February 2018
Two years ago, I left the industry back to the academia to pursue a PhD combining clinical psychology and artificial intelligence. I was four months pregnant, not the best timing for a transition, surely not the best time to start thinking about a venture. Sometimes plans and reality conflict.
The first PhD research goal was detecting a person's distress level from their language. Several months earlier I started collecting every piece of work regarding diagnosing mental state through text (see: my private space oddity). The work that caught my eye most was about methods for identifying posts in support communities that may indicate a risk of self-harm.
I was already thinking about what is waiting out there after finishing the PhD.
I was both curious and worried:
In the functional level - What am I going to do next? Will I go back to the hi-tech industry? Will it be in a large corporation? Will I freelance, be a consultant or maybe start something of my own? (how does a startup start up?) I amused myself with the thought of breaking down the statistics by being a woman-startup-founder (see: from birth to a startup where do all the women disappear).
In the content level - Will this PhD be used for something? for me? to the world? will my next job combine both of my interests - psychology and computer science?
In the global level - What will happen with the technology I'm researching? To date, psychological tools were reserved for psychologists. They went through a very long filtering process to become psychologists, have been undergoing long training, and are committed to ethics. Now, we are going to develop technology that may fall into the wrong hands -- hands that might take advantage of it.
I was actively looking for answers to my questions. I joined various industrial and entrepreneurial circles: forums, Facebook communities, meetups, conferences, work-spaces, Google for startups (see: a visit to the Google campus), the Israel innovation authority, and more. I looked for mentors that (1) succeeded with establishing a startup and reaching an exit (though, I must say that an "exit" isn't a goal of mine) (2) combined their academic PhD knowledge with their own business (3) combined parenting and entrepreneurship. I found a few who gave (and are still giving) helpful advice.
I also looked for interesting data outside the university. Data that could leverage the things I was researching and hopefully - a potential research collaboration, customer or a partner.
Since I care about the world, I was carefully choosing the connections I made. I was hoping to find a good worthy home for the technology of identifying people's mental state (so it would not be utilized in a manipulative manner). For example, for the judicial system or for helping people with disabilities etc.
While I was doing these things, I didn't think about it at all. I didn't feel like I was making a special effort. A mysterious force pushed me to do it and things just happened, on the move, in harmony, without restricting me or requiring me to give up on anything. These things happened when waiting for a doctor, while driving to university or back home, while watching my kids playing in the yard or in the evening after the kids went to bed and I would be left exhausted for anything else.
March 2018
The same mentioned mysterious power led me to join the amazing community called Yazamiyot (Women Entrepreneurs) and later on register to the first meeting. The event title was "A LEGACY OF INNOVATION" and included a talk on behalf of the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA). I didn't think twice whether to attend or not. I was interested in hearing about the funding options that IIA has to offer. The title of the event also sounded interesting as I like thinking of myself as innovative. Lastly, I wanted to meet managers from the industry face to face, hoping to find a potential match for the research I was working on and maybe make them interested in the idea.
April 2018
At the beginning of the event, the organizer suggested that everyone in turn will present themselves. I presented myself too. I listened carefully to each woman's pitch, running in my head all the questions I'm bringing along with me everywhere. The last participant to present herself was Zina (name changed for privacy). Zina is the CEO of a social media platform. When she said "... I employ three women to read all the uploaded texts in the platform in order to monitor distress ...", I thought "BINGO!!! if she is willing to pay for it - she will understand the value of automating it". The moment she sat down, I turned to her and whispered "We need to talk". She looked back at me and said "I know".
May 2018
I was visited Zina's office. Along with me I brought a stack of articles. We first had a 1x1 where I convinced Zina that automatic mental state detection from text is possible, by citing and summarizing article after article. When I finished, she gathered all the rest of the team, introduced me, and asked me to tell every one about the new idea. I re-summarized the articles' main ideas. They where astonished, amazed, couldn't believe what they just heard. It was a bit funny to see them shocked since I was reading those articles for several months and got used to the idea. Now it was my turn - "Show me the data".
July 2018
Nine months pregnant, already with labor contractions, I couldn't walk, I couldn't sit, I couldn't stand, I couldn't lay, I couldn't do anything besides thinking about the pains. But instead, I was sitting for several hours in a meeting with representative of the Israel Innovation Authority**. We were asking for a nominal fee (only a few hundred thousand shekels) to build a POC, explaining the motivation, the potential, and that we know how to and are able to do it.
August 2018 - August 2019
I was holding Michal. Somewhere around October, we were awarded the nominal fee. I was really excited to hear that. Choy (a fake name) started to implement the system according to the plan. I was with my eyes open, I knew I'm giving up the chance to be the CTO. What could I do? I had a little sweet lovely baby to care for. I did the best I could. All this time I was in the background - advising, teaching, mentoring, using my network to solve problems, attending (remotely) important meetings for patents, planning, strategy, etc. At the end of the year, while we were planning our tasks, preparing to submit another IIA application for the next year, I was crowned by Zina and Choy to be the Chief Science Officer (CSO) and just then, I realized, that actually, I didn't lost the chance to be the CTO but won role which I enjoy much more, that puts me in the position of my aspirations (see: what it means to be a researcher) and integrates in perfect harmony with my life and with the new team.
September 2019
Zina, Choy and I were sitting again for several hours in the meeting with a representative of the IIA. Now we asked for much more money. We had to go productize our POC.
October 2019 - January 2020
We have been waiting for the IIA response which was delayed to arrive (probably due to the unstable state of the government). During that time we were looking for "matching", i.e., an investor that would match the same amount of money we were asking for. We met an interested angel investor and started an evaluation process. We have also been looking for customers, and found some potential leads. We signed up for startup related activities such as accelerators, conferences and meetups. Eventually the IIA approved the entire budget (!) and we continued to look for matching.
February 2020
Unfortunately, our team had some disagreements which we could not overcome.
Closure
This is all fresh and I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'll have to take some time to digest, to learn the lesson and wait for a new passion to sprout.
Michal is one and half years old. She is walking, speaking and still nursing.
The PhD is also advancing, we submitted a paper to a psychotherapy journal and presented the work for several audiences (come to see us - WiDS 23.2.2020 SPR-Israel 26-27.2.2020 and AI4HumanLanguage 5.3.2020)
This year is devoted to researching language interactions. This is awesome, can't wait to see the fruits.
** If there is something that impresses me most in this two-year summary, it is the fact that I sat on a chair for several hours with labor pains. I don't know how I did it.
