Accelerate Inclusion

Accelerate Inclusion is a data-driven, digital network of women who work in public interest sectors (i.e. government administration, healthcare, academia, etc.). Women seeking career-growth support join this online learning and networking platform. As members interact via curated learning opportunities and participate in surveys deployed via artificial intelligence (AI) tools, they contribute to qualitative (i.e. unstructured) and quantitative (i.e. structured) data collection. Over time, Accelerate Inclusion will generate a rich set of outputs (digital network, data sets, tested (i.e. evidence-based) interventions, etc.). Such a solution is necessary given that millions are invested in employment equity programs, yet women -- especially black, Indigenous and women of colour (BIWOC) -- continue to be underrepresented at decision-making levels within public interest organizations (PIOs). The increased representation of diverse women-as-decision-makers in PIOs, when scaled globally, could herald a new era responsiveness and equitable inclusion in the activities of these citizen-serving organizations.

Evidence shows that 30% of women in senior management roles increases organizational productivity by 15%. Longitudinal data shows correlations between increased gender and ethno-racialized diversity and value creation. Such data have increased organizations’ investments in employment equity programs. Yet these millions have not translated into meaningful progress. Currently, corporate data demonstrates that 1 in 5 senior leaders is a woman, a gap that dramatically widens (1 in 30) when looking at Black, Indigenous and women of color (BIWOC).

This slow progress will likely be disrupted as we approach the massive systemic restructuring that will accompany workplace automation. Up to 1 in 4 women could find their jobs disrupted. Many others will experience greater uncertainty as their jobs are transformed in ways that require greater technology literacy.

This picture is murkier when considering the public interest organizations (PIOs), comprising workers in federal, provincial-/state- and local governments; education; health; legal and police services; non-profits and social entrepreneurships; think tanks; media, etc.). Underrepresentation at decision-making levels directly affects women’s livelihoods. Moreover, when bureaucratic institutions demonstrate gender and ethno-racialized exclusion, it follows that their policies and programs might also exhibit similar exclusion.

Women experience a “glass ceiling” in career progression. Systemic biases “tint” that “glass ceiling.” For instance, Canadian-born BIWOC are more likely (47.7%) to have a post-secondary degree than same-aged women who were not a visible minority (25.8%), but ethno-racialized women encounter more barriers when trying to achieve career progression. Such inequality can have an impact on BIWOC psycho-social well-being. It can also have intergenerational repercussions. 

We are serving Canadian women in public interest organizations, with special emphasis on BIWOC, including refugee/newcomer and young women. We are working in the context of waves of change that will accompany automation -- with some jobs lost, others gained and many transformed. Given systemic biases, these changes may be experienced more negatively by BIWOC, resulting in ever-diminishing economic inclusion over the longer-term.

Any commitment to equitable, inclusive growth requires attention to both individual, systemic and intergenerational patterns. We focus on strengthening the adaptive capacity of women who work in today’s workplaces, as well as of younger women destined for tomorrow’s workplaces. We do this through developing new, different and higher skills necessary to successfully weather the uncertainty that accompanies economic transition.

When it comes to inclusive growth, new technologies can help future-proof women’s labour force participation. Women in public interest organizations (PIOs) can access membership to Accelerate Inclusion’s online networking platform and participate in curated learning activities to support career-growth. Accelerate Inclusion combines education, networks and artificial intelligence (AI) to cyclically collect, analyze and interpret quantitative (i.e. structured) and qualitative (i.e. unstructured) data.

Many traditional workplace/labour market surveys are essentially extractive (i.e. stock questions generated in an opaque manner; unidirectional flow of information, no real change). New digital tools can both stimulate dynamic network interactions and aggregate anecdotal evidence into viable data sets. Over time, Accelerate Inclusion will generate: 1) rich data sets

(e.g. establishing a bank of unheard voices that can train Natural
Language Processing (NLP) models and advanced machine learning
algorithms by addressing current gender and ethno-racial imbalances) that can shed light on equitable inclusion in workplace-settings and, ultimately, drive systems change; 2) online learning interventions, tested (i.e. evidence-based) and scalable; and 3) a digital network of women in PIOs that benefit from customized supports and services.

Digital data collection will map women’s workplace experiences. AI tools also facilitate data analysis in the form of visualizations that can foster reasonable dialogues across differences amongst a network of women. In addition to AI, data and social networks, Accelerated Inclusion emphasizes a range of methods (list included in response to “What makes your solution innovative?”) that work to cultivate trust and systems perspective, while renewing individuals’ sense of personal and professional agency. As a community, network members will have opportunities to discuss data, co-interpret it to identify problems contextualised within system dynamics and, ultimately, co-design interventions, tailored to include ethno-racialized experiences.

Digital data, disaggregated along ethno-racialized lines, can highlight patterns of bias (including internalized racism) and how these operate in complex and barely visible (i.e. unconscious) ways. This evidence can surface new insights that can feed the co-design processes for generic and tailored digital instructional products and services delivery that are tested within the network to ensure that they support career progression for women in the public interest talent pipeline. Rich, independent data can also push public interest organizations towards greater transparency, ultimately serving systems change.

Accelerate Inclusion uses digital technologies to 1) create networks and
2) scale qualitative data collection in ways similar to how online surveys collect quantitative data in order to addresses the continued underrepresentation of women, particularly BIWOC, in public interest organizations (PIOs). In the short-run, richer data can help network members see that their experiences correspond to systemic patterns. This sets the stage for online learning interactions that can fuel adaptive capacity and pool collective intelligence around new practices to counter workplace behaviours that reinforce bias. In the medium-term, Accelerate Inclusion will produce independent, large-scale qualitative and quantitative data sets which can push data transparency in PIOs that leads to impactful systems change and boosts equitable, inclusive growth.

Standing up for equity, inclusion and belonging is never easy or comfortable. The advantage of asynchronous interactions within a data-driven, digital network is in how it allows members to benefit from both proximity and distance as they explore agency and solidarity. Accelerate Inclusion will also deliver innovative digital methodologies that combine elements from many different areas including: new digital technologies, community development, systems thinking and design-thinking. Combining these in novel and evolving ways, Accelerated Inclusion will explore new ways to build trust and belonging within digital networks that tackle difficult topics.

We combine a number of technologies in Accelerate Inclusion: artificial intelligence, big data and social networks. We use digital tools to build and promote an online network. At its heart is a strong digital data strategy, which will help us demonstrate the limits of traditional data collection in human resources. Accelerate Inclusion will make use of existing survey data, as well as learn how to overhaul these in order to collect more accurate data. However, Accelerate Inclusion plans to do more than simply mine existing statistics that are available, but not yet sex disaggregated. It also seeks to collect new data and design new data collection methods that empower Accelerate Inclusion’s community members to participate throughout the data life cycle. Digital technology offers new avenues of exploration – big data, thick data, qualitative data. To kick-start, we use an all-in-one platform currently on the market, and we have pilot-tested an AI-driven digital data collection tool.

Our assumptions are listed below, the image is a table that outlines our Theory of Change.

Assumptions: 

• Data-driven understandings of the continued invisibility of women -- particularly Black, Indigenous and women of colour (BIWOC) -- in leadership positions of public interest organizations (PIOs) can lead to equitable, inclusive growth. 

• Individual women will benefit from data-driven, tailored support to future-proof their labour market viability. 

• Organizations would benefit from knowing how to optimize their investments in employment equity, diversity and inclusion programs.

• Independent data sets can nudge institutional transparency that might drive systems change.

Now: 10 members (not including ourselves).
Y1: 100-300 members between Ottawa and Toronto, approximately 100 from other regions across Canada ; 1-2 prototype interventions.
Y3: 3000 members across Canada, pockets from other countries (approximately 500); 6 tested interventions + 1 youth program.
Y5: 10,000 members across Canada, stable interest from other countries
(500-1000); up to 10 tested interventions + 3 youth programs; a number
of robust, independent data sets; tested digital data-driven
community-building methodologies.

Rapid Prototyping Phase Complete:
Over the course of 2018 and Q1 2019:

1. Prototyped content for Accelerate Inclusion with 10 diverse women (from four different public interest sectors), who shared their professional experiences; discussed work conditions and what, if any, barriers they face; what type of support they currently receive; what type of support they actually need now and in the future.
2. Rapid prototyping was impactful. These women already considered the space we created safer than anything they had experienced prior and appreciated no longer feeling isolated. In two cases, it directly led to career progression.
3. Identified a SaaS that supports both development of a
   network and development/delivery of learning programs. Software will help us learn what requirements are ideal and lend to establishment of requirements to eventually build our own platform.
4. Pilot-tested an SaaS data collection tool that will serve our solution's purposes.
   

Next Phase -- Develop Digital Prototype:  

1. Translate insights drawn from our prototype to build a digital safe gathering space, as well as develop and refine some data collection instruments.

5 Year Vision:
- Disrupt existing institutional perceptions about women’s leadership.
- Experiment with “for us by us” processes, creating intentional network and responsive space.
- As the public interest organizations (PIOs) start to reflect more of the citizens they are serving, they may rebuild trust through empathetic and responsive policies, which can impactful millions of people.

5 Year Activities:

●        Y1: Set up the platform, promote it to women, BIWOC leaders and allies; introduce curated activities; begin data collection.     

●        Y2: Continue using and promoting the platform; continue data collection. Use data to develop online instructional components to meet network members' needs; publish a report of findings to date.

●        Y3 – 5: Continue scaling platform; continue data collection; continue to build learning components; use data to inform development of leadership programs; disseminate data to PIOs and begin discussing diversity and inclusion policies and programs.

Market barriers: A platform serving this particular niche audience will be first to market. Some concerns: components - namely data gathering - could be replicated by other players; a level of trust from participants to willingly provide data about their experiences is required, which may be challenging in the first year as the platform establishes itself and might not have a solid value proposition for participants.

Technical barrier: The network will be prototyped on an existing all-in-one online platform. Concern: we will eventually require a more robust solution to allow for full ownership of the data.

Cultural barriers: 1) Currently, quantitative predominates human resources data collections. New digital technologies allow new ways to combine quantitative and qualitative methods, but we will be ahead of the curve and, given their bureaucratic nature, PIOs may be resistant to richer data sets. This may make systemic interventions difficult. 2) Women-run businesses dealing with women's issues may render us marginalized when it comes to seeking tech and business support.

Market barrier: Establishing a strong, trusted presence as a safe community for women, and thoughtfully growing a network around providing valuable, customized skills training will be key. Both co-founders have considerable experience in creating safe spaces for women, as well as a high level of reputational capital and diverse networks. We will be experimenting with different ways to promote the network, and will also establishing a board of advisors to serve as activators and network mavens.

Technical: We will reach out to women in the tech space to see if there’s interest in helping us build the platform for the community, while also seeking support from other investors who would be interested in experimenting with ways to extract and analyze the data provided.

Cultural barrier: 1) We will address this as follows: with data-driven projects with academic partners; and with 'online open houses' (early and often) to begin to increase PIOs to new data methodologies and tools. Combined, these will create a base of digital and data literacy we can plug into when we are ready to release data. 2) We are continuously opening ourselves to new tech and business networks, connecting with thought leaders, mentors and activators, as well as connecting with the emerging community of investors that promote and support women-run businesses is key.

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2 people

As second generation Canadian women of South Asian descent, Deepika and Chamika have lived experiences of exclusion within both private and public interest workplace settings. Both have participated in many programs that attempted ill-informed interventions that grossly failed to address issues of workplace diversity and inclusion. Deepika and Chamika both have extensive networks and are also well-known mentors in their professional circles, having coached and facilitated many women to achieve career progression. 

Deepika’s skills and deep experience in (digital) citizen engagement, design, innovation, research, facilitation, participatory methods and open policy-making, as well as her demonstrated excellence as a systems thinker and change leader uniquely position her to lead on community collaboration and data collection and analysis aspects of the platform. Chamika’s skills and deep experience in business development, marketing and communications and leading large-scale technology systems implementations position her uniquely to promote and market the platform to attract members, oversee in person events and community growth while also developing strategic partnerships and leverage her networks in public and private sector to purchase analytical reports produced. Chamika was the key development specialist for two national level mentorship and sponsorship programs for women in communications and technology and has practical experience in how to develop programs for future of work skills and make the programs visible and viable.

Given that we are currently prototyping, we are currently not working with any organizations. We do have a list of potential partners and are connected to networks where we can easily access beneficiaries.

Our business model is Data-as-a-Service that will:

(1) guide digital community building;

(2) support individual personal and professional growth for network members

(3) serve to develop tested, scalable interventions;

(4) be packaged for sale to interested organizations and/or supplement existing funded research projects; and

(5) be used to develop products that can support inclusive, equitable growth and systems change. 

KEY PARTNERS: online platform providers, machine learning and analytics tool solution providers. 

KEY STAKEHOLDERS: individual women as network members.

KEY ACTIVITIES: marketing; promotion; membership sales; data collection, analysis and visualization; instructional design; business development. The types of interventions we envision include learning opportunities, coaching circles, online workshops for PIOs, and reports for sale.

MAIN CHANNEL: online platform, with possible in-person events to supplement and reinforce interventions.

VALUE PROPOSITION: we will be experimenting a number of factors, but will position the data we are collecting to make better organizational decisions that drive trusted, timely and relevant network-focused opportunities to equip women with skills for the future of work. The value for community members is that their particular challenges will be captured and addressed in a meaningful way. The social impact will be reflected as membership grows and BIWOC serving the public interest feel heard and empowered to unite and address shared concerns and support each other in acts of radical solidarity.

TARGET AUDIENCE: those who would benefit from the end of the cycle of systemic exclusion and who would like to ensure a legacy that lives up to the promise of equity, diversity and inclusion.

Our revenue model combines a cooperative model with an organizational support model. We serve BIWOC individually as community participants who belong to a cooperative and benefit from member services and we sell data about the community’s challenges to organizations interested in understanding how to improve inclusion efforts.

Our main revenue streams are:

1. a tiered subscription to the platform for individual BIWOC and other interested individuals

2. training skills packages 

3. sales of in-depth analytic reports to organizations seeking to apply high quality data analytics to focus their to their diversity and inclusion efforts   

As membership numbers increase and the community grows, we will collect more data for analysis and reporting while also providing training skills packages for the community which ensures long term sustainability.  This, in turn, which will drive the growth of anallow for an additional revenue stream in the Talent-as-a-Service space, which can be promoted to organizations seeking highly qualified BIWOC for leadership positions, as well as to BIWOC who demonstrate leadership potential, yet require access to opportunities, mentorship and sponsorship. Over time, a final sliding-scale revenue stream will be added that focuses on youth in Black, Indigenous and communities of colour, offering high quality general and women-only training opportunities related to leadership and 21st century skills.

Although we can certainly, slowly and painstakingly advance our work on
our own, funds and, especially, access to key experts via MIT Solve and
its partners can help us accelerate and deepen our impact.

We are applying to MIT Solve primarily to connect cross-sector thought leaders, investors and a peer of change agents. We know the work we are doing is ground-breaking. However, especially since we are women running a women's interest business, we are in danger of being marginalized. Being part of Solve's network would garner us positive exposure, as much as it grants us access to opportunities to move our work forward, develop our own leadership capacities and hone our pitch and pitching skills.

Access to the MIT Solve network, particularly the Brain Trusts, offers valuable access to resources would help us to grow, accelerate and scale our efforts, with a view to deepening our social impact. Participating with the MIT Solve would allow us to and draw on the strongest and most-experienced technology talent, a global network of investors interested in technology-driven, impactful social change, as well as a networked community of active change agents from whom we harnessing new technologies for social organizing and issue-specific movement building. And, over time, we would also hope to contribute back to the MIT Solve network.

In addition to the above support, we would also love to be connected with partners that are open to supporting women entrepreneurs and women's issues oriented businesses, as well as partners focused on the increased inclusion of ethno-racialized voices in citizen-facing organizations.

We would like to partner and collaborate with the following organizations for these purposes:

1. Communities that advance women’s leadership, such as Canadian Women in Communications and Technology, to understand their membership model and promote our platform for BIWOC within the membership.

2. We have connections with specialists working on refugee issues.
   

3. Academic research organizations conducting research into various workplace diversity and inclusion and/or future of work initiatives to build research relationships; joint proposals to access research funding, conduct data-driven projects, and effectively disseminate results.
4. Community-based technology initiatives such as Ladies Who Code or civic-tech style Hackathons to explore the possibility of building our own platform.

AI is core to Accelerate Inclusion.

New technologies can help future-proof women’s labour force participation. Women in public interest organizations (PIOs) (e.g. government administration, healthcare, academia, etc.) can join Accelerate Inclusion’s online networking platform and participate in curated learning activities to support career-growth. Accelerate Inclusion combines education, networks and artificial intelligence (AI) to cyclically collect, analyze and interpret quantitative (i.e. structured) and qualitative (i.e. unstructured) data. New technologies can both stimulate dynamic network interactions and aggregate anecdotal evidence into viable data sets. Over time, Accelerate Inclusion will generate: 1) rich data sets to reframe challenges around equitable inclusion (e.g. establishing a bank of unheard voices that can train Natural Language Processing (NLP) models and advanced machine learning algorithms by addressing current gender and ethno-racialized imbalances) and drive systems change; 2) tested (i.e. evidence-based), scalable online learning interventions; and 3) a digital network of women in PIOs that benefit from customized supports and services.

Data collection will map women’s workplace experiences. Data
disaggregated along ethno-racialized lines can highlight patterns of
bias (including internalized racism) and how these operate in complex
and barely visible (i.e. unconscious) ways. This evidence can surface
new insights that can feed the co-design processes for generic and
tailored digital instructional products and services delivery that are
tested within the network to ensure that they support career progression
for women in the public interest talent pipeline. Rich, independent
data can also push public interest organizations towards greater
transparency, ultimately serving systems change.

Part of this project focuses on data and digital literacy for women, particularly Black, Indigenous and women of colour (BIWOC).

New technologies can help future-proof women’s labour force participation. Women in public interest organizations (PIOs) (e.g. government administration, healthcare, academia, etc.) can join Accelerate Inclusion’s online networking platform to participate in curated learning activities. Accelerate Inclusion combines networks, exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) and data literacy through the cyclical collection, analysis and co-interpretation of quantitative (i.e. structured) and qualitative (i.e. unstructured) data. Over time, women in Accelerate Inclusion’s will generate: 1) rich data sets to reframe challenges around equitable inclusion (e.g. establishing a bank of unheard voices that can train Natural Language Processing (NLP) models and advanced machine learning algorithms by addressing current gender and ethno-racialized imbalances) to drive systems change; 2) tested (i.e. evidence-based), scalable online learning interventions; and 3) a digital network of data literate women within the public interest.

This data will maps women’s workplace experiences. Data disaggregated along ethno-racialized lines can highlight patterns of bias (including internalized racism) and how these operate in complex and barely visible (i.e. unconscious) ways. Working with this evidence can surface new insights that can feed the co-design processes for generic and tailored digital instructional products and services delivery that are tested within the network to ensure that they support career progression for women in the public interest talent pipeline. Richer data can also push PIOs towards greater transparency.

This project focuses on women, through systemic, intersectional and intergenerational lenses.

New technologies can help future-proof women’s labour force participation. Women in public interest organizations (PIOs) (e.g. government administration, healthcare, academia, etc.) can join Accelerate Inclusion’s online networking platform and participate in curated learning activities to support career-growth. Accelerate Inclusion combines education, networks and artificial intelligence (AI) to cyclically collect, analyze and interpret quantitative (i.e. structured) and qualitative (i.e. unstructured) data. New technologies can both stimulate dynamic network interactions and aggregate anecdotal evidence into viable data sets. Over time, Accelerate Inclusion will generate: 1) rich data sets to reframe challenges around equitable inclusion (e.g. establishing a bank of unheard voices that can train Natural Language Processing (NLP) models and advanced machine learning algorithms by addressing current gender and ethno-racialized imbalances) and drive systems change; 2) tested (i.e. evidence-based), scalable online learning interventions; and 3) a digital network of women in PIOs that benefit from customized supports and services.

Data collection will map women’s workplace experiences. Data disaggregated along ethno-racialized lines can highlight patterns of bias (including internalized racism) and how these operate in complex and barely visible (i.e. unconscious) ways. This evidence can surface new insights that can feed the co-design processes for generic and tailored digital instructional products and services delivery that are tested within the network to ensure that they support career progression for women in the public interest talent pipeline. Rich, independent data can also push public interest organizations towards greater transparency, ultimately serving gender sensitive systems change.

Focused on women’s experiences, this project emphasizes systemic and intersectional understandings of the experiences of Black, Indigenous and women of colour (BIWOC), refugee/newcomer women and younger women (through an intergenerational lens).

Accelerate Inclusion uses new technologies to create networks of women to address workplace exclusion and increase inclusive, equitable practices within public interest organizations. A supportive environment can bolster the psycho-social health and well-being of network members. The network is open to all women, with special emphasis on the needs of Black, Indigenous and women of colour. Isolation combined with prolonged exposure to institutional systemic biases can be experienced as trauma by many women. In this sense, BIWOC may share common needs around psycho-social support with women who come to Canada as refugees. Certainly, there is much to share and learn about resilience and recovery. As a result, Accelerate Inclusion includes specific attention to including women refugees within our network, as well as fostering a positive environment that shines a spotlight on resilience as an asset, as well recovery from trauma as a necessary step in developing personal and professional agency.

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New technologies can help future-proof women’s labour force participation. Women in public interest organizations (PIOs) (e.g. government administration, healthcare, academia, etc.) can join Accelerate Inclusion’s online networking platform and participate in curated learning activities to support career-growth. Accelerate Inclusion combines education, networks and artificial intelligence (AI) to cyclically collect, analyze and interpret quantitative (i.e. structured) and qualitative (i.e. unstructured) data. New technologies can both stimulate dynamic network interactions and aggregate anecdotal evidence into viable data sets. Over time, Accelerate Inclusion will generate: 1) rich data sets to reframe challenges around equitable inclusion (e.g. establishing a bank of unheard voices that can train Natural Language Processing (NLP) models and advanced machine learning algorithms by addressing current gender and ethno-racialized imbalances) and drive systems change; 2) tested (i.e. evidence-based), scalable online learning interventions; and 3) a digital network of women in PIOs that benefit from customized supports and services.

Data collection will map women’s workplace experiences. Data disaggregated along ethno-racialized lines can highlight patterns of bias (including internalized racism) and how these operate in complex and barely visible (i.e. unconscious) ways. This evidence can surface new insights that can feed the co-design processes for generic and tailored digital instructional products and services delivery that are tested within the network to ensure that they support career progression for women in the public interest talent pipeline. Rich, independent data can also push public interest organizations towards greater transparency, ultimately serving systems change.

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