It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
Girl Decoded

Girl Decoded

My Quest to Make Technology Emotionally Intelligent – and Change the Way We Interact Forever

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

We are entering an empathy crisis. Most 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.

In a captivating memoir, Girl Decoded chronicles el Kaliouby's mission to humanise technology and what she learns about humanity along the way.

©Rana el Kaliouby 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Reviews

  • Girl Decoded is the kind of honest and inspiring story that will encourage other women to share their experiences and own their power
    Tory Burch, founder and executive chairman of Tory Burch LLC

About the author

Rana el Kaliouby

Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D. is a pioneer in artificial emotional intelligence (EI), as well as the co-founder and CEO of Affectiva, the acclaimed startup spun off from the MIT Media Lab. She grew up in Cairo, Egypt, studying an undergraduate and master's degree in computer science at the American University in Cairo. She attended Cambridge University, where she earned her Ph.D. Her company works with more than a quarter of the companies in the Fortune Global 500. An acclaimed TED speaker, Rana was named by Forbes to their list of America's Top 50 Women in Tech and Fortune included her in their list of 40 Under 40.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more