Ritika Gunnar, Data and AI Expert Labs and Learning, IBM she discusses: that IBM announced its annual list of Women Leaders in Artificial Intelligence, which recognizes and celebrates women for leading change and driving innovation through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to advance their companies in areas such as customer service, advertising, retail, and others. The announcement will come during IBM’s annual conference, that is taking place virtually this year, THINK Digital.
“Women Leaders in AI” is an important step in creating more gender equality in technology. She leads the 1000+ person IBM AI and Data team that enables the company’s clients to adopt, deploy and be successful with AI. Today, IBM has more than 30,000 Watson client engagements across 20 different industries.
By shining a light on these women and their work, IBM hopes to not only inspire and energize others to adopt AI to make a true difference in their organizations, but also share that when businesses incorporate diversity into their leadership and technological development teams, better innovations and outcomes are created for employees, clients and society. For more information please visit: http://ibm.com/watson/women-leaders-in-ai
Our second guest is Karen Sokolof Javitch, Composer, Lyricist, she will be discussing her latest song she created titled “Hope” it’s so appropriate for getting through this difficult period of time during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Karen is a former teacher of visually impaired children, and stayed at home with them until they started school. At that point, her background in piano, singing, and dancing led her to an exciting career in songwriting.
A close friend of Karen’s had written a musical, ‘Love! at the Café!’, but he didn’t know how to compose the 17 songs that he wanted in it. Since she had a musical background, she asked him if she could try and write them. Once Karen began, it felt like a faucet turned on in her brain and the songs came pouring out of her and she has not stopped writing since. That was more than 20 years ago.” Now “Love!” is a favorite musical for high-schools. Since she had one musical under her belt, she decided to write a family musical with author Elaine Jabenis and ‘From Generation to Generation’ was born. It was an instant hit in their hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
Karen greatly admired Princess Diana and was crushed when she died in a tragic car accident. She expressed her grief by sitting down at the piano and writing songs for her. This later became Princess Diana the Musical. “I was so saddened by the death of this wonderful woman who gave so much to the world,” Karen lamented. “Writing Princess Diana was my way of trying to keep her memory alive.” Both ‘Diana’ and ‘Generation’ have been produced in many cities around the country.
Karen created two other musicals and more than 15 albums of her music. Her CD’s are for people of all ages, ranging from children to teens, weddings and even divorce songs, exercising, patriotism, education, celebrities and many more topics. Karen’s arranger was Mannheim Steamroller’s Chuck Penington, who passed in 2018. She records in Omaha with Grammy-nominated engineer Tom Ware.
Go to: You tube /Karen Javitch and see the more than 100 music videos she has – some have gone viral! Spotify, ITunes and CD baby also carry her songs. Since she started her songwriting career, she has raised more than $350,000 for various charities. https://twitter.com/karenjavitch