Alumna to Discuss Designing Tech for Marginalized Communities in Upcoming Lecture
College of Computing alumna Nova Ahmed (CS Ph.D. 2010) will return to campus on Sept. 14 to discuss her two decades of experience applying technology to address social and humanitarian challenges.
Ahmed will present Connecting Systems with Humans as part of the OMSCS Speaker Series. The lecture will explore the evolution of Ahmed's research, from sensing systems designed for eldercare homes to low-resource technologies that address challenges faced by women and marginalized communities.
“I was inspired by many other projects that handled social and humanitarian problems, especially one where Jill Diamond worked on domestic violence under the supervision of Amy Bruckman at Georgia Tech,” Ahmed said. “I thought, ‘this is what work should look like, where lives are changed, and impacts are made.’”
Ahmed’s research journey began with designing sensing systems for eldercare homes as a creative solution to an existing commercial problem. After completing her doctorate, she returned to Bangladesh, where she found that conventional technology design approaches often did not fit communities whose challenges were deeply connected to social and cultural contexts.
Her work subsequently shifted toward low-resource technologies designed for women and marginalized communities.
In her upcoming OMSCS Speaker Series lecture, Ahmed will discuss projects focused on social justice and on preventing violence and sexual harassment, as well as sensing technologies designed to improve people’s lives. She will also share research and projects inspired by students and discuss her ongoing work examining women in computing and STEM, including the stressors faced by undergraduate students in STEM fields.
One of Ahmed’s early projects was Protibadi, a technology-based effort to address sexual harassment in Bangladesh.
Her work designing technology for marginalized communities has reinforced the importance of developing solutions that account for the specific needs and circumstances of the people they serve.
“Designing something is easy, but designing for someone who needs something very different from others, being a marginalized one, takes a lot of courage and often can get overlooked,” Ahmed said. “But once it can be done, it is extremely rewarding.”
Ahmed is a computer scientist and professor at North South University in Bangladesh. Her primary research interests include feminist human-computer interaction (HCI), low-cost sensor systems, and information and communication technologies (ICT) for development.
Ahmed hopes those who attend her lecture this month will take away the importance of continuing to pursue meaningful change.
“The fact that things do not change much, but still we can keep trying to make the world a better place,” she said.
Ahmed said she is looking forward to returning to Georgia Tech.
“I am so humbled, honored, and can't wait to meet many of my old friends,” she said.
The lecture will take place Sept. 14 from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Klaus Building, Rooms 1116 East and West. The event is free and open to the public.
