From Hackathon to Launch: A Discussion with Debi Stack, AI VIP

I've had the immense privilege, during the course of the last year, of organizing and moderating events with women in various capacities within AI and Data Science fields through my work with Women in AI and Women in Data. Shameless plug - check out BOTH these orgs if you are a student, career-transitioner, seasoned professional, professor, enthusiast, mentor or just a curious human.

Throughout my LinkedIn galavanting, I come across people that I think would really contribute to these events and talks and I have discovery calls with them to understand what they're passionate about sharing within the world of data and AI (always open to recommendations!). I get to be the lucky person that has a chance to hear from passionate, thought provoking people that are making the change they want to see in the world and, quite literally, changing the world from the inside out.

Right away when I started speaking with Debi, I could see her drive and inspired view of what AI can make possible for us and I just knew we would have a wonderful live discussion. She's been working in the field for decades and continues to remain involved in the AI community, breathing life into new ventures and applications of AI, mentoring and advising as well. Debi spoke for our Women in AI WaiTalk on March 17th "From Hackathon to Launch", but no worries if you missed it: below is a transcription of our talk and if you liked this one, feel free to stay up to date on our upcoming chats, programs and initiatives!

Tell us about yourself and about your various ventures, Debi!

I retired from IBM as one of the first female AI Consultants and led IT design and development teams, delivering Watson AI vision, strategy, and prototypes to global communications, media, and technology clients. In partnership with Qualcomm, my IBM team detailed the reference architecture for Watson AI integration with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Along with former colleagues from EDS and HP, I co-authored the book, “NextGen Smart Cities." As founder of Digital Ascension, I continues to honor the mission I accepted at IBM; "Save lives among U.S.Veterans." 

As a Board Member of Dream Tank, a 501c3 with the mission to activate 1 billion youth to solve the United Nations "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs), I sponsor a Hackathon with veterans and kids who began to design a game called “Rediscover Joy” for SDG3 (mental) health & wellness. Today, the youth of Dream Tank are developing a global “golden ticket” game online and offline, called “Island 17” to solve the SDGs.

Wow. What a legacy. Given the breadth and depth of your perspective on AI, what does AI allow us today that it didn’t five years ago and how have you leveraged this growth in your business?

Five years ago, IBM was the first to commercialize AI after Watson won Jeopardy. It was an exciting phase of ideation and customer experience design. IBM acquired Resource Amarati, a boutique ad agency whose first client was Apple. My hiring VP had worked with me at EDS, Dell and now IBM. She brought me in because of my experience in contextual computing and customer experience. I was selected among the first 12 Global Business consultants for AI I brought together designers, engineers, Phds and MBAs to design a Cognitive Theme Park at Universal in Orlando. At DirecTV, I sold the first instance of Watson Explorer for Data Science to support a single view of AT&T customers. We had to provision more virtual servers to upload the petabytes of data in their CRM. Everything in AI was first of its kind in 2016. 

While we were building $50M instances of Watson on mainframe computers, Amazon released a $50 Alexa to consumers. Yesterday, I visited my mom in her new retirement home and my dad brought her an Amazon Fire tablet with Alexa. She said “Alexa, play Ray Charles” and she listened to Blueberry Hill. “Alexa, take a note. It was April 26, 1982, on my 40th birthday and grandpa took me to Hawaii." Her great grandson, Ian is training Alexa for her and she tells him “I don’t want to learn anything new” so Ian says he’ll teach Alexa how to understand Grandma not vice versa, because she has seniority. It’s really exciting to see our ideas come to life. Here’s the thing: It’s taken a generation of technologists across all competitors in all industries and technologies to enable iPhone, Alexa, Oculus Quest, Bitcoin, and 5G. We have a lot of data, a lot of code, and great improvements in customer experience. 

TRUTH: What we are missing is truth. AI can be the great lie detector in the sky. Yesterday, I was rear ended by a Mac Truck. He told me to pull over then took off, it was a hit and run. The police are checking the crime cameras but they said this happens a lot and not only the drivers but the trucking companies lie even when there is video and GPS. A woman was killed by a hit and run recently and the driver reported his car as carjacked but the crime cameras followed him from the scene to where he ditched the car. 

In 2011, I consulted with Steve McGaw, CMO of Business Mobility at AT&T. I recommended Trust as their North Star Strategy. At the time, banks and telcos were the most trusted organizations. Telcos have had our personal data much longer than Facebook, Amazon, and Google. Trust is a common keyword for all organizations now. How do we discern the truth from the hype? There’s a lot of hype.

 I value diversity to train the algorithms and as I read in HBR, even algorithms need a manager. It’s important to align multi-generations, genders, ethnicities, and bioregions to train AI. As a wisdom keeper or wise elder, as Chip Conley was to Air BNB, my generation has enough data for our own brain learning pattern matching. All of technology is an evolution that builds upon previous code. For instance, my architect and technology team laid the foundation for the iPhone. We developed IMS with all of the protocol conversions to translate among multi-carriers, devices, servers, gateways...but as Dan Mapes of Verses tells me, even Tim Berners Lee isn’t a trillionaire. How do we distribute equity more fairly? 

In 2018, I was written up by a 32 year old Accenture partner because I refused to tell Cox Communications that “Blockchain will not scale”, I knew that Blockchain would scale because I’ve worked through 5 generations of telecom technology. I knew where the bottlenecks were and I’d met with a client about Blockchain with Arvind Krishna who is now CEO of IBM. Now that every bank in the world is blockchain and Bitcoin is $62,000, I think we know how that turned out.

Then, I was invited by Digital Raign to a Consciousness in AI retreat at Esalen Institute. The developers and neuroscientists said we probably would not create consciousness in AI but it will emerge. So, we realized, it’s really important to practice mindfulness, meditation and learn to be more conscious ourselves because every day we are shaping AI when we interact with our phones and as technologists it’s a huge responsibility for our children and grandchildren's future. I want to help young people shape what may emerge as consciousness in AI and that is why I took a 3 year sabbatical.  Now I’m exploring the next waves to see where I want to dive in. I follow the way of the dolphin, always catch the next wave. My career has been an arc from one emerging future technology to the next and lately I’ve been working with AR and XR for music, culture and festivals because I think that’s where Smart Cities start. 

What convinced you entrepreneurship was the path for you? 

I have to laugh about this because I worked for my dad when I was a teenage mom and I didn’t want to be an entrepreneur until I fell in love with a guy whose dream it was to start a company. We started two companies and raised two stepchildren together, but he’s history and let me just say - get a lawyer before you enter into any trusted love/business relationships, ladies!

What do you wish someone had told you about entrepreneurship when you started?

Apart from getting a lawyer, get a financial advisor and stay out of debt! Be ready to retire in 5 years even if you’re under 30. 

What advice do you have for women that want to become founders in the AI space?

Form an ecosystem, collaborate on a platform, include the best UX designers and don’t believe the hype. Just build it and they will come while everybody else is still talking about it. 

We have an accelerator program going with women in AI and an awards ceremony coming up in October. How can smaller startups best leverage their AI strategy?

This advice is for investors: form a Distributed Accounting Organization on blockchain, build in trust and transparency and allow the founders to meet their basic needs and vote on project investments. Pro bono work for future equity is unfair. It’s inefficient to fund 2 in 100 startups. It isn’t true that there is value in failing. There is more value in succeeding. Women are collaborators. I’d like to see 98 in 100 succeed together not in competition. In fact, we are in the middle of a cold war with AI. This is our moonshot. We’re out of time to save our planet and our people. The only competition is extinction and the only thing holding back young entrepreneurs with talent is funding so let’s get them funded!

What do you wish more people knew about AI?

It isn’t rocket science anymore. We have reached the point where design and configuration is as important as math and coding. There are educational and job opportunities for everyone. Global AI systems must be trained locally with diverse beliefs, ethics, experiences, dialects, and traditions. I hope every community will build a future innovation zone and we’ll cross the digital divide not only in internet accessibility but access for our youth to embrace innovation and make the world a more wonderful place. Dr. Furness, who developed the VR flight simulators in the Air Force, told me that retention increases from 20% to 80% with VR in subjects like chemistry and physics. AI enables personalized learning.

How is Covid impacting your role as a leader, as CEO?

I think the world stopped turning so we could take a good look around. I came down from the ivory tower and saw Mad Max Thunderdome. Time’s up. Technology is ready. Access to capital for women is the bottleneck. Solving the UN SDG’s is the Blueprint. We have the best talent, best technology, best blueprint. Let’s GO!

What is most exciting to you about this moment?

The WAI Hackathon is most exciting! "From Hackathon to Launch" is exactly what is needed now. As we say in the Dream Tank, DREAM BIG!!!