Rebecca Calinsky

What brought you to a career in technology at the United Nations?

Much of the data at the United Nations is text-based and represented in six different languages. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of artificial intelligence that offers the most advanced solutions for computer understanding of human language today, making specialists in the field especially useful to the UN.

What has been your favorite technology project or initiative at the United Nations and why? What was your contribution?

My group works on the design and implementation of Unite TADA, a collection of advanced UN-centric tools to assist staff in kickstarting data analytics projects. TADA stands for Toolkit for Advanced Data Analytics and currently provides basic building blocks for many AI needs, such as language detection and sentiment analysis. I most recently contributed to the research and development of TADAﾒs first text-summarization service, using state-of-the-art machine learning transformer models.

What advice would you give women interested in pursuing a field in technology?

Donﾒt be afraid to seek out female mentors. Most women in the field have experience with the very hurdles you face and are happy to offer advice and support.