MIT's Hack for Inclusion aims to create tools to fight discrimination and unconscious bias

Cambridge, Mass.––MIT's Hack for Inclusion, a two-day hackathon aimed at developing solutions for bias, will take place March 9-10, 2018 at the Microsoft New England Research and Development center in Cambridge. The event will feature a keynote speech by Aline Lerner, co-founder of interviewing.io.

Hack for Inclusion is led by two student groups: MIT Sloan's Breaking the Mold and MIT's Hacking Discrimination. Participants from MIT and the surrounding communities, including those with both technical and non-technical backgrounds, will build solutions that address 10-15 of today's biggest challenges related to bias, diversity and inclusion. Key topic areas, among others, include socioeconomic inclusion at work, ability/disease stigma, STEM inclusion and facilitating the open expression of sexual and/or gender identity in the workplace.

Subject matter experts will serve as mentors to each team working to develop solutions in response to the challenges. Judges will evaluate the results and select a winner at 7:30 p.m. March 10th, with prizes totaling $5,000 plus ongoing mentorship to the teams with the most effective proposal.

Mentors and judges will include Barbara Oddo, president-elect of Boston's Commercial Real Estate Women and general manager at Lincoln Property Company; Natalie Bartlett, a member of VC firm Rough Draft Ventures; Kofi Callender, executive director of Smarter in the City, and Jordan Summers, a program manager of Reaching Out MBA.

Amazon (sponsor of the "Machine Learning Bias" challenge), Microsoft and Weber Shandwick are marquee sponsors of this year's Hack for Inclusion. The hackathon also features the "Creating a More Welcoming Boston for the Black Community" challenge, which will be overseen by The Boston Globe Spotlight investigative team.

For more information and to register, visit www.mitbreakingthemold.com.

About Breaking the Mold

Breaking the Mold is MIT Sloan's initiative to combat bias. The members of Breaking the Mold believe in equity of opportunity, inclusion, and diversity in the workforce. Breaking the Mold believes that business school is the perfect environment to begin discussing - and solving - many of the most pervasive bias and discrimination issues affecting the workplace and beyond.

About Hacking Discrimination

Hacking Discrimination is an MIT Black Alumni initiated group, including researchers and technologists from the MIT community. Its members believe in using technology and a truly inclusive design process to bear witness to discrimination in a way that can be used for future advocacy, building a community to support change and generating tangible solutions to complex issues where bias and discrimination are critical factors.

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