Rania Wazir, PhD

Rania Wazir is co-founder and CTO of leiwand.ai

She is a data scientist and mathematician, with degrees from Stanford (B.Sc.) and Brown University (Ph.D.). For the past 7 years, she has focussed on Trustworthy AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Social Media Monitoring. 

She is involved in several research and development projects revolving around trustworthy AI, with a particular focus on the detection and mitigation of bias and discrimination in AI: for example, an investigation into bias in algorithms for the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, and the Austrian Research Council-funded research project to create a fAIr by design AI development process. 

Rania is Austrian delegate to international standards organizations working on AI (CEN/CLC JTC21 and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC42), where she is actively engaged in the development of new AI standards, including as Project Editor of the ISO/IEC Transparency taxonomy of AI systems and ISO/IEC Evaluation methods for accurate natural language processing systems standardization projects. 

She is also a member of the advisory committee on the ethics of AI for the Austrian UNESCO commission.  Rania has been conducting social media monitoring for Amnesty International Italy, investigating human rights impacts of Twitter and Facebook, since 2018. 

“I am particularly interested in making AI more widely understood and accessible, implementing scientifically rigorous standards and safeguards for the correct, fair and human rights-based use of AI technology, as well as opening up the field to include researchers and practitioners from a diversity of backgrounds.”