Girl Decoded

We are entering an empathy crisis. So much of our communication is conveyed through non-verbal cues – facial expressions, tone of voice, body language – nuances that are completely lost when we interact through our smartphones and other technology. The result is a digital universe that’s emotion-blind – a society lacking in empathy. Rana al Kaloubi discovered this when she left Cairo, a newly-married, Muslim woman, to take up her place at Cambridge University to study computer science. Many thousands of miles from home, she began to develop systems to help her better connect with her family. She started to pioneer the new field of Emotional Intelligence (EI). She now runs her company, Affectiva (the industry-leader in this emerging field) that builds EI into our technology and develops systems that understand humans the way we understand one another. This title chronicles el Kaliouby’s mission to humanise technology.