Rebecca 
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And I am Rebecca Ryakitimbo

Admin     .      Feb 23        .      1 min read                

My name is Rebecca Ryakitimbo, many people find it difficult to pronounce and write my last name as it is a name in the original language of the Zanaki. I was born in the village of Nyamuswa in the Musoma region and then grew up in the city of Arusha in northern Tanzania. I enrolled in a university course in Eldoret City in Kenya to study for a degree in Communication Technology and Electronics Technology. While studying in Kenya I noticed that many women were not studying engineering and technology with the view that it was a job or a course that was more suitable for men. This posed a great challenge to me, especially when many were surprised to see a woman climbing the telephone towers and repairing electronic devices when they were damaged. So when I was in college I spent a lot of time with men as I was the only woman who was studying technology engineering.

ALEXBLAJAN    .    Styling: Chloe Moreau    .   Photography: Eve Simon                

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Does Technology have a gender?

Admin     .      Feb 23        .      1 min read                

Have you ever wondered if technology has a gender? And if it does, is it female or male? We can refer to technology being genderless, but often favors one gender over another. Women are often left behind even though many technologies are given feminine names like Alexa and others, does this have any effect on technology? Creating integrated technology forces us to answer these questions and find solutions to ensure technology does not leave any person or group behind.

In voice technology, researchers have identified the existence of gender challenges, for example, voice technology does not represent everyone's voice and differences so sometimes these systems fail to recognize certain sounds especially in terms of gender and different accents. What contributes to these challenges? In Mozilla's Common Voice project, we were able to address some of the challenges that researchers have identified.

ALEXBLAJAN    .    Styling: Chloe Moreau    .   Photography: Eve Simon                

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