'We either wake up and make change or fall off a cliff'

From Here Now, 3:30 pm on 2 October 2017

Increasing automation will see a lot of us – especially women and young people – out of work, says engineer and social entrepreneur Priti Ambani.

But she has a plan to fight back.

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Priti Ambani

Priti Ambani Photo: Priti Ambani

Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Priti grew up in what she describes as a typical middle-class Hindu family with a strong social conscience and an interest in furthering education and equity.

Her “typically Asian tiger mum” drove her children to excel in life, she says.

Priti pursued a career in environmental design for more than a decade before re-inventing herself as a social entrepreneur.

For the last six years, she’s been working with global teams to grow early stage start-ups which focus on digital collaboration.

Gender and ethnic income equity, loss of jobs and loss of engagement with youth are her key targets.

Priti is co-founder of The Next Billion - an enterprise that pools collective resources to invest in women business leaders.

“By 2020, a billion women will be entering the [global] economy as producers, as entrepreneurs, as creators and we need to make it possible for them to be successful because we are invested in [their success]. So what are we doing about that?"

The Next Billion is all about amplifying women-led businesses by increasing access to growth opportunities, visibility and funding as well as networks and skills, Priti says.

“When it comes to media [and] economics, women are only featured in 5% of the stories. So if we cannot see these women making an economic impact, how can we be them?

"Artificial intelligence [such as Apple's Suri] learns from user behaviour. What happens if all of the data [AI systems] are fed is biased? What will happen if we as 'super-diverse women' are not at the table? It’s a critical question.”

Priti questions why so many AI personas are female and what effect that has upon women as the end users.

“Can we flip that, and use that kind of thinking for all of the product design, so it’s designed for everyone, so it’s inclusive?”

She warns that unless women are participating in these conversations about technology and design, they won’t be included in changing them.

She’s started a platform called Globally Spotted which she calls a “directory of smart, innovative, inventive business owners across the world who happen to be led by women".

Priti is also using her expertise in the collaborative economy as a teacher at the Tech Futures Lab in Auckland.

“Tech Futures Lab aims to help Kiwi’s navigate technology in their careers during this current technology disruption age.”

Priti Ambani as guest speaker at the Super Diverse Women's Conference, Auckland.

Priti Ambani as guest speaker at the Super Diverse Women's Conference, Auckland. Photo: Tim Widjaja, SDw

One possible response to that disruption is the idea of a universal basic income or U.B.I.

For more than a decade, Priti has been developing a project called UsAll (Create Me), which she describes as a “digital space that helps unleash creativity in youth while enabling income generation in the post-job era.”

“I’m interested in the intersection between education and technology ... We’ve seen a generation that hasn’t seen life without the internet. They’ve become a generation of ‘down-loads’ – just consuming the internet rather than creating on it.

“How do we tackle disengaged youth and a jobless future at the same time? That’s what UsAll is doing.”

Priti argues that with the pace of technological development change is inevitable and planning for it needs to happen now.

"When you’re faced with mass change on such a scale it can lead to a collapse in society because all of our society is based on this notion that we have a job.

“The way we work is still in the century-old model. Many governments are experimenting with what a universal basic income will look like. You need to look at a baseline income for people. We are seeing a future where nearly 50% of our jobs worldwide on average, could be lost in automation."

“I think we have the biggest opportunity in front of us to make real positive change. It can sometimes be scary but we need to take that in our stride. We’re at that tipping point. We can either wake up and make real positive change as a society or we can fall off the cliff. We need to be moving in the right direction – that benefits all of us.”

You can follow Priti Ambani on Twitter @envirotarian

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