Black Is Tech 2024 Bridging Human vs AI for Inclusive Menstrual Health Communities Panel

Exciting times to be alive during the Black History Week. Have you been enjoying it?

Yes.

So today we have an amazing panel I'd like to introduce to you. The title is Bridging Human and Machine: AI's Impact on Workplace Community. Uh, this insightful session is to help you explore how artificial intelligence is transforming workplace dynamics for women. And we have great leaders from Technologies for Color, IBM, LinkedIn Power, Collimation, See Life Different Media, and Senegal that will be discussing the intersection of AI with digital entertainment, gaming, AR/VR, and edtech. So we go right to it. Let you also know that when we say women and female, we embrace all menstruating people, gender non-conforming, and LGBTQ-identified individuals. Uh, so good afternoon everyone, uh, you're welcome to the Bridging Human and Machine AI Impact on Workplace Community panel at Black History Tech Week. My name is Chase Nengwinya, I happen to be the Chief People Officer at Sanico.cloud. So today is our own version of our own Grammy and Olympics. I was so excited to be able to take this same conversation to the The city of Montpellier in France, earlier this year, thanks to the IITP Foundation, and also to the UN Civil Society Conference in Nairobi. So I'd like us to delve into this so I can introduce our amazing speaker. Also, housekeeping as before, please try to record this, share, tag people on LinkedIn so that we can all follow this conversation, um, because it's good that you're have the opportunity to be here so we can share it, uh, to the world. And here, one of the brand cultivating strategies at C9 Different Media, a TEDx speaker, also an outgoing CEO at Selling Coolers US. Zaakirah empowers diverse narratives through branding and storytelling, overcoming unique challenges as a deadline, constant survival, accommodating vicinity needs, and inspiring employees Who will share our PCOS story and the compelling value Cycle Pro offers to employers. Welcome, Zakirah.

So how many of you know what PCOS is? I'm gonna try again. High cystic ovarian syndrome affects one in ten women. So that can include symptoms like heavy voice, irregular menstrual cycles, um, and lots of facial hair, um, or hair everywhere else. So prior to the pandemic, uh, before I went all in into entrepreneurship, I chose to work a couple of retail jobs. And so another one of the symptoms is extreme fatigue. So there'd be some weeks where I'm extremely productive, some weeks where I'm extremely tired. And instead of my boss trying to ask, what's going on? How can I help you? I get chastised and belittled. And the further I got into my role, especially, you know, being the former interim CEO and CMO at Danica, the more I realized that a lot of women who menstruate have the same issue— being belittled, not being understood, not being seen, not being heard. So once I was able to have a conversation with Danica about the events, I realized, okay, there is a problem that needs to be solved here. Women still need to be seen and heard and understood. And in order for the inclusivity, and even though they're breaking down all the media walls right now, people still need to be heard. And that's just for both genders. Although it's menstruated, the men are the ones who are the bosses. The men are the ones who are the decision makers. And I believe that PCOS is just one aspect. There's so many other irregular periods symptoms. Going on that I thought people should be able to understand.

Thanks so much, Zakira. And one of the things that you also spoke about is it's so interesting that you think this is just a woman-led conversation, but you're excited to know that why should a man even be talking about this? When I started my journey around menstrual health, the conversation was just to leave issues around genital female mutilations ending rape issues. But the question was like, why are you so passionate about women? Why do you like to speak about women's health issues? And I was just scrolling through, uh, Twitter, now X, and it was like, if only sanitary pads was free or cheaper, you know, like it was a gender war that was about to happen. If only men were on their periods, sanitary pads would be raining down from the skies. Uh, why is tampon taxed and Viagra is not? And why is Fundam share for free and Sani Jubbal not share for free? It was a conversation that I thought was only happening in developing countries like my own country Nigeria, but I saw that it was not just in Nigeria but even in the United States and even in Sweden and a couple of other major global organizations were taking advocacy work seriously. I wanted to change that. We wanted to make sure these There were events, there were conversations. How do even husbands help their spouses? How do fathers have that conversation to their daughters? I also wrote a book called The Female Passport to be able to at least provide those conversations and provide that information. Then when we created Saqeedah Cloud, we wanted to also be able to buy more into the market because we saw the conversations were more than the issues that I've had. We saw women who were complaining that, oh, if I was not interested in having personal care, maybe I'm not ready to get the child, or I don't have a pet, or I'm not interested in dental care, how do my employers show such concern to be able to provide me with resources, assets, that kind of demand that I am very open to? So if you've seen this panel yesterday, we were having that conversation to be able to also bridge that woman connection. and AI and also see how much more employers can do in the workplace. Uh, so my next question really pushes around in the resources, early leaving and all. Uh, how do you think AI-driven solutions, uh, can support, um, mental health conversation in the workplace, most especially community? You know, women want to be able to have, uh, this conversation with themselves, even if it is anonymously. You know, how do they deal with this so that they all have a remedy? Do you Do you think AI can play a great role to promoting inclusivity? Because you see employers are saying, okay, let's support people on the spectrum, autistic people. How do you think even cancer survivors, deafblind, minority people— like we're at the Black Tech Conference— do you think AI can help?

Yeah, I think what we need to remember is AI gets trained by humans.

Right.

It takes the conversation that he would have had or have wanted to have and then train that, uh, into the resources that both employees, um, and, you know, men and women, all genders, to understand and get the answer to their questions, right? So you got to bring the human into the AI, right, by training the AI and then being able to articulate and personalize the resources we have. One side of it at all when it comes to the benefits, the accommodations to what certain employees need. Some employees or women or men need more time off, or they just need a lighter workload. So just a matter of listening first to be more inclusive and then train AI.

Thank you so much, Zakiyah, for sharing that. And if you're just joining us, we're still at the Bridging AI and Human Conversation for workplace and communities, and I have excited in person also. Next is community drive, inclusivity, branding, and storytelling, which you come here at see like different media. I remember you've been able to shape narrative around why employers should support employees dealing with P menstrual regulation, PCOS, fibroids, and also you've been able to use some wellness tools like Flow and Health and You. What would you say can help to influence? Is this approach to promote inclusivity?

So both Flow and LWAU are community-based. So before they even integrated AI, they had like a sufficient membership channel. So they had a specific audience, people who matched their experience. Um, so they basically can have people who are wanting to have that conversation We wanted to already track them and just like share it with the significant others, share it with the doctor. So taking all that information and also factoring in the marginalized community. So once they were able to do that, and now it's just an automatic, you know, workflow. It's like what we're out here doing to make it automatic so that it's personalized and seamless for everyone. And the more that, you know, We use it the way it actually wanted to be more beneficial and more talked about.

I need to stop a second here.