OMSCS Speaker Series

Description: Dr. Nova Ahmed is a computer scientist living in Bangladesh. She has finished her PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA and came back to Bangladesh to make changes. She used her experiences of working with sensors to fight social challenges such as systems to protect women from sexual harassment as she returned. She continued to use her work that could support marginal communities with low cost, locally available solution approaches. She has worked with Google to explore inclusion of women and marginal communities in technology. She is currently working on a funded project to enhance inclusion of women in digital finance through enabling better technology designs funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her work ensures social justice and feminist human-computer interaction.

Bio: Nova is a Professor at North South University, a founder and EC of National Young Academy Bangladesh, former EC of Global Young Academy, EC of Biomedical Research Foundation Fellow of Sangat (the feminist network in South Asia), and founding board member of Kaan Pete Roi (a suicide prevention call center). She is an active volunteer of Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad, Children’s Science Congress, and Missing Daughter’s Initiative. She is the Chair of SIGCHI, Dhaka Chapter in Bangladesh. She has organized the Ada Lovelace Celebration to include more women in technology in Bangladesh for 2020 and 2021. In her free time, she is busy with her two daughters and fun partner!