Namara helps students of colour get careers in Artificial Intelligence

Moses Namara is a researcher at Facebook in the United States of America (USA). He has stamped his position as a lead researcher of colour in the Artificial Intelligence field.

The 29-year-old who was  born and raised in Bushenyi district, last month was recently named one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review in the USA.

 “My win is for Uganda, and it shows how Ugandans are innovative even on a global scale,” Namara reveals in an interview.

The innovators who are carefully chosen among thousands of competitors across US universities are recognised for generating new opportunities to re-imagining how things are done in an increasingly tech-driven world.

Namara joins a list of previous honorees to make the magazine’s list who have gone on to become household names, including Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. 

Amy Apon, the C. Tycho Howle Director of the School of Computing at Clemson University, says Namara’s position on the list is well deserved.

“This recognition puts Moses in the same group as some of the most influential innovators in the world,” she told Clemson News, a university publication.   

““This is an enormous honour that is a testament to the incredible work that Moses is doing, both for his PhD and the scientific community in general,” Apon said.

Namara was voted as a top innovator for working to break down the barriers keeping young black people from careers in Artificial Intelligence.

Namara, who went to the USA for undergraduate studies, realised two fundamental truths: first, that misuses of Artificial Intelligence disproportionately harm people of colour around the world.

Secondly, that people of colour are underrepresented in university AI programmes.

In a quoted research, he reveals just 1.8 per cent of students enrolled in computer science PhD programmes in the United States were Black in the 2018-2019 school year, and the numbers were only marginally better for master’s students.

Namara knows something else, too: that the barriers to entry are often rooted in resources, and that some of those resources were things a mentorship network could provide.

“One is just information,” he revealed in an interview with the MIT Technology Review.

For example, he says applicants need to know which research opportunities to pursue as undergrads, which university programmes and professors best suit their interests, and what resources might be out there to help with the expensive process of actually applying.

“If you don’t know where to look for the information, then that is the number one step that you are going to fail,” he says.

In 2018, Namara co- created the Black in Artificial Intelligence graduate application mentoring programme to help students applying to graduate school.

He runs it alongside Rediet Abebe, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of California.

The programme runs through the resource group Black in AI, has mentored 400 applicants, 200 of whom have been accepted to competitive AI programmes.

It provides an array of resources: mentorship from current PhD students and professors, CV evaluations, and advice on where to apply.

The Black in AI Academic Programme serves as a resource and supports students of colour as they apply to graduate programmes, navigate graduate school, and enter the postgraduate job market.  

The graduate programmes are mainly focused on Masters and PhD programmes around the world.

To that end, Namara and his team conducts online information sessions, pools resources to provide scholarships to cover costs related to applications, assign participants to peer and senior mentors, and share crowd sourced documents that demystify application processes.

“We conduct research studies to explore and expose the barriers that affect junior researchers of colour, and advocate for structural changes to remove these barriers and foster equitable research environments,” Namara says.

Namara reveals that the process does not simply stop at joining graduate school, but also provides mentorship and guidance to the current graduate students.

Since 201 8, the graduate application mentoring programme has served more than 400 students overall, with the support of nearly 100 mentors.

Students in the programme have enrolled at universities across the world including the Australian National University, University of California - Berkeley, University of British Columbia, University of Capetown, Carnegie Mellon University - Africa, University College Dublin, Cornell University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Howard University, University of Oxford, Stanford University and the University of the Witwatersrand, among others.    

At P.h.d level, Namara’s research focuses on online user privacy as technology becomes more advanced and deeply integrated into people’s daily lives.  

He uses interdisciplinary research methods from computer science, psychology, and the social sciences to understand the principles behind users’ adoption and use of technology, decision-making and privacy attitudes and behaviours.

His research interests are in the field of usable privacy and security and human-computer interaction.

He has been selected by Facebook as an Emerging Scholar in 2017 and Fellow in 2020, an honour that pays tuition, a stipend and travel funds to professional events for up to two academic years.

Namara is considering becoming a professor after graduation, and expects to receive his doctorate in May 2022.

Top 35 under 35

Top innovator

Moses Namara co-created an academic program to support Black artificial intelligence (AI) researchers. For his efforts, he was recently named one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review in the USA.

At P.h.d level, Namara’s research focuses on online user privacy as technology becomes more advanced and deeply integrated into people’s daily lives.  

His research interests are in the field of usable privacy and security and human-computer interaction.

He has been selected by Facebook as an Emerging Scholar in 2017 and Fellow in 2020, an honour that pays tuition, a stipend and travel funds to professional events for up to two academic years.

Namara is considering becoming a professor after graduation, and expects to receive his doctorate in May 2022.