In April 2020, we spoke with astronaut Anousheh Ansari about closing the data gender gap and her 11-day space expedition. Astronauts are experts on social isolation and quarantines, so Anousheh shared tips for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
Anousheh Ansari
is CEO of XPRIZE, the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, currently focused on closing the gender data gap, specifically in health data. Ansari sponsored the $10M Ansari XPRIZE, igniting a new era for commercial spaceflight. Prior, Ansari served as CEO of Prodea Systems, a leading Internet of Things technology firm. In 2006, she captured international headlines by embarking upon an 11-day space expedition, becoming the first female private space explorer, first astronaut of Iranian descent, first Muslim woman in space, and fourth private explorer to visit space. Ansari co-founded The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, with a goal of investing $1 billion in women-founded companies by 2020. Her memoir, My Dream of Stars, aims to share her life story as inspiration for young women around the world.
Listen to our conversation here:
FUTURE OF WOMEN founder, Hallie Applebaum, spoke with Anousheh.
How did your journey with XPRIZE begin?
It's been an adventure that started a long time ago when I joined the foundation to sponsor the first-ever competition, which was to open up access to space - a dream I had since I was a young girl. I knew it was a very difficult and unimaginable thing for a young girl from Iran to go to space. I saw the space competition not only as a way to make this possible for someone like me, but something that could last into the future, and hopefully make this into an industry that opens up to everyone - all the young girls like me who dream of going to space.
How does XPRIZE use competitions to mobilize people to solve difficult problems?
The Foundation has been around 25 years and I've been part of it for close to that long. The competition became a way of activating the world to imagine a future where space travel is possible and to imagine that, yes, people can build spaceships in their garages. That's the magic of XPRIZE - making people believe in a hopeful future, believing that even the most unthinkable things, the most difficult problems, can be solved with the ingenuity of human beings.
How did the success of the first XPRIZE challenge encourage future challenges?
The initial $10 million dollar prize brought in $100 million of investment to teams that eventually created a marketplace of companies - SpaceX, Blue Origin, many companies - building capabilities to go to the moon and a new industry - a private space industry. That magic that we captured back then with the Ansari XPRIZE is what we repeated with new competitions focusing on environment, health, education, food supply, and energy, looking at how we can create a hopeful, abundant, equitable world for all.
One of your favorite projects at XPRIZE is the Gender Initiative.
I'm super excited about the Gender Initiative because it relates to my area of work before I joined XPRIZE as CEO. I was a tech entrepreneur working in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and how these technologies are going to shape our future. These technologies are already part of our everyday life and are influencing our decision making every day - decisions by policy makers and employers, decisions about the way we design new drugs. Women have been invisible in the design process and research process, which creates certain biases in our society - biases in the way detect certain diseases, there are not enough female test subjects as part of drug trials so there may be adverse side effects or these drugs may not be effective for women, dosages may be incorrect. I hope that, through our awareness campaign and through the challenges that we launch, we can change industries and policy making and the way people design cities and products to include data about women, and their needs and their physical conditions, so when we are in a car, we feel safe, and when we are at work, we feel safe, and when we are taking a medication, we feel safe. In some areas, data may not exist, so we are hoping, through our initiative, to collect that data. When we have information about this, we can come up with policies and designs to support women better.
Your memoir, My Dream of Stars, aims to share her life story as inspiration for young women around the world. Why are you so passionate about helping women?
I was born in Iran. I grew up in Iran. I came to the US when I was 16. I was fortunate that I lived in a family that I was not told there were certain things I could not do because of my gender. In the way we treat each other, gender should not matter. We are all human beings. We need to make sure that gender, race, religion - all aspects of a person - can be incorporated in the way that we live together. As a woman, as a Muslim woman, an immigrant who came to the US after the hostage crisis, as a woman in tech, as a woman engineer, I've always been in a minority position and I've seen how difficult it is for women to get to a place where they can advance. Eventually, I hope women will not have to face these barriers over and over again. Hopefully, as women open new doors, women won't have to go through proving themselves again and again. I see this happening slowly, not fast enough for me. When it comes to data, machines, and algorithms, and things that are hidden inside a box, it's hard to solve for a hidden problem. I don't want this to become a hidden problem that will impact everything in the future, and by the time we realize what is happening will be too late and too difficult to solve.
What is the process for your XPRIZE team to create a challenge?
The team connects to a wide community of experts on the topic and experts on the fringe efforts so we can have a very collaborative effort. We even bring in science fiction writers who can help us imagine a future where there is complete equity and diversity incorporated into every aspect of designing our worlds, cities, and products. Then we look to see what problems that are preventing us from reaching that desired future. It’s a very collaborative effort through in-person meetings and online dialogues with the online community that we create on every topic. It’s important for us to frame the problem to identify those 3-4 areas where we can solve them in a specific and measurable way.
What have some of the science fiction writers written about?
We did a prize around the future of ocean exploration and wrote stories about technologies for exploring cities and life underwater. We look at the future through a hopeful lens with technologies that can make the future better and then try to portray that through science fiction stories.
How did XPRIZE’s Pandemic Alliance form and how is it responding to the COVID-19 pandemic?
As part of XPRIZE’s 17 prizes and successful breakthroughs, we’ve created an amazing network of entrepreneurs and companies that are fascinated with how technology can be part of solving big problems. This network is a very valuable network and we wanted to, in this time of crisis, bring everyone together and use this creative energy and this desire to solve problems to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic that is causing disruption all around the world. Within a week of announcing the Pandemic Alliance, over 50 corporations and thought leaders joined hands with us. Anthem was the first one to approach us and together we launched the Pandemic Alliance website and invited everyone. Last week, we started weekly conversations in 12 specific areas where researchers, scientists, and companies are coming together - user experience as a patient goes through the system, testing as a way for us to get back to normal, vaccines distribution, pandemic detection, protecting ourselves better in the future. All of these topics are things we are continuously discussing to come up with both short-term solutions, but also with an eye towards future solutions that can prevent and safeguard humanity from these pandemics from happening again.
Each IG Live, we ask our guests for a call to action that positively impacts the world. How can people be part of the conversation and support the launch of these prizes?
XPRIZE brings together thought leaders across industries to solve global challenges. We invite you to learn more about the Gap Gender Gap Initiative and Pandemic Alliance and see how your expertise could be valuable in accomplishing these challenges. We are forming a Guardian Circle, a group of 50,000 people around the world that we hope become the ambassadors of this mission.
Hear more of our conversation about science fiction writers, Anousheh’s favorite XPRIZE work over the years (from the launch of Spaceship One to the Global Learning XPRIZE in Tanzania), her mindset and tips for getting through the pandemic, podcasts we’re listening to, and our shared love of ice cream:
Join the conversation at @futureofwomen
