#Girl Decided is by # Rana el Kaliouby with # Carol Coleman as listed on her cover. This book is under Science. A Scientist's Quest to reclaim our humanity by bringing emotional intelligence to Technology. A wonderful memoir.
Thank you for the advance copy,
#Netgalley, and #Crown Publishing

This is a great memoir on how the author, an American Muslim immigrant, overcomes adversity by excelling in bringing emotional intelligence to artificial technology. This is her story of being everything from a daughter to a wife and mother to a scientist. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about a strong female role model..

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

Hello!
Thank you for this amazing book! I wrote about it for THRIVE GLOBAL
https://thriveglobal.com/stories/is-talking-through-technology-making-you-more-human-with-rana-el-kaliouby/

REVIEW STARTS:::

As our world is more connected by technology, the algorithms that run it are more important. In her book, Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology, Rana el Kaliouby’s journey to change the ability of computers to communicate better with more empathy unfolds. As a young Muslim woman from Egypt, she studied in both Cambridges, England and Massachusetts. She challenged family rules, gender roles and handedness; she is left-handed and there is a belief that using the left hand inspires the devil to be one’s companion. She overcame her personal battles and as cofounder and CEO of Affectiva, an artificial intelligence company, and Emotion AI pioneer, she now battles for us all with her dedication to bring emotional intelligence to the digital world.

This is an amazing memoir that brought inspiration and pride. In a mostly white male dominated world of technology. Her story is truly captivating and provides hope for our future. It is a story of her strength and determination as well as her ability for innovation in technology and our world to be a more humane, kind and compassionate human race. This is a great read for those with technology background but also for others that just want an inspirational read. This memoir is amazing.

Girl Decoded is an interesting autobiography on many levels: that of a woman in tech and coding, two industries notable for the lack of women throughout their ranks; brains behind and later CEO of a tech start up (see earlier comment about lack of women in tech--they are even fewer in tech start ups); a naturalized American born and raised in Egypt, in a culture where educated women face serious dead ends to any ambition. I first became aware of El Kaliouby when she hosted Nova Now on PBS, and I knew from that program that she worked on emotional AI. I've always wondered how emotional AI works--how do you even approach a subject as complex as human emotion and break it down to be able to code it and program it? So that was the carrot that hooked me, and the book does a good job of describing how exactly she worked at facial recognition of emotion for her dissertation and then for commercial purposes. She also does a great job talking about her childhood and thirst for education and provides very brief glimpses into the life of a prosperous, educated Egyptian family. The book failed, in my opinion, in just one part--the personal transformation that led to the end of her marriage and her cleaving from some of her cultural heritage. She may not want to reveal all the details of her marriage, after all, her children could read the book. She may naturally be too reticent to reveal that part of her. But the anthropologist in me was most fascinated by the clash of cultures and that's where I felt the book didn't go into enough depth and introspection. But overall an interesting biography, well written, with enough tech to inspire women techies and not too much tech to turn off other readers. Recommended.

Rana takes us through her personal journey as a girl, woman, student, wife, mother, academic, professional, and eventually CEO. I ended up reading this in two spurts, intrigued by Rana's unique upbring and perspective, her curiousity and impact in the world of technology.

As a mother of a child who has autism and an IT professional, I found the personal and scientific parts of Rana's life -as well as where they intersect - to resonate. The applications of her research and later start-ups are wide in their range. This is a great read for anyone with a technology background!

Thank you to Netgalley and Currency for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. The delicate blend of memoir and easy to understand explanations of the technology Rana was/is building was so refreshing. I think at times the author came across as very braggy and felt the need to outwardly say how great and trailblazing she was when the story speaks for itself.