Aisha Greene
Manager, Canada Deloitte AI Institute - Deloitte Canada
We are the women in AI—the women who are at the forefront of transformation. We look at challenges from a different angle, drive innovation with impact, and are passionate about AI that champions diversity and fairness. We are the women in AI—but we represent only 26% of data and AI positions in the workforce1. There should be more of us. If you are in AI today, let us help you grow. If not, come and join us.
She started her AI journey with Doctor Who
Aisha Greene’s passion for the wonders of technology was first sparked in front of the television, watching the adventures of time traveler Doctor Who. Growing up in a family of sci-fi and technology buffs, she loved the TV character’s “really cool” British accent and the show helped ignite a natural curiosity about how things work.
This curiosity would become a major driver throughout her career.
Aisha has a passion for bringing innovative minds together to help clients and communities with their most pressing issues, but also in exploring different perspectives, discovering new solutions and gaining better insights.
“The ability to build connections, build fluencies, create knowledge around it and ask the question, ‘How do we connect in a trustworthy, ethical way that people gravitate towards and see themselves reflected in all those experiences?’ That’s what we really want to bring forwards within the AI institute,” says Aisha, who is a manager in Deloitte AI Institute within Deloitte Canada.
Talking about her career path, Aisha says: “I actually didn’t start off in AI and I didn’t have the traditional path. I did my undergraduate and graduate degree in biochemistry and then I worked several years in pharmaceutical research.” It was after her MBA, in a conversation with her mentor, when Aisha started exploring what she loves doing and her journey in AI started: “I love talking to people. I love exploring, but I also want to see what’s on the bleeding edge of technology.”
Later, Aisha started working at a research organisation that empowered startups in harnessing data and found her passion for AI: “At a time where people typically didn't think about data in a way of building a business around it. I was looking at how we take data, information, statistics and see how we can power that into startups.”
Taking it one step further, Aisha started her own business to help clients and communities: “It was really taking people’s ideas and seeing how we scale it, asking questions such as ‘Is it feasible?’ and ‘What’s the market around it?’”
After a couple of years, the local government hired her to work on diversifying the economy away from fossil fuels using data-informed decision-making: “It was an exciting time because we were having conversations with small businesses, academia, startups, large conglomerates and seeing how we power things forwards with data and how to make informed decisions with data as well.”
A major shift occurred when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and she moved back to Toronto and began working for a local hospital: “This opportunity was an eye opener for me, because my career experiences had been mainly focussed on lab bench research. In this environment, I moved into the realm of how we take clinical informatics and inform our decision-making.” Inspired by what AI can do, she also worked with Ontario Tech University “delving into machine learning and interactive recognition” before joining Deloitte.
Aisha urges women to think past the traditional career paths and forge their own path: “Build a network and that network will be your advocate in pushing you forwards into your next journey.”
