public Policy and Ethics, she is responsible for integrating ethical and policy considerations into the company's AI strategies, promoting partnerships with key stakeholders, and leading PwC's engagement in public policy debates and initiatives. Previously she was PwC Responsible AI lead, pioneering the adoption of ethical AI practices for the UK firm and its clients. Additionally, Maria champions AI for children and human centric AI.
Maria Axente
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With an unwavering passion for merging mission-driven initiatives with cutting-edge technology, Sheena's professional background spans brand strategy, programmatic ad technology, media production and data-centric digital transformation initiatives across media and journalism sectors, in both corporate and non-profit settings.
At Google, Sheena spearheaded regional ecosystem programs under the prestigious Google News Initiative since its inception in APAC in 2018. Her role involved collaborating with partner newsrooms to develop comprehensive data strategies & solutions, culminating in the co-authorship of the first data and product design playbook and labs for media and journalism in Asia. She also co-developed data tools that integrated editorial and business capabilities, fostering collaboration across newsrooms.
Her initiatives encompassed the full spectrum of newsroom operations and strategy, from diversity, equity, and inclusion to advanced analytics and data-driven decision-making. Sheena designed and executed transformative programs such as the GNI APAC Subscription Lab, Design Accelerator, and Data Labs in 2019-2020, empowering newsrooms to develop innovative products that consistently meet their evolving audience needs.
In her current avatar as a founder, Sheena is deeply committed to unlocking potential for other mission-led founders. Her startup Modulexero is committed to cultivating future leadership practices that foster collaboration and sustainability, within the burgeoning wellness and tech sectors. Her team and she are dedicated to mapping the wellness and AI founder landscape in Asia, in an effort to ensure wellness businesses build and incorporate access, inclusion, and ethics into their products and services.
As a certified professional and life coach, welltech entrepreneur, and design thinking facilitator and lecturer, her rich geographical experience includes working in markets such as Japan, India, Australia, Singapore and Indonesia.
Sheena Bhalla
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Claudia Del Pozo is the Founder and Director of Eon Institute, a women-led Mexican think-tank that seeks to future-proof society in light of the accelerated changes in tech. They're an independent spin-off of C Minds, an organization Claudia helped create in 2017. Her work has led her to be selected to be part of the Senate's National AI Alliance and the UK's Emerging Tech Advisory Council for Mexico, among others. In 2024, she was featured by WIRED as one of the leading women protecting Latin America from AI risks and was recognized in 2022 as a key component of the Mexican ecosystem by the Women in AI Awards, as well as a finalist in the Responsible AI Leader category.
She is currently working on an AI blueprint for Mexico's next administration. In the past, she coordinated the very first public policy prototype (sandbox-like) for more transparent AI systems in Mexico with the support of the local DPA (INAI) and the IA2030Mx National AI Alliance, which she co-founded. In 2018, she was part of the team that created a proposal for the basis of a National AI Strategy for Mexico, which was adopted by the Presidency and positioned Mexico among the top 10 countries globally to be working towards a strategy. She graduated from Warwick Business School in the UK and started her career at IBM Germany.
Claudia Del Pozo
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Ivana Feldfeber is a data feminist activist from Bariloche, Argentina. She is the co-founder and Executive Directress of the first Gender Data Observatory in Latin America, "DataGénero." She is part of the Feminist AI network for Latin America, and she was a team leader at the Center of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy (CAIDP), where she worked to analyze different AI policies in her region.
Ivana has been working as a programming and robotics instructor since 2017 and holds a postgraduate diploma in Data Science, Machine Learning, and its Applications from the Universidad de Córdoba, Argentina. In 2022 Ivana and her team were selected by A+ Alliance to research AI tools for Criminal Courts working with gender-based violence data in Argentina. She was recently featured in Vanity Fair as an ethical leader of the new generation. She was also a specialist speaker at UN's CSW 68. With DataGénero, Ivana worked with several governments and companies to build inclusive data processes, train teams, write recommendations and help decision-makers to create better data policies.
Ivana Feldfeber
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Shikoh is the CEO of Qhala, a Digital Innovation company that catalyzes digital transformation capabilities for organizations across Africa. She has over 10 years of experience in the Research, Design, Implementation, and Management of Digital Technologies. She has established expertise in both African and Emerging Markets specialized in solving problems in Agriculture, Education, Health, Payments, Retail and Renewable energies.
She is responsible for the set-up of Safaricom Alpha, a first of the kind corporate innovation hub in Africa. Where she worked as the Head of Products - Innovation and acted as the Chief Innovation Officer. Shikoh also led Safaricom's foray into becoming a digital company, by putting together a strategy, and cross-functional teams to execute the strategy.
Dr. Shikoh has previously worked with Africa Development Bank (AfDB), where she was leading and advising governments across Africa to adopt ICT for service delivery, she developed the Digital Government Blueprint, a strategic document to guide governments in digital transformation, now adopted by Smart Africa. She has also worked with Google and Microsoft in their emerging markets teams.
She has received numerous awards in recognition of her efforts in influencing Business and Government as well as Technology. Dr. Shikoh seats on various boards in ICT companies and contributes to a number of steering committees and think tanks on Africa and technology. Shikoh holds a PhD and MSc in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Dr. Shikoh serves as an advisor to governments on matters of data and digital development.
Dr. Shikoh Gitau
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Susan McPherson is a serial connector, angel investor, and corporate responsibility expert. She is the founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, a communications consultancy focused on the intersection of brands and social impact. She is the author of The Lost Art of Connecting (McGraw-Hill). Susan has 30+ years of experience in marketing, public relations, and sustainability communications, speaking regularly at industry events including Massachusetts Conference for Women, BSR, DLD, Worth Women and Techonomy, and contributing to the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Forbes. She has appeared on NPR, CNN, USA Today, The New Yorker, New York Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.
Susan is the recipient of Forbes magazine's 50 over 50—Impact 2021 award and Worth Media's Worthy100 award. She has also won numerous accolades for her voice on social media platforms from Fortune Magazine, Fast Company and Elle Magazine. Currently, Susan invests in and advises women-led start-ups, including: iFundWomen,Inc., The Meteor, Our Place, Spicewell, The June Group, Hint Water, The Helm, Apolitical, The Muse and has recently begun investing in women-led Broadway productions including Like Water for Elephants and SUFFS. She previously served on the boards of USA for UNHCR, Bpeace, The Lower Eastside Girls Club and presently serves on the 19th News board. She is on the advisory boards of the Apolitical Foundation, Lebec Consulting and Just Capital. Additionally, she is a member of the MIT Solve Women and Technology Leadership Group and serves as an adviser to several nonprofits including She's The First and The OpEd Project. Susan is a Vital Voices global corporate ambassador and a member of the New York Women's Forum and Extraordinary Women on Boards. She resides in Brooklyn.
Susan McPherson
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Nnenna Nwaknma is the former Chief Web Advocate of the World Wide Web Foundation. She is an ICT4D strategist and an expert in eParticipation and Citizen Engagement with 15 years of experience working for the UN. A strong advocate for policy and systemic changes, she focuses on the need for meaningful internet access, open data, open government, and open web across Africa. Nnenna is a board member of Health AI and an Expert with the UN's Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence.
Nnenna Nwakanma
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Gina Romero is a Filipino-British entrepreneur, community builder, and technology advocate. She is the Founder and Head of Special Projects at Mettamatch, an Ethical AI Data Services company.
Gina's community-building journey began in the UK in 2005 when she became a founding member of The Athena Network, taking on the role of Operations Director in 2008. Her early work in the UK laid the foundation for her commitment to women's economic empowerment.
After moving to Singapore in 2010, Gina focused her advocacy on bridging the technology gender gap and launched Connected Women Singapore in 2013.
In 2016, she moved back to the Philippines where she co-founded Connected Women, an award-winning organization based in the Philippines, dedicated to upskilling and empowering Filipino women, especially those from vulnerable sectors of society.
Since 2020, the company's data services division, MettaMatch, has extended its impact by offering managed data services for AI and automation to international markets, supporting companies worldwide in building sophisticated AI and automation systems.
Gina was a finalist in the global Women in AI awards by VentureBeat and received the prestigious TOWNS award. She serves on the Board of Trustees of De La Salle University and TOWNS Foundation.
Gina Romero