Blog: awalkingdelight
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
“Girl Decoded, A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology”
By: Rana el Kallouby with Carol Colman
Narrated by: Rana el Kallouby
Rana el Kallouby (Author, Egyptian-American computer scientist and entrepreneur, founder and former CEO of Affectiva, Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School.)
Rana el Kallouby offers an autobiographical story of her personal journey from Egypt to America and her evolution from scientist to CEO of a facial recognition tech company. Though Kallouby’s story is personal, her experience shows what determination and commitment is required to start a tech company and grow it into something more than an idea. Of course, the underlying story is about American assimilation.
Growing up in Egypt in the 20th century, Kallouby experiences an upper middle-class life with a father who taught tech coding and a mother who works as a computer programmer for a bank. These were years of upheaval in Egypt and the Middle East for both men and women. Many educated Egyptian’s hired themselves out to work in other countries that needed technological help in business and finance. Women in the workplace in Egypt were less common than in the U.S. Kallouby’s mother chose to be both a housewife and a working mother who inspired her daughter to be more than a barer of children, homemaker, and companion to a husband.
Part of Kallouby’s early education is in Kuwait while her father works for the government.
She and her parents are there when Iraq invades Kuwait and when Gaddafi sets fire to the Kuwait oil fields when his invading army is ejected by American forces. Kallouby’s family returns to Egypt where Rana continues her education at the American University of Cairo. She earns a BA and Master of Science degree, and is subsequently admitted to Cambridge to pursue a Ph.D.
The tech experience of Kallouby’s parents lead her to an interest in coding.
That interest evolves into an idea about modern communication and its reflection in face behavior. The growing popularity of the internet diminishes personal contact that gives emotional context through facial expression. Kallouby begins spending a great deal of time coding facial expressions with the idea of creating recognition software to give more clarity to human communication.
Hosni Mubarak (1928-2020, Fourth President of Egypt.)
As a young Egyptian woman and as a devout Muslim, Kallouby chooses to marry a fellow Muslim who has his own tech business in Cairo. They buy a house and eventually have two children, a boy and a girl. As she commutes between Boston and Cairo, President Hosni Mubarek resigns under political pressure fomented by the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammed Morsi is elected in 2012 as the new leader of Egypt. Morsi becomes Egypt’s President because of his religious background and support by the Muslim Brotherhood. Because of Morsi’s inexperience as a government leader and its troubled economy, Egypt’s military re-takes control of the government under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2014. Though little is said by Kallouby about these events, her life’s journey continues.
Kallouby becomes obsessed with the idea of coding facial expressions.
That single-minded focus leads to further education in England and the U.S. After receiving a master’s degree, Kallouby chooses to seek a PhD at Cambridge with facial recognition as her thesis. Because of her chosen thesis, Kallouby’s education and drive lead her to an MIT lab in Boston.
This begins Kallouby’s Americanization which carries good and bad consequences.
Kallouby’s single-minded focus is two-edged. As a devout Muslim, she marries a fellow Muslim in Egypt. The person she marries is in the tech industry. He manages his own business in Egypt.
Kallouby’s travels between Egypt, England, and the U.S. create a growing disaffection in their marriage.
Though they manage to have two children, the strain of separation leads to divorce. The good that comes from Kallouby’s focus and ambition is evidenced by her success in being a co-founder of Affectiva. She did not do it alone and was aided by Dr. Rosalind Picard (the other founder), both of which were researchers at the MIT Media Lab. The bad is the personal price Kallouby pays in a divorce from her Egyptian husband and the hardship of being a single mother with two children.
Immigration comes with a personal price, but America is blessed by those who have the will and drive to make a better life for themselves and others. Kallouby’s story shows how religion, nationality, and personal ambition add to America’s prosperity. Kallouby became an Egyptian American with a foot in each country. Both Egypt and America are better for it.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 