Read about Rebecca Calinsky

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

As a lover of languages, technology, and what the United Nations stands for, I can’t imagine a more exciting career. Much of the data at the United Nations is text-based and represented in the six UN official languages, and Natural Language Processing (NLP), my area of expertise, is a subfield of artificial intelligence that offers the most advanced solutions for computer understanding of human language today, making it 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. Some of my favorite projects have been the research and development of TADA’s first text-summarization service, synthetic data builder, and talking-points generator.

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

Don’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.