Tackling Inequality Through Algorithms

Mechanism Design for Social Good

Rediet Abebe is co-founder of the organisation Black in AI, a community of Black researchers working in artificial intelligence. She is also co-founder of Mechanism Design for Social Good, which brings together researchers from different disciplines to address social problems. Abebe uses theoretical computer science tools to help design algorithms and artificial intelligence systems that address real-world problems. 

She has investigated the role of income shocks in leading people to poverty, such as losing jobs or government benefits. It turns out that it is difficult to predict which factors will put someone in poverty. For men, interactions with the criminal justice system, such as being stopped by the police or being the victim of a crime, appear to be predictive of the future experience of poverty. For women, financial shocks such as declines in income, significant spending, declines in benefits, and so on appear to be more predictive.

The income-shocks research work is extremely timely during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Losing a job, getting sick and medical expenses are shocks. There has been this massive global disruption that we all have to deal with and certain people have to deal with more of it and different types of it than others.

Rediet Abebe is the co-founder of the Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimisation conference, which is being held Oct 5- 9, 2021. Researchers and practitioners come together to discuss problems that impact marginalised communities, like housing instability and homelessness, equitable access to education and health care, and digital and data rights. 

You can follow Rediet Adwebe here

Why this matters

Understanding how computing work can help us understand and address social problems is related to Empowerment of Vision 2023. Understanding shocks that lead people into poverty is essential if we are to effectively identify and address inequality problems.