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Laura Damaceno

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Rising Star

Brazil
IBM
I am a 23-year-old peripheral woman, of African descent, trying to change my reality and that of my family through computing. I have a degree in computer science and I am currently doing a master's degree in this area at UFABC.
Since the beginning of my career, I have always been very passionate about the transforming power that technology has in our lives, but I had to overcome many obstacles throughout my graduation because I saw that there were not many women like me in my 4-year course. In college I had only 2 teachers and none of them were black, so I didn't feel represented or belonging to the technology area.
But in 2018 I met the technology communities for women, who gave me emotional and technical support and together with them I carry out actions that aim to change the status quo of the technology area, opening doors to other women and people from the periphery, whether through lectures, blogs and technical posts.
In 2018 I joined IBM as a development intern but in 2019 I discovered my greatest passion, which is Artificial Intelligence, which defined my professional choices. And that same year I migrated to the consulting team with a focus on data analysis and saw that data and artificial intelligence are connected. I currently work with data science for 4 years and in 2021 I was recognized through my placements and content sharing on social networks as an IBM Digital Influencer with the aim of disseminating the IBM brand to people, sharing content and qualification courses and connect them with company opportunities.
And even having conquered the dreams of the beginning of my career, I keep fighting for the space of more women in technology and bringing representation to people.
I founded one of the biggest Artificial Intelligence communities for women, called AI Girls, which aims to provide free content for the inclusion of women in the fields of AI and data science. I published 2 scientific articles in the academic computing community in Brazil, one on the identification of computational methods for detecting fake news in Brazilian politics and another on the actions and impacts of the AI ​​Girls community, which in 2021 won the award for best article at the event. WOMEN IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (WIT).

In 2020, I created within IBM together with IBMers women initiatives that aim to qualify and engage women in technical areas, such as “Learn with a specialist” that gives space for women to talk about their careers and aims to demystify and present technical careers for other people.

In addition, I share my knowledge on social media in a demystified way about Artificial Intelligence and data science to help young Brazilians who are interested in these areas or who don't know yet to change their reality and make the technology area a place with more diversity. And in 2022 I was recognized as one of the 27 Brazilian women developers for people to be inspired by.